Generative AI (genAI) is rapidly reshaping domains such as education, sustainability, art, and health. While its democratization promises broader access and innovation, it also risks reinforcing existing inequalities and introducing new ethical concerns. This workshop explores the responsible democratization of genAI, its use, development, governance, and distribution of benefits, through the lens of HCI. We invite HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners to collaboratively reflect on how genAI is being democratized across domains and how this process might evolve. Using the four perspectives proposed by Seger et al. (💬 use, 🛠 development, 🏛 governance, ➕ benefits), we aim to identify emerging trends, tensions, and opportunities for shaping equitable genAI futures. Grounded in HCI, this workshop aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and contribute to inclusive and ethical genAI democratization by mapping current practices in different domains, exploring possible futures, and identifying trends and connections across the domains.

The creative industries are at a significant turning point, blurring the lines between human innovation and machine efficiency due to the advent of AI tools for design. This research addresses the design community’s reaction to generative AI’s rapid ascent. Involving both professionals and students, this paper uses a survey (n=49), focus groups (n=6), and interviews (n=6), to explore the perspectives on AI’s role in creative workflows, revealing a mix of enthusiasm and dread for its potential to enhance innovation and concerns about its fit in traditionally human realms. The prevailing view frames AI as a partner or co-worker in design, yet calls for ethical considerations and transparent practices in its applications. This exploration aims to understand current designer attitudes and presents an initial framework for the adoption of AI tools in the designer’s workflow.

The Aware Eye is a playful, wearable prototype designed to detect and respond to its surrounding environment. The prototype consists of a 10 cm diameter mechanical eye, integrated to the back of a hoodie worn by the user. Using proximity sensors, the eye senses nearby objects and turns its gaze towards them. The Aware Eye is a design provotype articulating human augmentation and pervasive camera-based tracking. Findings from a focus group user study (n=13) highlight thoughts provoked by the prototype.

This article contributes to understanding the radical transformation of everyday lives when parents’ remote work and children’s remote school were reconciled in homes during the early moments of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The dataset comprises an online survey (n = 92) plus interviews, online diaries, and sampled experiences from 16 Finnish remotely working parents. Identified challenges to the parents’ remote work included interruptions and fragmentation of work tasks, non-optimal work ergonomics, and rescheduling of work times. We present the strategies parents used to create new rhythms and routines, a shared space under the same roof, peace, and privacy for daily work and school, as well as managing multiple simultaneous social roles. Parents’ rich experiences provide insights into the early steps of COVID-19-catalyzed remote work. Thus, the paper offers a reference point for exploring potential development trajectories in the increasingly common hybrid work setting.

Explainable AI (XAI) has garnered significant attention as a theoretical subject in the research community. However, the practical application of XAI, particularly in the realm of user interfaces, remains limited. Moreover, evaluations of these interfaces from the perspective of end-users are scarce. In this paper, we introduce and evaluate two innovative tangible XAI interface concepts. The tangible interfaces capitalize on the widely recognized advantages of data physicalization, offering users a more intuitive and hands-on experience. We implemented two distinct XAI approaches within this tangible framework: feature relevance and local explanations. These approaches were applied to real-world use cases: recommending recipes and selecting jogging routes, respectively. The findings of our Wizard of Oz study indicate that participants had some challenges in distinguishing between the primary objectives of the XAI interface and the typical interactions associated with an AI recommender system. However, tangibility seems to support users’ understanding of AI’s explanations and enables users to reflect on their trust in the AI model.

Museums and cultural heritage institutions have an important role in presenting accurate information and sharing cultural knowledge, and new technologies are increasingly implemented. For the best results, the appropriateness of a specific technology must be evaluated for each context. Research has shown the need for participatory methods and local knowledge in Indigenous design contexts. We describe a case study where an Indigenous Sámi museum exhibition was augmented with interactive technology through multidisciplinary co-design work with museum experts, designers, and developers. The traditional clothing of the Sámi people was digitized by filming, and information related to it was presented as a touchscreen installation in a renewed exhibition. User tests including interactive tasks and interviews (n = 7) and a questionnaire (n = 27) were completed on-site. The installation was rated interesting and easy to use, while some users struggled to find all the features. Our study shows that a technically relatively simple digital installation can be easy-to-use but interesting for a standard museum visitor. Additionally, the work demonstrates how to build successful collaborations that highlight Indigenous cultural heritage. We discuss the implications of using technology to promote cultural heritage and identities.

We investigate the user experience of taking a remote museum tour with 360 video technologies. We compare the experience of viewing a 360 video feed on a laptop screen vs. a 360 virtual reality (VR) video experienced through a head-mounted display (HMD). Our salient findings from a user study (n = 10) highlight that HMD VR provides a better immersion and sense of control for users. However, the HMD VR user experience suffers from the lack of personal contact, such as eye contact with the guide, discontinuities in the visual presentation, and missing multimodal contextual cues. The research contributes to the design of remote tourism services.

Medical images taken with mobile phones by patients, i.e. medical selfies, allow screening, monitoring and diagnosis of skin lesions. While mobile teledermatology can provide good diagnostic accuracy for skin tumours, there is little research about emotional and physical aspects when taking medical selfies of body parts. We conducted a survey with 100 participants and a qualitative study with twelve participants, in which they took images of eight body parts including intimate areas. Participants had difficulties taking medical selfies of their shoulder blades and buttocks. For the genitals, they prefer to visit a doctor rather than sending images. Taking the images triggered privacy concerns, memories of past experiences with body parts and raised awareness of the bodily medical state. We present recommendations for the design of mobile apps to address the usability and emotional impacts of taking medical selfies.

The COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020 caused the rapid introduction of remote schooling in many countries. This transition caused a variety of challenges to families, encompassing organizing home workspaces, setting up computing equipment, and, for many parents, managing their own remote working in parallel with the schooling arrangements. This paper describes the findings from an online survey (n = 114) and an in-depth interview study (n = 14) conducted in Finland during the COVID-19 remote schooling phase. Focusing on issues surrounding technology usage in the family setting, we report on the array of applications parents and children were required to manage, strategies to share ICT equipment within families, spatial organizational issues and the high levels of flexibility needed from parents and other stakeholders to enable the remote schooling.

In this demo paper, we present the Flexi Card Game – a card-based generative design toolkit to support designers and non-designers with different backgrounds in participatory structures in the development of unconventional communication systems, with a particular focus on supporting couples in long-distance relationships.

This paper addresses graveyards as a context for designing interactive technology, especially pervasive displays and the presentation of information related to graves and the dead. We present our research containing three user studies: a focus group–based study on perceptions of different display technologies in the cemetery context, evaluation of a gravestone display prototype, and a user study with a graveyard navigator prototype. Whereas, HCI research surrounding death has so far largely focused on an individual’s digital remains, our focus is on the physical graveyard setting. We contribute to understanding the potential impacts and opportunities of interactive technology in this design context. Our salient findings highlight the cultural sensitivity and importance of dignity related to the context, unobtrusiveness of the technology, and concerns for privacy and social acceptability. Concepts taking into account these design aspects were of interest for those researching family histories, and visitors seeking improved navigation for the graveyard.

HCI research surrounding death has largely focused to an individual's digital remains, with relatively less attention paid to physical memorials, such as graves. We present a prototype interactive gravestone, which aims to blend in seamlessly with traditional stone gravestones. Based on RFID cards inserted into the gravestone, different content is displayed on the gravestone surface. We evaluated the concept though a focus group exploring different types of content displayed on the gravestone, ranging from an individual name, to photographs and an interactive visitors book. Our salient findings show the concept was positively received as a memorial, when designed to match with the dignity of the context.