Children increasingly encounter intelligent systems in educational and everyday contexts, yet most trust measures in human–AI interaction have been developed for adult users. This Work-in-Progress extends the validation of the child-centred K-AI Trust questionnaire to an older developmental cohort (10–14 years). Building on prior validation with 9–11 year-olds, we examine whether the instrument demonstrates acceptable internal consistency and coherent response patterns in early adolescence. Using survey data from 314 participants, we report preliminary reliability analyses and explore associations between dispositional trust (Propensity to Trust Technology; PTT) and post-interaction trust evaluations. Item refinement resulted in acceptable internal consistency for both scales (7-item K-AI; 5-item PTT). Correlational analyses revealed no significant association between dispositional and situational trust. This suggests that, in early adolescence, children’s inherent propensity to trust technology may not directly shape their immediate trust evaluation of a specific intelligent system. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the developmental applicability of a child-centred trust instrument and support ongoing age-sensitive psychometric refinement.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming humans’ activities through continuous collaboration in domains where AI-supported decisions affect humans and societies. In this context, the focus should shift toward the development of Symbiotic AI (SAI) systems that support humans rather than replace them. This contribution presents a set of Success Criteria (SC) that can be used to evaluate such SAI systems by determining whether the requirements of symbiosis are met. The paper also includes a preliminary validation of the criteria through a pilot user study.

The rapid spread of Large Language Models (LLMs) is influencing many contexts, shaping the way in which humans conduct activities. LLMs can represent a promising instrument in the medical field to support physicians in creating therapy. This contribution aims at presenting the employment of LLMs for creating exercises addressed to speech therapies investigating whether these can be an effective tool to support physician in this activity. This contribution presents the experimental setup of tests conducted with LLMs along with an overview of the obtained results showing the potential and limitations of this technology.

As generative AI systems increasingly act autonomously in digital environments, the ways in which these systems interact with children raise questions of both agency and permission. Existing frameworks offer limited guidance on how to design interfaces that respect children’s role as the final decision-makers [30]. This paper adopts a design-oriented perspective on child-AI interaction, drawing on mixed-methods data from 289 children aged 9-11. We reinterpret children’s trust-related responses as empirical signals for the ways in which agency and authority should be distributed within AI interfaces. Our findings indicate that children resist ‘proactive’ AI, instead preferring systems that seek permission, support non-judgmental error correction, and respect their right to refuse suggestions. Building on these insights, we propose three design principles: Staged Execution, Non-Destructive Reversibility, and Perceptible Uncertainty Signals, which translate children’s rights into concrete interface mechanisms, ensuring that generative systems support rather than override children’s agency.

Most trust metrics for intelligent systems are developed for adults, relying on complex reasoning and language that do not align with children’s developmental stages. As intelligent systems increasingly engage with young users, evaluating trust in child-AI interaction has become an urgent concern in HCI. In this paper, we present the iterative refinement and validation of the K-AI Trust Questionnaire, a child-centred instrument that integrates dispositional and situational trust components grounded in child-rights principles. Dispositional trust is captured through a child-adapted Propensity to Trust Technology (PTT), while situational trust is assessed through post-interaction items reflecting children’s experience with AI. Starting with a sample of 289 children, we conducted psychometric analyses and exploratory testing, culminating in a confirmatory factor analysis on a subsample of 85 children. Results supported a unidimensional structure consistent with the PTT, and highlighted the limitations of adult-oriented scales, underscoring the need for developmentally appropriate tools for trustworthy child-AI design.

Abstract The rapid growth in interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a significant driver of research and business activities in recent years. This raises new critical issues, particularly concerning interaction with AI systems. This article first presents a survey that identifies the primary issues addressed in Human-Centered AI (HCAI), focusing on the interaction with AI systems. The survey outcomes permit to clarify disciplines, concepts, and terms around HCAI, solutions to design and evaluate HCAI systems, and the emerging challenges; these are all discussed with the aim of supporting researchers in identifying more pertinent approaches to create HCAI systems. Another main finding emerging from the survey is the need to create Symbiotic AI (SAI) systems. Definitions of both HCAI systems and SAI systems are provided. To illustrate and frame SAI more clearly, we focus on medical applications, discussing two case studies of SAI systems.

