Julian Fietkau

@fietkau.me

Human-computer interaction #HCI, computer science & programming, home server & self-hosting, games and other fun stuff. Fediverse tool builder: @encyclia, @canary […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://fietkau.social/@julian, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

Did you see our workshop programme at the ECSCW 2026 pre-conference? Four workshops will be available, three are still open to contributions at time of posting. The early registration deadline is on May 31, register soon! 🏃

Workshops

## Monday, 29.6.2026 #### #1 **Towards a Methodological Framework for Inclusive and Socio-Technical Accessibility Research** 13:30 – 17:00 – optional meet for lunch at 12:30 Sven Bittenbinder, Claudius Clüver, Claudia Müller, Frauke Mörike, Barbarella Petz **Abstract:** This workshop aims at advancing a shift from technical to socio-technical and critical perspectives on inclusive technologies. Rather than treating accessibility as a purely technical feature or a compliance-based “box to tick,” the convenors conceptualise disability as culturally produced and socially structured and embedded in wider socio-material arrangements. In HCI and CSCW, diverse conceptualisations of research on assistive technologies are employed, oscillating between more technically oriented and more socio-technical starting points. This workshop aims to contribute to systematising these approaches and to critically examining their respective advantages and challenges. **Website:** https://ws-a11y-ecscw2026.wineme.wiwi.uni-siegen.de **Keywords:** Assistive Technology, Inclusive Technologies, Research and Design Methods, Participation **Call for participation** We invite researchers, practitioners, people with disabilities, and other stakeholders to contribute to the workshop by submitting a short position paper on the above-mentioned goals, along with a short biography of the author(s). Papers should be no longer than 4 pages, excluding the bibliography. Please prepare your paper using the EUSSET template and submit it by email to sven.bittenbinder@uni-siegen.de by May 15, 2026. There is an opportunity to have your submissions published in the ECSCW workshop proceedings. To this end, submissions will be reviewed for their relevance to the workshop topic. If accepted by the workshop organizers, a camera-ready version must be submitted by June 5. ## Tuesday, 30.6.2026 #### #2 **3rd International Workshop on Hybrid Collaboration–Recent Perspectives on Hybrid Work** 09:00 – 17:00 Thomas Neumayr, Frederik Hirschmann, Karin Breckner, Mirjam Augstein, Johannes Schönböck, Tuire Oittinen, Minttu Vänttinen, Jennifer Gerbl, Julia Kleinau **Abstract:** Hybrid collaboration, where co-located participants are working together with remote participants, is increasingly established as a de-facto standard practice in our everyday professional lives. Since the first edition of this workshop in 2019, the pool of research has considerably increased. However, studying such collaborative practices is still met with skepticism by researchers due to the considerable effort that is connected to the according empirical endeavors. In this workshop, we aim at bringing together researchers and practitioners who would like to learn from collaborative practices in general (i.e., co-located or remote), and/or a domain transfer to hybrid collaboration in particular. **Website:** https://hycos.kwmhgb.at/hybrid2026 **Keywords:** hybrid collaboration, hybrid work, new work #### #3 **Towards trust architectures and assurance of AI-based systems** 09:00 – 17:00 Rob Procter, Mark Rouncefield, Peter Tolmie, Claudia Mueller **Abstract:** This workshop sets out to explore our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning interpersonal trust, institutional trust and trust in technology. In particular, it seeks to explore how these different kinds of trust complement and interrelate with one another to form a ‘trust architecture’ that supports effective and dependable uses of technologies and tools. With the rapid push to adopt AI-based systems within organisations in both the private and public sector, there is an urgent need to determine what actions – both social and technical – should be taken to establish and adapt this trust architecture. This is central to developing trust in AI-based systems, and assurance and governance processes that can then sustain that trust. We invite position papers, empirical studies, requirements investigations, and potential solutions relating to these concerns. **Website:** https://ai-workshop-ecscw26.italg.wiwi.uni-siegen.de/ **Keywords:** trust, trust architectures, AI-based systems, AI assurance, AI governance #### #4 **Sustaining Participation Beyond Projects: CSCW Challenges in Designing Infrastructures with Marginalised Communities** 09:00 – 12:30 + lunch Michelle O’Keeffe, Denise Heffernan, Moya Cronin, Thomas Murphy, Paul Lally, Ciara Ahern, Ehiaze Ehimen, Mary Galvin **Abstract:** Participatory design and community engagement are central to CSCW, yet sustaining meaningful participation with marginalised communities remains a persistent challenge, particularly in contexts shaped by institutional fragmentation, socio-technical exclusion, and structural inequalities. While Communities of Practice (CoPs) support professional knowledge exchange, they often fail to enable equitable participation for those most affected by socio-technical systems. This workshop examines participatory infrastructuring as a core CSCW challenge, drawing on insights from the MOBILISE project, a multi-year initiative working with Irish Traveller communities to address energy, housing, and service access in mobile living contexts. Our work highlights the need to intentionally design engagement infrastructures that support sustained collaboration across community, institutional, and technical boundaries. From this, Communities of Engagement (CoEs) are emerging as a promising approach to inclusive, long-term participation. Through collaborative activities, participants will develop frameworks and research directions to advance CSCW work on participatory infrastructuring and equitable engagement. **Website:** https://moyacronin.github.io/ecscw2026 **Keywords:** Participatory Design; Participatory Infrastructuring; Marginalised Communities; Socio-technical Systems; Community Engagement; Civic Participation; Infrastructure Studies; Codesign

