Digital platforms frequently reproduce heteronormative norms and structural biases, limiting inclusive communication between LGBTQ+ and cisgender individuals. The Metaverse, with its affordances for identity fluidity, presence, and community governance, offers a promising site for reimagining such interactions. To investigate this potential, we conducted participatory design workshops involving LGBTQ+ and cisgender participants, situating them in speculative Metaverse contexts to surface barriers and co-create alternative futures. The workshops followed a three-phase process—identifying challenges, speculative problem-solving, and visualizing futures—yielding socio-spatial-technical solutions across four layers: embodied interaction, negotiated visibility, community formation, and reconfigured norms. These findings highlight the importance of spatial cues and power dynamics in shaping digital encounters. We contribute by (1) articulating challenges of cross-group communication in virtual environments, (2) proposing inclusive design opportunities for the Metaverse, and (3) advancing principles for addressing power geometry in digital space. This work demonstrates futuring as a critical strategy for designing equitable, transformative communication infrastructures.

While Large Language Models (LLMs) have significantly advanced design ideation and problem-solving, a fundamental tension persists between the discrete nature of current LLM interactions and the iterative, non-linear essence of design thinking. This “human-LLM misalignment” often forces designers to choose between accepting opaque “black-box” outputs or restarting the generation process entirely, thereby hindering the evolution of design intent and diminishing critical reflection. Based on a formative study with eight designers, we identify three core challenges in achieving reasoning-level alignment and propose a “Curated Reasoning” interaction approach. To instantiate this approach, we developed DesignerlyLoop, a prototype that introduces a nested two-layer diagram structure. This system allows users to externalize their evolving design intent while simultaneously inspecting, reorganizing, and selectively regenerating the underlying LLM reasoning chains. A within-subject user study with 20 designers demonstrated that curated reasoning significantly enhances design intent formulation, and output quality. By shifting the user’s role from a passive recipient of generated content to an active curator of AI reasoning, DesignerlyLoop fosters a more reflective and iterative human-AI collaborative process. Our contributions include: identifying key alignment challenges in creative design; the implementation of a dual-layer structure for reasoning curation; and empirical evidence validating how explicit curated reasoning supports more effective human-LLM alignment in creative tasks.

Reflection and metacognition are central to the creative user experience. However, most HCI research on reflection focuses on clear, task-oriented goals such as to reflect on personal data or pedagogical outcomes. This contrasts with the open-ended and challenging to articulate goals of creative user experiences. For the first time, this workshop brings together interdisciplinary researchers, designers, educators, and artists across HCI, Cognitive Science, Design, AI, Learning Sciences, and Digital Art to examine reflection in creative interaction. The workshop will discuss themes, drawn from earlier discussions with HCI researchers and artists, on: how best to capture reflection in creative contexts, how to leverage the arts to support reflection for ethical change, and how to design creative AI that enhances – not hinders – critical thinking. By bringing interdisciplinary perspectives on reflection into discussion, the workshop will develop a guiding taxonomy for reflection in creative interaction to inform future creative practice and tool development.

Photo-based reminiscence can support well-being in older adults, yet most systems remain text-driven and offer little real-time adaptivity. We first conduct expert interviews to derive design considerations for accessibility, cultural fit, and safe emotional engagement. We then implemented Eye2Recall, an intelligent conversational interface that converts users’ gazes on old photos into mixed-initiative prompts for a large language model (LLM). We evaluated it in a pilot study with 12 older adults. Participants reported low-effort, smooth interactions, and perceived the agent’s questions as aligned with what they were looking at. Immediately after use, self-reported positive mood increased and negative mood decreased. Interviews further indicated that gaze-driven prompts helped retrieve concrete details and supported reflective storytelling. Our contribution is a concrete mechanism for gaze-to-prompt adaptivity that operationalizes mixed-initiative dialogue for older adults’ reminiscence experience.

User Interaction for NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens) is gaining increasing attention. Although NFTs have been traditionally single-use and monolithic, recent applications aim to connect multimodal interaction with human behavior. This paper reviews the related technological approaches and business practices in NFT art. We highlight that multimodal interaction is a currently under-studied issue in mainstream NFT art, and conjecture that multimodal interaction is a crucial enabler for decentralization in the NFT community. We present a continuum theory and propose a framework combining a bottom-up approach with AI multimodal process. Through this framework, we put forward integrating human behavior data into generative NFT units, as "multimodal interactive NFT." Our work displays the possibilities of NFTs in the art world, beyond the traditional 2D and 3D static content.

Tai Chi is an essential concept of Chinese philosophy which refers to the universe's most primitive state of order. Tai Chi Chuan is a martial art and meditative practice that incorporates the Tai Chi philosophy. With the advent of the digital media age, this traditional martial art is falling into disuse, and most contemporary youths are losing interest. "Meditation in Motion" is an interactive media art installation inspired by the Tai Chi Chuan forms. It aims to convey the central concepts of balance, narrative, and universe of Tai Chi Chuan by breaking down its movements into overlapping circles, building a visual representation of the energy flows in the body.