Eating disorders are disturbances in people’s eating behaviours that can influence their social and private lives, with consequences related to mental and physical health. Therefore, they must be timely and appropriately treated by professionals and, in this context, the employment of technology can improve the efficiency of treatments allowing remote assistance, continuous monitor, and less stress than the traditional medical approach.

Assessing human vulnerability in cybersecurity is critical to understanding the relationship between human factors and the security of digital systems. This issue is exacerbated in areas such as public administration due to the sensitive nature of the data and services handled by government agencies, including citizen records, financial data, and national security details. Robust cybersecurity measures and understanding the human factors contributing to incidents are essential to securing public administration systems and maintaining public trust in government institutions. This poster presents ongoing work to develop a new psychometric tool to assess the human factors that play a critical role in cybersecurity incidents.

This article explores Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI) in medical cytology, with a focus on enhancing the interaction with AI. It presents a Human-AI interaction paradigm that emphasizes explainability and user control of AI systems. It is an iterative negotiation process based on three interaction strategies aimed to (i) elaborate the system outcomes through iterative steps (Iterative Exploration), (ii) explain the AI system's behavior or decisions (Clarification), and (iii) allow non-expert users to trigger simple retraining of the AI model (Reconfiguration). This interaction paradigm is exploited in the redesign of an existing AI-based tool for microscopic analysis of the nasal mucosa. The resulting tool is tested with rhinocytologists. The article discusses the analysis of the results of the conducted evaluation and outlines lessons learned that are relevant for AI in medicine.

Several studies have shown that involving users in design processes is a key factor in understanding user needs and essential for designing computer systems capable of providing valuable user experiences. However, many practitioners do not emphasize user needs sufficiently and neglect user involvement in software design and development. The UCD Sprint is a recently proposed, step-by-step, cost-effective process that focuses on involving users in design activities. This article reports a mixed-method study in which, for the first time, practitioners working in companies used the UCD Sprint; the study’s main objective was to investigate the impact of the UCD Sprint on practitioners’ design practices. The results show that, among the various activities associated with this process, those that involved users were particularly appreciated by practitioners. Thus, the UCD Sprint can enhance the innovativeness of company design practices; it enables practitioners to obtain sufficient information to create systems that fit users’ needs.

Companies and organizations involved in software development are stimulated and often obliged to consider procedures and technical solutions to guarantee data privacy and protection from the early phases of the software lifecycle. In addition, by default, personal data might be processed with the highest privacy protection level. These two requirements are Privacy by Design and Privacy by Default principles. Their importance has grown quickly in the last few years, as demonstrated by data protection regulations, like GDPR and PIPEDA, which include them as an important part of some of their articles. However, such regulations do not provide any practical or concrete indications of software requirements, and developers often lack adequate knowledge to understand the privacy prescriptions expressed in legal language. This study addresses these limitations by presenting a systematic and rigorous literature review that aims to answer the following research questions: (RQ1) How do Privacy-By-Design and Privacy-By-Default principles translate into software requirements? and (RQ2) How Privacy-By-Design and Privacy-By-Default principles integrate into a Human-Centred Design process? For RQ1, the analysis of the resulting publications led to identifying several software requirements and business processes organized along 8 data-oriented and process-oriented privacy design strategies. For RQ2, the analysis of the retrieved publications provided a comprehensive view of the HCI methodologies adopted to comply with privacy requirements identified current shortcomings, and proposed future research directions. The results have been distilled into an initial framework that may aid the development of software that must comply with such principles and aims to integrate them into an HCD process.

