Fairness is a recurring challenge in grassroots digital infrastructures, where collective action depends on volunteer contributions. This paper presents a study of Foodsharing.de, a grassroots FOSS platform with 185,000 members rescuing and redistributing surplus food. Drawing on 25 interviews and long-term activist involvement, we analyze two justice-oriented features: the Cherry-Picking Rule (distributional fairness) and Commitment Statistics (contributional fairness). We show how these fairness features become deeply entangled in practice and how they operate as policy-in-code, inscribing fairness logics into software and redistributing not only food and labor but also authority within the community. Rather than settling questions of justice, these interventions trigger renewed negotiation across deliberative spaces and everyday coordination, as encoded rules are interpreted, contested, and adapted. Building on these dynamics, we outline governance directions for justice-oriented grassroots infrastructures, highlighting the need for contestability and accountable autonomy to sustain negotiation and align technical change with community legitimacy.

Mobile phones, as simultaneously personal and shared technologies, complicate how partners manage digital privacy in intimate relationships. While prior research has examined device-access practices, explicit privacy-rule negotiation, and toxic practices (e.g., surveillance), little is known about how couples manage digital privacy without direct discussion in everyday relationships. To address this gap, we ask: How is digital privacy managed non-verbally and across different media in mobile phones? Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews, we find that partners often regulate privacy practices of privacy silence —the intentional avoidance of privacy-related conversations. Five motivations for leaving boundaries unspoken: perceiving privacy as unnecessary in intimacy, assuming implicit respect for boundaries, signaling trust and closeness, avoiding potential conflict or harm, and responding to broader societal and cultural expectations that discourage explicit privacy talk. We also identify a hierarchical grouping of content-specific privacy sensitivities, ranging from highly private domains (e.g., financial data) to lower-risk domains (e.g., streaming accounts), and show how these priorities shift across relationship stages. These findings show how silence, culture, and content sensitivity shape everyday boundary-setting and underscore the relational and emotional dynamics underpinning mobile-phone privacy management.

The growth of mobile dating platforms has coincided with a rise in romance scams, in which offenders construct convincing personas to defraud users. While research on romance scams is expanding, victims lived experiences of recognizing and responding to deception in mobile-mediated interactions remain insufficiently understood. To address this gap, we conducted indepth interviews with 24 victims of online dating romance scams in Iran, where legal, social, and cultural constraints limit formal support. Our analysis identifies suspicion cues and the investigative strategies victims use to verify identities across platforms. We show that victims are not passive recipients of deception but engage in active, iterative detection practices under significant emotional, social, and relational pressure. Based on these findings, we contribute empirically grounded insights into deception cues and user driven detection work, and we discuss implications for the design of mobile technologies that better support users in identifying, resisting, and recovering from romance scams. Content Warning, This paper discusses sexual violence

Since February 2022 the Ukrainian army has been resisting the Russian invasion; this defense would have been less effective without material and logistical support from civil society. While HCI and CSCW have examined ICT in crises, little addresses how civilian–military cooperation is enacted in interstate war and how civilians appropriate commercial technologies into military infrastructures. We report an interview study with observations (N=13) conducted in Lviv during the first five months of the full-scale invasion (Feb–Jul 2022). Our findings show how civilians performed largely invisible work to make soldiers’ work possible: they circumvented broken supply chains, fundraised through digital micro-donation tools, re-engineered commercial drones and software into command-and-control workflows, and joined early cyber and counter-information operations. We contribute to CSCW by theorizing this civilian engagement as wartime infrastructuring and appropriation under extreme risk, and by detailing methodological implications for conducting cooperative-work research in hybrid-war settings.

States increasingly weaponize digital infrastructures through censorship and surveillance. Iran represents an acute case of this broader global pattern. We study how citizens sustain connectivity and agency during Iran’s Women–Life–Freedom (WLF) protests. Based on 21 interviews with citizens and digital activists in Kermanshah province, inside Iran and in the diaspora, we document a shift from dependence on commercial circumvention to grassroots infrastructuring: people created and shared VPNs, proxies, and ad hoc communication pipelines. Peer learning on platforms such as Telegram, X, and GitHub—via Persian tutorials, scripts, and troubleshooting—enabled rapid adaptation under repression. We identify four dynamics: (1) distrust and survival as primary motivations; (2) infrastructural solidarity as everyday care; (3) technical improvisation and peer teaching; and (4) persistent constraints from censorship and risk. We argue that grassroots infrastructuring reframes end-user development as survival work. The paper contributes empirical evidence and design implications for HCI/CSCW on civic technologies, digital activism, and infrastructures of participation under authoritarian control.

