We present a case study of Persona-L, a system that leverages large language models (LLMs) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to model personas of people with Down syndrome. Existing approaches to persona creation can often lead to oversimplified or stereotypical profiles of people with Down syndrome. To that end, we built stereotype detection capabilities into Persona-L as a design probe to open conversations. We then conducted interviews with caregivers and healthcare professionals (N=10) to examine how Down syndrome stereotypes could manifest in the content and delivery of LLM outputs, and interface design. Our findings show the challenges in defining stereotypes, and reveal potential pathways where stereotypes could emerge, including the training data, LLM outputs and interface design. This highlights the need for participatory methods that capture the heterogeneity of lived experiences of people with Down syndrome.

Micro-phenomenology has recently gained traction in HCI as ways of accessing embodied, lived dimensions of interaction that resist conventional qualitative capture. By foregrounding pre-reflective experience, this approach promises greater experiential precision. However, when designers and HCI researchers attempt to apply Micro-phenomenology in practice, frictions often emerge. The method was not originally designed for design contexts, raising questions about accessibility, adaptability, and epistemic fit. We ask what is gained, transformed, or compromised when micro-phenomenology is brought into design research, and how they might evolve through situated practice. The workshop combines hands-on demonstrations of interviewing and analysis with guided reflective listening, followed by rotating small-group dialogues and material exploration. By bringing together researchers and practitioners interested in embodied and experiential approaches to HCI, the workshop aims to broaden access to micro-phenomenology while spurring critical dialogue about their limitations, transformations, and potential contributions to design research.

Users feel frustrated when they do not know when to speak with LLM-based agents. Technical delays disrupt the natural rhythm of conversation (turn-taking), yet there is little understanding of how these specific delays impact the back-and-forth flow of interaction. To address this, we analyzed human-agent conversations in social VR to measure timing differences. We used conversation analysis techniques to track specific timing metrics, such as how long it takes to respond (response latencies) and how agents handle interruptions (repair attempts). We found that agents are significantly slower to respond with a median of 4.1 seconds compared to a human’s 1.2 seconds. We identified a “conversational timing drift”, noting that agents struggle with start-up latency, i.e., taking too long to start speaking, and wind-down latency, i.e., failing to stop speaking quickly when a user interrupts them. This is the first study to empirically quantify human-agent conversational latencies within VR. We offer design suggestions to help future agents manage conversational timing better, ultimately improving natural conversation and user experience.

Foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA) poses a major challenge for English-language learners, suppressing confidence and triggering a cycle of avoidance that hinders language acquisition. To address this, we explored the use of LLM-based embodied conversational agents (ECA) in social virtual reality (VR), which provide personalized support and multimodal interaction in a contextualized environment. We developed three English-language learning scenarios in social VR and conducted a five-day mixed-methods study where participants (N=20) engaged in daily 30-minute role-play practice with an LLM-based ECA to evaluate the efficacy of the system. Quantitative results showed a significant reduction in self-reported FLAS after 3 days, along with subtle gains in speaking proficiency measures. Qualitatively, learners perceived increased confidence, attributing it to the LLM-based ECA’s non-judgmental stance, linguistic scaffolding, affective encouragement, and adaptive feedback. Our findings suggest the potential of LLM-based ECAs in social VR for language learning and offer considerations for future agent design.

Many people struggle with learning a new language when moving to a new country, with traditional tools falling short in providing contextualized learning tailored to each learner's needs.The recent development of large language models (LLMs) and embodied conversational agents (ECAs) in social virtual reality (VR) provides new opportunities to practice language learning in a contextualized and naturalistic way that takes into account the learner's language level and needs.To explore this opportunity, we developed ELLMA-T, 576

We present the Requirement Elicitation Tool that leverages Large Language Model (LLM) (gpt-4o-mini) to enable simulated real-world interactions of requirements gathering from three synthetic personas. We demonstrate the use case of Computer Science (CS) students in Database Management Systems leveraging the tool to build a conceptual model and Entity-Relationship (ER) diagrams. Our preliminary findings show the potential of this tool to engage students in discovery process without providing predefined solutions and set the directions for future work.

Third wave HCI initiated a slow transformation in the methods of UX research: from widely used quantitative approaches to more recently employed qualitative techniques. Articulating the nuances, complexity, and diversity of a user's experience beyond surface descriptions remains a challenge within design. One qualitative method — micro-phenomenology — has been used in HCI/Design research since 2001. Yet, no systematic understanding of micro-phenomenology has been presented, particularly from the perspective of HCI/Design researchers who actively use it in design contexts. We interviewed 5 HCI/Design experts who utilize micro-phenomenology and present their experiences with the method. We illustrate how this method has been applied by the selected experts through developing a practice, and present conditions under which the descriptions of the experience unfold, and the values that this method can provide to HCI/Design field. Our contribution highlights the value of micro-phenomenology in articulating the experience of designers and participants, developing vocabulary for multi-sensory experiences, and unfolding embodied tacit knowledge.

Attending to breath is a self-awareness practice that exists within many contemplative and reflective traditions and is recognized for its benefits to well-being. Our current technological landscape embraces a large body of systems that utilize breath data in order to foster self-awareness. This paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the design space of systems that perceptually extend breath awareness. Our contribution is twofold: (1) our analysis reveals how the underlying theoretical frameworks shape the system design and its evaluation, and (2) how system design features support perceptual extension of breath awareness. We review and critically analyze 31 breath-based interactive systems. We identify 4 theoretical frameworks and 3 design strategies for interactive systems that perceptually extend breath awareness. We reflect upon this design space from both a theoretical and system design perspective, and propose future design directions for developing systems that "listen to" breath and perceptually extend it.

Busy daily lives and ongoing distractions often make people feel disconnected from their bodies and experiences. Guided attention to self can alleviate this disconnect as in focused-attention meditation, in which breathing often constitutes the primary object on which to focus attention. In this context, sustained breath awareness plays a crucial role in the emergence of the meditation experience. We designed an immersive virtual environment (iVE) with a generative soundtrack that supports sustained attention on breathing by employing the users' breathing in interaction. Both sounds and visuals are directly mapped to the user's breathing patterns, thus bringing the awareness researched. We conducted micro-phenomenology interviews to unfold the process in which breath awareness can be induced and sustained in this environment. The findings revealed the mechanisms by which audio and visual cues in VR can elicit and foster breath-awareness, and unfolded the nuances of this process through subjective experiences of the study participants. Finally, the results emphasize the important role that a sense of agency and control have in shaping the overall quality of the experience. This can in turn inform the design specifications of future mindfulness-based designs focused on breath awareness.

A necessary part of developing effective and realistic Virtual Reality (VR) simulations is emulating perceptual sensations that occur to humans in corresponding natural environments. VR users are often seated and unable to freely move through the virtual world, therefore necessitating other means to simulate and perceive self-movement. One approach to tackle this challenge is to induce embodied illusions of self-motion ("vection") in stationary observers, typically by providing moving visual stimuli on a wide field-of-view display. While numerous stimulus parameters have been shown to affect vection [see Riecke, 2011 for a review], there is little research investigating how the type of display itself might contribute. Here, we compared the vection-inducing potential as well as user experience and usability of two common displays for large-field stimulation: A passive stereoscopic projection setup and a 3D television with shutter glasses. Uncovering differences in vection between these displays would contribute to the theoretical understanding of vection and the potential relevance of different display properties, and guide the development of more immersive and effective VR setups. From a practical standpoint, this study helps to determine whether the more expensive projection system provides a benefit over the more accessible and affordable 3D television.