Abstract This study developed a Human-Centered Technology Acceptance Model (HC-TAM) for recruitment chatbots, integrating aspects of the traditional Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)(Davis in 1989) with a focus on human-centered factors such as transparency, personalization, efficiency, and ethical concerns, alongside the fundamental TAM constructs of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The study shows that the intention to use technology is influenced by their perceptions of its usefulness and ease of use. By extending TAM to include human-centered considerations, this research aimed to capture the diverse factors that significantly influence users’ acceptance of chatbots in the recruitment process. A three-phase study has been carried out, each serving a distinct purpose. (a) Phase 1 focuses on defining primary themes through qualitative interviews with 10 participants, laying the foundation for subsequent research. (b)Building upon this foundation, Phase 2 engages 28 participants in a refined exploration of these themes, ending in a comprehensive landscape of user perspectives. (c) Finally, Phase 3 employs rigorous Structural Equation Modeling for theoretical framework examination, yielding critical constructs and hypotheses. Moreover, Phase 3 encompasses the thorough development of measurement instruments and extensive data collection, involving 146 participants through questionnaires, the study found that the acceptance of recruitment chatbots is significantly enhanced when these systems are designed to be transparent, provide personalized interactions, efficiently fulfill user needs, and address ethical concerns. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of technology acceptance in the context of recruitment, offering valuable insights for developers and designers to create chatbots that are not only technically advanced but also ethically sound, user-friendly, and effectively aligned with human needs and expectations in recruitment settings.

Remote usability testing is performed by evaluators who are in different physical locations from the participants (synchronous remote testing) and possibly operating at different times (asynchronous remote testing). The tools developed in recent years to support remote tests exploit web technology based on HTML5 and JavaScript ES6 and thus enable previously unexplored scenarios. However, studies providing evidence on the benefits or drawbacks of utilizing recent web-based tools have not yet been reported in the literature. This article sheds some light on the impact of such tools on asynchronous remote usability testing of websites by reporting an experimental study with 100 participants and 15 evaluators to compare real-time laboratory tests with asynchronous remote tests. The study investigates: 1) how the metrics results of asynchronous remote usability tests performed through a web-based tool differ from those of usability tests conducted in real-time laboratory settings; and 2) how the experience of participants differs in the two types of tests. The lessons learned in the study are instrumental in informing the design of future tools. Some results of particular interest indicate that the web technology used by the tool for asynchronous remote testing affects task execution times and participants’ satisfaction. Another indication is that slow internet connections must be managed in asynchronous remote testing; slow connections introduce delays when transferring large amounts of collected data, which, together with the lack of human support, make participants of asynchronous remote tests more prone to feel negative emotions.

This demo presents SERENE, a Web platform for the UX semi-automatic evaluation of websites. It exploits Artificial Intelligence to predict visitors’ emotions starting from their interaction logs. The predicted emotions are shown by interactive heatmaps overlapped to the webpage to be analyzed. The concentration of negative emotions in a specific area of the webpage can help the UX experts identify UX problems.

Privacy is becoming an increasingly important factor in software production. Indeed, besides increasing software quality, privacy is a mandatory aspect of national and supranational regulations like GDPR. However, several aspects like lack of knowledge on privacy and data protection regulations ambiguities limit the adoption of proper privacy implementation mechanisms during the software lifecycle. To fill this gap, this paper presents a framework, MATERIALIST, which aims to guide developers in choosing privacy design patterns to be used during software development. In particular, this paper focuses on the selection of privacy design patterns starting from the GDPR requirements. In this way, what is currently prescribed by GDPR in a non-technical way becomes a practical solution that software developers can adopt during their work.

Computational Thinking (CT) education is spreading all over the world involving all levels of schools. Software and hardware solutions have been designed and developed to introduce CT at school. In this paper, the first trial of coding activities has been realized using Pepper Social Robot. The idea is to allow pupils to program Pepper; the mission is to guide the robot through a path on a grid sketched on the floor to reach a predefined target. A user test was conducted to evaluate the experience of pupils, in terms of effectiveness, engagement, and cognitive workload in a learning coding activity that involves the social robot Pepper. Pupils appreciated the use of the robot which can interact with them, they were very engaged in the activity and improve their knowledge about coding.