HCI has explored voice assistant (VA) use across various social settings, highlighting their impact on personal and familial dynamics. Yet, the progressive domestication of these devices over time and their longer-term impact on relationships remain underexplored. We present findings from a three-year study of 30 households using interviews and diaries. Our analysis introduces the concept of a domestication calculus that captures how VAs find—or fail to find—a home over time through shifting spatial arrangements, relational roles, and household routines. Domestication unfolded not as a linear sequence of stages but as a dynamic process in which devices were either embedded into routines, withdrawn from use, or repurposed in response to changing circumstances. Across these trajectories, participants attributed four recurring roles to their VAs: (1) negotiators, (2) separators, (3) mediators, and (4) amplifiers of shared life. We conclude with implications for designing VAs that support long-term domestication.

Minors are at risk of myriad harms online, yet online dating romance scams are seldom considered one of them. While research on romance scams in Western countries finds victims to be predominantly middle-age, it is unknown whether minors in geographic regions with cultural norms around teenage marriage are uniquely susceptible to online dating romance scams. We present an interview study with 16 victims of online dating romance scams in Iran who were minors when scammed. Our findings show that, with Western dating apps banned in Iran, scammers locate teenage victims through messaging platforms tethered to local neighborhoods, offering relief from parental pressures related to finding a marital partner and academic performance. Using threats, lies, and the exploitation of emotional attachment lacking from their families, scammers pressured minors into financial and sexual favors. This study demonstrates how local cultural context should be foregrounded in future research on, and solutions for, technology-mediated harm against minors. Content Warning: This paper discusses sexual abuse.

As AI systems become more prevalent in elderly care, their form of embodiment, robot or screen-based, may influence user acceptance and engagement. This exploratory study examines how older adults interact with two distinct embodiments of an AI coaching system: the 2D avatar AnnSophie and the humanoid robot, Ameca. Through qualitative interviews with four participants, we examined perceptions of appearance, voice, usability, and integration potential in care settings. Participants generally accepted both systems but noted different strengths. Ann-Sophie was seen as visually pleasant and approachable, though some criticized its limited expressiveness and conversational depth. Ameca elicited stronger emotional responses: while appreciated for its realism and social cues, it occasionally provoked unease and prompted reflections on the role of robotics in caregiving. Across both systems, participants emphasized the importance of understandable language, personalization, and practical benefits. Our findings suggest that embodiment influences user experience, but does not solely determine acceptance. Context, expectation, and perceived usefulness were equally decisive. This points to the need for adaptive, context-aware AI agents and user-centered development strategies. Despite the limited number of participants, the study contributes to the ongoing debate on human-centered AI and provides insights for the design of socially acceptable digital coaching systems for the aging population.

Understanding the motivations of volunteer developers is crucial for the HCI community as it seeks to design sustainable, community-driven digital platforms. This study explores the dynamics of motivation among volunteer developers in the Foodsharing.de platform, a grassroots movement focused on reducing food waste through community engagement. By investigating the evolving motivations and challenges faced by these developers, our research highlights the unique blend of personal passion, technical skill, and social commitment that sustains their long-term involvement. Through interviews, observations, and participatory research, we uncover how developers balance their commitment to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) with the platform’s socio-ecological mission. Our findings emphasize the importance of fostering a supportive community, clear governance, and effective infrastructuring to manage motivation, frustration, and expectations. We discuss strategies to enhance volunteer retention, such as improving feedback mechanisms and recognizing contributions, which are critical for the sustainability of volunteer-driven platforms.

Online dating romance scams involve coercing online daters out of their personal property. Money is almost always framed as the target of such scams, however this maybe a consequence of prior work's focus on victims from Western countries and scammers from Africa. There is relatively little knowledge of online dating romance scams that occur entirely within non-Western cultures. To address this we conducted an interview study with 20 victims of online dating romance scams in Iran. Findings show that romance scams were seldom motivated by money, but rather sexual access to a woman's body through feigning intent to get married ("body scams"). Body scammers were abetted by cultural rules that justify murder and legal punishment of women for premarital sex, thus forcing them into silence. The paper concludes with calls for more expansive definitions of online dating romance scams and the foregrounding of local cultural dynamics in their perpetuation. Content Warning: This paper discusses sexual violence.

The healthcare sector faces growing challenges in ensuring staff satisfaction and retention while maintaining high standards of patient care. One proposed solution is the introduction of a four-day workweek (4DW). This preliminary study investigates the organizational, technological, and experiential conditions under which a 4DW could be accepted and implemented in a hospital setting. The study was conducted in a semi-rural German hospital and is based on a participatory health research approach. Data were collected through observations, informal conversations, and semi-structured interviews with medical and nursing staff. Particular attention was given to workflow inefficiencies, hierarchical communication barriers, and the role of digitalization in relieving administrative workload. The findings indicate that a 4DW has the potential to improve job satisfaction and staff retention. However, successful implementation depends on structural readiness, participatory decision-making, and technological support. Digital tools, such as process automation and electronic documentation, can contribute to workflow optimization, but their effectiveness is shaped by organizational culture and employee acceptance.