ecscw.eusset.eu

Did you know that the speakers and topics of the ECSCW 2026 keynotes have been revealed? 😃 Yvonne Rogers will examine the potential role of agentic AI in the field of CSCW. Later on, Petra Schubert and Sue Williams will show us how enterprise collaboration systems work. Don’t miss them! 🗓️

Keynotes

The scientific program on Wednesday to Friday will be enriched with two keynotes by experienced CSCW researchers. ### Wednesday, July 1st 09:30-10:30 Opening Keynote **Yvonne Rogers, University College London** ,**UK** #### **Should CSCW jump on the Agentic AI Bandwagon?** Agentic AI is coming of age. Essentially, it is a system of agents that can act proactively, plan and execute the steps needed to reach complex goals, using various tools and data sources, automatically or in collaboration with humans. A well-known example is agentic travel planning, where agents go about their business, booking flights, hotels, and experiences, based on someone’s preferences and availability. There is much hype about how it will transform work, through optimising all manner of complex workflows, and, in so doing, empowering organisations, companies and society at large. A key question this raises is this desirable? Moreover, how much automation vs how much human collaboration and orchestration should there be? CSCW, with its background, knowledge, and expertise in collaborative work is ideally suited to address these new challenges. In many ways, I see a parallel transition in our midst from how GenAI was designed to support individual users to how Agentic AI can be developed for collaborative working. CSCW emerged from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in the mid-1980s because it was more concerned with how the emergent technologies could support collaborative working and social interactions, rather than the user. Just as HCI has become more concerned with human-centred AI, will CSCW become more concerned with society-centred AI? In my talk, I will consider the new challenges that are afoot and whether CSCW has the appetite for addressing them. **Yvonne Rogers** Yvonne Rogers is a Professor of Interaction Design at UCL. Her research interests are in the areas of human-computer interaction and human-centered AI. A central theme of her work is how to design interactive technologies that can enhance life by augmenting and extending everyday, learning and work activities. This involves informing, building and evaluating novel user experiences through designing, implementing and deploying a diversity of technologies. Yvonne has published over 350 papers and books on a variety of topics, including human augmentation, behavioural change, collaborative working, decision-making, technology enhanced learning, privacy, novel interfaces and human-robot interactions. She is also one of the authors of the definitive textbook on Interaction Design and HCI (now in its 6th edition), that has sold over 300,000 copies worldwide and has been translated into many languages. ### Thursday, July 2nd 11:00-12:30 Keynote **Petra Schubert, Sue Williams, University of Koblenz, Germany** #### **From collaboration software portfolios to enterprise collaboration platforms** Collaboration technologies to support organisational workgroups have evolved significantly over the past two decades, from portfolios of unconnected tools to enterprise-wide information infrastructures supporting collaborative work and the production of digital work products. However, despite these changes, the majority of research is still focused on situated, micro-level studies of individuals and workgroups and lacks a long term, large-scale, organisational level perspective. In this presentation we introduce a long-term university-industry research programme, which has, for the past 15 years, followed the organisational and institutional imperatives shaping the design and use of enterprise collaboration systems in over 40 medium- and large-sized organisations in the DACH region. Our goals for the presentation are twofold. First, we introduce the theoretical positioning and challenges of establishing and sustaining a long-term practice-based research programme. Second, we discuss the emergence and shaping of large-scale collaboration platforms as a new category of enterprise-level software and, drawing on key research findings, show how these have evolved over time. Finally, we examine recent trends in the design of enterprise collaboration platforms focusing on the introduction of AI to deliver new content-based services, and the pressing imperative for digital sovereignty. **Petra Schubert** Petra Schubert is Professor of Business Application Systems at the Faculty of Computer Science of the University of Koblenz. She is the Director of the Competence Center for Collaboration Technologies (UCT) and Co-Director of the Center for Enterprise Information Research (CEIR). One of her main projects is the University-Industry Collaboration IndustryConnect. She has been active in teaching and research in the field of Enterprise Collaboration Systems for more than 30 years. Her recent work is focused on the investigation of collaboration software, in particular the building of enterprise-level collaboration platforms and the analysis of the digital traces of collaborative work. **Susan P. Williams** Susan P. Williams is a founding member of the Centre for Enterprise Information Research (CEIR) and joint coordinator of IndustryConnect, a university-industry research community. From 2010-2025 she was a Professor of Enterprise Information Management at the University of Koblenz, Germany. Sue’s research examines complex sociotechnical change and the design, use and consequences of new technologies in organisational contexts. An interdisciplinary researcher, her work investigates emerging information infrastructures and the ways that platforms for enterprise collaboration are transforming organisational work and the digital workplace.