Smart Interactive Experiences (SIEs) are usage situations enabled by the Internet of Things that empower users to interact with the surrounding environment. The goal of our research is to define methodologies and software environments to support the design of SIEs; more specifically, we focus on design paradigms suitable for experts of given domains, who however might not be experts in technology. In this context, this paper discusses some trade-offs that we identified between six different dimensions that characterise the quality of software environments for SIE design. The trade-offs emerged from the analysis of data collected in an experimental study that compared three different design paradigms to understand in which measure each paradigm supports the creative process for SIE design. After reporting on the study procedure and the data analyses, the paper illustrates how the resulting trade-offs led us to identify alternatives for SIE design paradigms, and to structure on their basis a modular architecture of a software platform where the strengths of the three paradigms can be exploited flexibly, i.e. depending on the constraints and the requirements characterising specific design situations.

Abstract Automation in computing systems has always been considered a valuable solution to unburden the user. Internet of Things (IoT) technology best suits automation in different domains, such as home automation, retail, industry, and transportation, to name but a few. While these domains are strongly characterized by implicit user interaction, more recently, automation has been adopted also for the provision of interactive and immersive experiences that actively involve the users. IoT technology thus becomes the key for Smart Interactive Experiences (SIEs), i.e., immersive automated experiences created by orchestrating different devices to enable smart environments to fluidly react to the final users’ behavior. There are domains, e.g., cultural heritage, where these systems and the SIEs can support and provide several benefits. However, experts of such domains, while intrigued by the opportunity to induce SIEs, are facing tough challenges in their everyday work activities when they are required to automate and orchestrate IoT devices without the necessary coding skills. This paper presents a design approach that tries to overcome these difficulties thanks to the adoption of ontologies for defining Event-Condition-Action rules. More specifically, the approach enables domain experts to identify and specify properties of IoT devices through a user-defined semantics that, being closer to the domain experts’ background, facilitates them in automating the IoT devices behavior. We also present a study comparing three different interaction paradigms conceived to support the specification of user-defined semantics through a “transparent” use of ontologies. Based on the results of this study, we work out some lessons learned on how the proposed paradigms help domain experts express their semantics, which in turn facilitates the creation of interactive applications enabling SIEs.

The current Internet of Things (IoT) market proposes a wide variety of devices with complex design and different functionality. In addition, the same IoT device can be used in different domains, from home to industry, to healthcare. The management of such devices occurs in different ways, for example through visual interaction using high level programming languages (e.g. Event-Condition-Action rules) or through high level API. Generally, end users are not technical experts and are not able to configure their IoT devices, thus they need external tools (or visual interaction paradigm) to exploit and better control them. In this work, we present a model for IoT devices which allows to assess those devices and their suitability for a certain domain according to four dimensions: communication, target, data manipulation and development. The model aims at better understanding the device capabilities and, consequently, facilitating the choice of the devices that better suit the domain in which they should be used.

In the framework of the AVI 2018 Conference, the interuniversity center ECONA has organized a thematic workshop on "Digital Interaction: where are we going?". Six contributions from the ECONA members investigate different perspectives around this thematic.

Planning Support Systems (PSS) are computer-based tools that assist professionals in land use planning activities. Although several researchers acknowledge the importance of such tools in planning practice, PSS use is limited due to their poor fit to users’ needs and expectations as well as to their low usability. This article presents a study carried out in three different countries, namely, Australia, Italy, and Switzerland, aiming at investigating in-depth the current situation regarding the adoption of PSS and identifying factors preventing their wider use, devoting particular attention to the quality of such systems from the point of view of their users. The study also aimed at analyzing planners’ expectations in order to identify relevant features that PSS should provide. The main part of the study consisted of 35 interviews with planning experts. A follow-up focus group with six further participants was also performed. The results confirmed some findings of previous studies but also revealed new insights. This article provides suggestions on how to address the emerging issues, as well as pathways for creating software that can be adopted and used with satisfaction in the planning practice.

This paper describes [email protected], a collaborative system prototype for smart home management and configuration. In particular, the system is based on event-condition-action rules. Rule construction and manipulation occur through gamification mechanisms supporting social interaction, collaboration and competition, in order to engage all family members in shaping their smart home.