Our research, part of a larger study on exercise and well-being, focuses on the use of interactive artefacts in public spaces. Our findings suggest that many people have concerns about exercising in public due to inhibitions, insecurities, and social anxiety, which can affect behaviour in this context. Both well-being and physical mobility - the desired outcome - can be improved by new opportunities for activity, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. The implementation of technological innovations, especially interactive ones, seems to be promising when it comes to encouraging active lifestyles and mobility in public places. Through its exploration of physical activity, this research unveils the social aspects inherent in the use of interactive projection in urban public spaces. We took an "in-the-wild" approach and conducted public studies using a research through design methodology. We found that while interactive projections can stimulate physical activity, effectiveness and acceptance are significantly influenced by interpersonal behaviours. Thus, changes in social interactions among different stakeholder groups could be observed both inside and outside the interaction space. This work highlights the need for future studies to consider visible and invisible social dynamics in the design and use of interactive public systems.

While robotic systems in eldercare contexts continue to be a popular research topic, they are still not widely used in these settings. We argue that this is partly due to the absence of control and configuration options for end-users. This study reflects on the design of a smartphone app to tailor the use of robots to local needs. We investigated how care workers used the smartphone app to configure and control a Pepper robot to meet the individual needs of the care home’s residents. We developed and tested the app together with 23 participants from four different care facilities over two years. Ultimately, we implemented a feature allowing care workers to program the robot to meet residents’ individual needs without coding. Results indicate that the app enables care workers to provide residents with meaningful interactions with the robot. Our study shows that allowing care workers to control and develop the robot improves its perceived usefulness and overall use of the robot to both care residents and care workers.

Within practice-centred computing, working with people to understand and come up with solutions that can support them with their practices is core. This involves using a range of empirical and design methods for understanding the context, elaborating design implications, and devising and evaluating artefacts, both in terms of their usability and the appropriation opportunities that they can offer. When evaluating prototypes in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) we, as researchers, have more than once over a long period of time seen that participants have little time to engage in systematic approaches to co-design. Our experience shows that very often users cannot take part in activities that take longer than two hours, despite their willingness to do so. This suggests that we are in urgent need of more flexible approaches. In this paper we propose the concept of blended workshops as an approach to work with SME workers for the design of digital technologies to support their practices. This approach entails both synchronous and asynchronous activities, focusing on the elaboration of both physical and digital artefacts, which evolves over a longer period of time towards useful socio-technical solutions which can be easily appropriated at the workplace. The asynchronous elements are designed to allow participants to investigate and reflect in their own time and can can be key for stronger and flexible user participation in practice-centred design.

Computing technologies can function both as instruments for public health management and mechanisms for political control. This study investigates the deployment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Iran’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular emphasis on Kurdish communities in Kermanshah province, a historically marginalized group. Through 22 interviews, we explore how state-controlled digital infrastructures influenced citizen engagement with pandemic-related ICT services. Although government-developed tracing applications, information platforms, and digital health services were ostensibly designed to manage the crisis, they also facilitated mass surveillance, imposed restrictions on mobility, and suppressed alternative narratives. A crisis of trust prompted citizens to adopt alternative strategies, such as encrypted messaging, informal information networks, and social media. By illustrating how trust, mistrust, and digital infrastructures are co-constructed in crisis contexts, this paper contributes to critical computing research by raising significant questions about governance, design, and ethics during times of uncertainty.

Privacy in intimate partnerships involves balancing personal autonomy with information sharing. Mobile phones, as personal yet relational tools, highlight the tension between openness and boundary maintenance. While much recent research has focused on toxic behaviors such as cyberstalking and technology-facilitated abuse, there has been less exploration of privacy practices in everyday relationships that are not characterized by unhealthy dynamics. To address this gap, we conducted 20 semi-structured interviews examining privacy boundary-setting in current or past relationships. Our findings reveal that many individuals opt for silence over direct confrontation, leading to the emergence of what we term "privacy silence"-a non-verbal approach to managing privacy that reflects and reinforces trust within intimate relationships. We advocate for developing privacy dialogue methods that encourage open, collaborative conversations about boundaries, fostering trust and mutual understanding without placing the burden on one partner or implying mistrust.

The evolution of smart home technologies, particularly agentic ones such as conversational agents, robots, and virtual avatars, is reshaping our understanding of home and domestic life. This shift highlights the complexities of modern domestic life, with the household landscape now featuring diverse cohabiting units like co-housing and communal living arrangements. These agentic technologies present specific design challenges and opportunities as they become integrated into everyday routines and activities. Our workshop envisions smart homes as dynamic, user-shaped spaces, focusing on the integration of these technologies into daily life. We aim to explore how these technologies transform household dynamics, especially through boundary fluidity, by uniting researchers and practitioners from fields such as design, sociology, and ethnography. Together, we will develop a taxonomy of challenges and opportunities, providing a structured perspective on the integration of agentic technologies and their impact on contemporary living arrangements.