Many current robot designs prioritize efficiency and one-size-fits-all solutions, oftentimes overlooking personalization, adaptability, and sustainability. To explore alternatives, we conducted two co-design workshops with 23 participants, who engaged with a modular robot co-design framework. Using components we provided as building blocks, participants combined, removed, and invented modules to envision how modular robots could accompany them from childhood through adulthood and into older adulthood. The participants’ designs illustrate how modularity (a) enables personalization through open-ended configuration, (b) adaptability across shifting life-stage needs, and (c) sustainability through repair, reuse, and continuity. We therefore derive design principles that establish modularity as a foundation for lifespan-oriented human–robot interaction. This work reframes modular robotics as a flexible and expressive co-design approach, supporting robots that evolve with people, rather than static products optimized for single moments or contexts of use.

As Generative AI (GenAI) becomes increasingly embedded in the workplace, managers are beginning to create Manager Clone Agents—AI-powered digital surrogates trained on their work communications and decision patterns to perform managerial tasks on their behalf. To investigate this emerging phenomenon, we conducted six design fiction workshops (n = 23) with managers and workers, in which participants co-created speculative scenarios and discussed how Manager Clone Agents might transform collaborative work. We identified four potential roles that participants envisioned for Manager Clone Agents: proxy presence, informational conveyor, productivity engine, and leadership amplifier, while highlighting concerns spanning individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels. We provide design recommendations envisioned by both parties for integrating Manager Clone Agents responsibly into the future workplace, emphasizing the need to prioritize workers’ perspectives and nurture interpersonal bonds while also anticipating alternative futures that may disrupt managerial hierarchies.

Large language models can influence users through conversation, creating new forms of dark patterns that differ from traditional UX dark patterns. We define LLM dark patterns as manipulative or deceptive behaviors enacted in dialogue. Drawing on prior work and AI incident reports, we outline a diverse set of categories with real-world examples. Using them, we conducted a scenario-based study where participants (N=34) compared manipulative and neutral LLM responses. Our results reveal that recognition of LLM dark patterns often hinged on conversational cues such as exaggerated agreement, biased framing, or privacy intrusions, but these behaviors were also sometimes normalized as ordinary assistance. Users’ perceptions of these dark patterns shaped how they respond to them. Responsibilities for these behaviors were also attributed in different ways, with participants assigning it to companies and developers, the model itself, or to users. We conclude with implications for design, advocacy, and governance to safeguard user autonomy.

Generative AI (GenAI) is reshaping work, but adoption remains largely individual and experimental rather than coordinated into collaborative work. Whether GenAI can move from individual use to collaborative work is a critical question for future organizations. Journalism offers a compelling site to examine this shift: individual journalists have already been disrupted by GenAI tools; yet newswork is inherently collaborative relying on shared norms and coordinated workflows. We conducted 27 interviews with newsroom managers, editors and front-line journalists in China. We found that journalists frequently used GenAI to support daily tasks, but value alignment was safeguarded mainly through individual discretion. At the organizational level, GenAI use remained disconnected from team workflows, hindered by structural barriers and cultural reluctance to share practices. These findings underscore the gap between individual and collaborative work, pointing to the need to account for organizational structures, cultural norms, and workflow when coordinating GenAI for collaborative work.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly entering K-12 classrooms worldwide, initiating urgent debates about its potential to either reduce or exacerbate educational inequalities. Drawing on interviews with 30 K-12 teachers across the United States, South Africa, and Taiwan, this study examines how teachers navigate this GenAI tension around educational equalities. We found teachers actively framed GenAI education as an equality-oriented practice: they used it to alleviate pre-existing inequalities while simultaneously working to prevent new inequalities from emerging. Despite these efforts, teachers confronted persistent systemic barriers, i.e., unequal infrastructure, insufficient professional training, and restrictive social norms, that individual initiative alone could not overcome. Teachers thus articulated normative visions for more inclusive GenAI education. By centering teachers’ practices, constraints, and future envisions, this study contributes a global account of how GenAI education is being integrated into K-12 contexts and highlights what is required to make its adoption genuinely equal.

Recently, social media platforms like Weibo have introduced mandatory IP address displays to enhance information evaluation, but their effectiveness remains unclear. In this study, we conducted an online experiment with 722 participants to examine the effectiveness of mandatory IP address displays under different conditions (none, matched, unmatched, unknown) on social media. This study investigated how these conditions influence users’ trust in social media information and whether this process is moderated by users’ patterns of social media usage. Results showed that matched IPs increased trust, unmatched IPs reduced it, and unknown IP labels were perceived as neutral. Frequent social media use and active participation correlated with higher trust in the presented information, indicating susceptibility to misinformation. Trust in technology also amplified trust in social media information under unknown or mismatched IPs. These findings highlight risks in over-relying on social media features, emphasizing the need for careful design to counter misinformation.

Mobile games are becoming a vital medium for social interaction, offering a platform that transcends geographical boundaries.An increasing number of visually impaired individuals are engaging in mobile gaming to connect, collaborate, compete, and build friendships.In China, visually impaired communities face significant social challenges in offline settings, making mobile games a crucial avenue for socialization.However, the design of mobile games and their mapping to real-world environments significantly shape their social gaming experiences.This study explores how visually impaired players in China navigate socialization and integrate into gaming communities.Through interviews with 30 visually impaired players, we found that while mobile games fulfill many of their social needs, technological barriers and insufficient accessibility features, and internal community divisions present significant challenges to their participation.This research sheds light on their social experiences and offers insights for designing more inclusive and accessible mobile games.

The pictorial explores the role of domestic robots in shaping relational and emotional experiences in home environments. Through a participatory workshop featuring a speculative card game 3R (Robots, Rooms, Relationships), participants crafted future home scenarios by combining different robot types, household settings, and interaction modes. The results emphasize how different robot forms evoke unique relational responses. This research investigates how speculative scenarios expand human imagination and foster new emotional and cognitive dimensions in human-robot interaction (HRI). Our findings suggest that domestic robots are not merely functional tools but co-creators of affective ecologies, prompting new design frameworks. We advocate for a shift from deterministic robot functionalities to open-ended, imaginative design approaches that foster co-creative relationships between humans and robots.

Robotics has emerged as a critical field of technological innovation. However, current design paradigms, rooted in industrial-era models, often prioritize centralized control, planned obsolescence, and rigid, one-size-fits-all solutions, undermining adaptability, sustainability, and personal autonomy. To address these limitations, we propose a speculative robotic design framework rooted in Sustainability, Adaptability, and Modularity. Our framework envisions robots as modular systems that can be assembled, reconfigured, and personalized by people, shifting design control away from centralized decision-makers and enabling long-term usability. Modularity enables adaptability and reduces obsolescence, while adaptability reinforces sustainability through circular resource use and extended lifecycles. This speculative framework not only provides a technical vision but also reimagines robotic design as a participatory and collaborative process aligned with ecological responsibility. Our speculative framework offers a manifesto for systemic change, reshaping robotics for a more equitable, sustainable future between humans, robots, and ecology.

Peer Reviewed

VR live-streaming has become an emerging part on Douyin. This study aims to explore the technical modes, content strategies, user experiences in Douyin‘s VR live-streaming. Through interviews and focus groups, we found that VR technology is recognized by influencers and has become an essential part of their creative practice. For some influencers, VR technology is a key factor in enhancing audience engagement and immersive experiences, although technical literacy barriers may arise when setting up VR scenes. We also provide dimensions for improving and developing user adoption and experience of VR technology in social media environments.