This paper reports the results of a study of software development organizations' approach towards usability, conducted on software development organizations in Greece, extending a survey conducted in Southern Italy in 2011. The results show that the organization performing usability evaluation is nearly the same in both countries as well as the key advantages and the problems in performing usability evaluation emphasized by Italian and Greek respondents. A difference in the understanding of usability evaluation concept between the two studies emerged.

There is a huge and ever increasing amount of data sources available on the Web, which provide content through programmatic interfaces. Unfortunately, such data sources are accessible only through programming and therefore it is difficult for non-technical users to take advantage of such enormous data assets. The need therefore arises for paradigms to let laypeople, i.e., users without expertise in programming, explore and compose data sources. This paper discusses mechanisms for data source exploration and integration, which emerged from a study where laypeople were involved in discussions to gather their requirements about accessing and composing services. The paper also describes the prototypes that we defined to respond to the requirements highlighted by end users.

Large interactive displays are increasingly used in public spaces. Yet, it is still a challenge to understand how people behave when faced with such displays in their real life, not only when they are used for entertainment (or advertising), but also when they mediate more purposeful tasks. Do people feel shy? Are they willing to interact? Are they satisfied with the services offered and will they come back to use them again? To answer such questions, these systems have to be evaluated in the field so as to understand their actual impact on users in the real life. This paper first introduces an initial evaluation framework, aimed at highlighting some of the variables involved in understanding the impact of large display installations. Then, it applies the framework to analyze users' behavior and their experience with a large display installed at an international conference. Results highlighted that people showed greater interest in those services that, despite a lower appeal, supported them in carrying out useful tasks.

The importance of cultural heritage in forging a sense of identity is becoming increasingly evident. Information and communication technologies have a great potential to promote a greater awareness and appreciation of cultural heritage. This article presents some findings on how mobile technology can be used to foster a better understanding of an archaeological site by reconstructing the ancient environment and life. Children aged 11--13 years old are the target of our research. To motivate and engage them, a pervasive educational game has been developed and implemented in Explore! , a system aimed at supporting children exploring sites of cultural interest. Special attention has been devoted to the design of a soundscape that may improve players’ navigation in degraded physical environments and enrich their overall experience. A field study indicated that children judged their experience both useful and entertaining: not only did they enjoy playing the game, but they also learned historical notions and facts related to ancient Roman life. Contextual sounds were found to have a facilitating effect on space navigation, reducing the need for map reading and improving spatial orientation. This work provides insights into the design of educational games for use with cultural heritage and a model to enrich historical sites through the creation of soundscapes which can help visitors to navigate a site and feel its historical atmosphere.

The use of gameplay has been shown to be an excellent educational tool, especially if such games are supported by innovative and engaging technologies. This paper presents two new games implemented on a large multitouch screen, designed to support young students learning about historical sites like archaeological parks during school visits. Students are encouraged to collaborate to solve the proposed challenges, but they can also play against each other, since direct competition is known to be another way to stimulate and reinforce learning. We believe that such games can make visits to historical sites more effective and exciting

Cultural heritage assets keep alive the history of a territory and of its inhabitants. Several systems have been developed to support people during their visits to historical sites and museums, with the goal of improving the overall user experience. In many cases, people travelling together would appreciate the possibility of collaborating in gathering information and planning a personalized itinerary. Large sharable multitouch screens may offer this possibility. This paper is about ongoing research that is investigating possible applications of large multitouch screens in cultural heritage and tourism. In particular, an application is described, which aims at allowing tourists to get information about a territory and create itineraries for their visits by interacting together on a large screen.

Traditional visits to archaeological parks, which are usually organized by schools, tend to generate little interest in young students, especially when they are faced with the ruins of ancient settlements whose current appearance no longer reflects their initial purpose. We have designed Explore!, an m-learning system which allows students to visit the park while playing a game. By exploiting the imaging and multimedia capabilities of the latest generation cell phone, the game improves young visitors' experience. In particular, contextual sounds have been integrated to recreate the historical atmosphere: users can hear sounds generated by ancient people engaged in their daily activities. The slim architecture of the system absolves the archaeological park from any need to invest in hardware infrastructure. An Authoring Tool can be used by history experts to implement in Explore! games to be played in different parks. In this demo paper we briefly present the game and the main components of Explore!: 1) the Game Application running on cellular phones, to be used during the game, 2) the Master Application running on a notebook, used by the game master (i.e. a teacher) to perform a reflection phase, which follows the game and 3) the Authoring Tool to modify/create new games.

Explore! is an m-learning system that aims to improve young visitors' experience of historical sites. It exploits the imaging and multimedia capabilities of the latest generation cell phone, creating electronic games that support learning of ancient history during a visit to historical sites. Explore! consists of two main components: 1) the Game Application running on cellular phones, to be used during the game and 2) the Master Application running on a notebook, used by the game master (i.e. a teacher) to perform a reflection phase, which follows the game. Having the Game Application been described in previous papers, in this work we mainly illustrate the Master Application.

This paper reports the experimental studies we have performed to evaluate Explore!, an m-learning system that supports middle school students during a visit to an archaeological park. It exploits a learning technique called excursion-game, whose aim is to help students to acquire historical notions while playing and to make archaeological visits more effective and exciting. In order to understand the potentials and limitations of Explore!, our studies compare the experience of playing the excursion-game with and without technological support. The design and evaluation of Explore! have provided knowledge on the advantages and pitfalls of m-learning that may be instrumental in informing the current debate on e-learning.

This paper presents a system designed to support young students learning history at an archaeological site, by exploiting mobile technology. The approach uses game-play, since it stimulates in young students an understanding of history that would otherwise be difficult to engender, helping players to acquire historical notions and making archaeological visits more effective and exciting. A strength of the system is that, by running on the visitors own cellular phones, it requires minimal investments and small changes to the existing site exhibition.

SUIT (Systematic Usability Inspection Tool) is an Internet-based tool that supports the evaluators during the usability inspection of software applications. SUIT makes it possible to reach inspectors everywhere, guiding them in their activities. Differently from other tools that have been proposed in literature, SUIT not only supports the activities of a single evaluator, but permits to manage a team of evaluators who can perform peer reviews of their inspection works and merge their individual reports in a single document on which they agree.

PHiP (Patient History in Pocket) is a tool designed for a mobile device that displays patient histories and permits to visually query patient data stored in the hospital database. It exploits Information Visualization techniques and it is able to accommodate on the screen a good amount of information that physicians require in their analysis of clinical cases. Two different user interfaces for PHiP have been implemented and informal user testing has been performed to compare their impact on users.

DAE (data analysis engine) is a framework that provides various tools for data analysis, which can assist the users in their decision making process. The tools exploit visualizations techniques; various visualizations may be generated for a set of data in order to allow users to browse among data and get the information of interest as well as discover new and possibly unexpected insights. DAE is quite general and can manage data in different domains. It supports several activities involved in the data analysis process, starting from data selection, performing various data transformations and presenting the analysis results. DAE aims at giving decision makers the possibility to directly analyze data with different tools

The new challenge for designers and HCI researchers is to develop software tools for effective e-learning. Learner-Centered Design (LCD) provides guidelines to make new learning domains accessible in an educationally productive manner. A number of new issues have been raised because of the new "vehicle" for education. Effective e-learning systems should include sophisticated and advanced functions, yet their interface should hide their complexity, providing an easy and flexible interaction suited to catch students' interest. In particular, personalization and integration of learning paths and communication media should be provided.It is first necessary to dwell upon the difference between attributes for platforms (containers) and for educational modules provided by a platform (contents). In both cases, it is hard to go deeply into pedagogical issues of the provided knowledge content. This work is a first step towards identifying specific usability attributes for e-learning systems, capturing the peculiar features of this kind of applications. We report about a preliminary users study involving a group of e-students, observed during their interaction with an e-learning system in a real situation. We then propose to adapt to the e-learning domain the so called SUE (Systematic Usability Evaluation) inspection, providing evaluation patterns able to drive inspectors' activities in the evaluation of an e-learning tool.