ecscw.eusset.eu

Coming soon in Mastodon 4.6 - a redesigned profile page. We've used community feedback and surveys to inform these updates. Our latest blog post explains our design thinking and choices. Here are a few highlights 🧵 https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/03/a-redesign-for-profiles/

A Redesign for Profiles

Profiles are the primary way for people using Mastodon to ‘meet’ one another on a deeper level – beyond a threaded conversation or search results. You might have noticed that the overall design of Profiles hasn’t been explored in a while, and in the meantime, we’ve heard requests and challenges from people who use Mastodon every day. The profile redesign supports some of our current priorities: * **Make the Fediverse Intuitive.** We want people who are new to Mastodon and the Fediverse to be able to discover and connect with interesting accounts, without having to understand the details of decentralisation. The new Profiles view includes an updated handle explainer, and a new editing experience delivers a more consistent, unified experience across web and native mobile apps. * **A Home for Everyone.** As well as individuals, Mastodon is also home to organisations (NGOs, local governments, software projects, etc) that want to share news and interact with their communities. The layout changes offer us a solid starting point from which to explore features that will help these “institutional users” to make their most out of their presence in the Fediverse. ## Our approach ### Learning from the community In addition to reviewing community requests related to profiles, we surveyed more than 500 people across over 300 servers, to understand what profile information they prioritise when it comes to identifying whether an account is trustworthy (and therefore, worth following). We also analysed patterns from other apps that respondents mentioned they frequently use. ### Technical constraints We’re currently constrained within the existing 3-column layout on desktop. We also know that improvements could be made to the custom fields feature, but structural and backend changes to custom fields were out of scope for this work. ## What’s changing ### Profile viewing #### The new ‘Activity’ tab offers granular filtering of posts Previously, there have been two tabs for “Posts” and “Posts and replies.” It turns out that this was misleading (the “Posts” tab also included boosts); and, that there was no way for you to view an account’s activity with the granularity that you can after following them – no view for Posts only, for example. There are, in fact, 4 distinct views that you may want to see: _Posts_ , _Posts+boosts_ , _Posts+replies_ , or _Posts+boosts+replies_. Providing this granularity led us to adopt a more appropriate UI over displaying each of these as tabs. The new Activity tab has a dropdown menu, allowing you to view any of these combinations by filtering both boosts and replies. It is optimised to work equally well for you on the desktop as on mobile, and also if you use the advanced interface for desktop. #### Featured hashtags are more discoverable and contextual Hashtags can provide you with topic-based discovery. In the new Profile view, you can view hashtags contextually within the Activity tab, and click on them for a filtered view of the account’s tagged posts. #### It’s easier to view all pinned posts Some people have expressed frustration over pinned posts being buried in a carousel. We understand this concern, and are also balancing the needs of people who are browsing others’ profiles who have shared that they want easy access to _recent_ posts. Informed by data on the number of pinned posts across Mastodon profiles, we’ve replaced the carousel with an alternative form of progressive disclosure that allows you to reveal all pinned posts in a single click. #### Updated handle explainers One of our objectives is to make the Fediverse more intuitive for people who are non-technical. We’ve updated the handle explainer card to clarify what handles and servers are. Additionally, the full profile handle (`@user@domain.com`) now displays beneath the account’s display name, even if the account is on the same server as yours. The updated explainer for profile handles. #### Custom fields are more compact Custom fields display side-by-side when possible, making smarter utilisation of the Profile’s vertical space so that you get to the account’s content more swiftly. A more compact design for custom fields. #### Additional changes reduce visual load People must be able to find the content they need. However, when _all_ information displays at once, it impacts your ability to focus and complete tasks. You might notice we’ve given less prominence to a few pieces of information. When introducing changes that add friction, we take into account both the frequency and importance of related actions. **Personal notes:** The ‘Add a personal note’ action does not display as prominently on the profile; it is now accessed within the profile’s overflow menu. If a note exists, it still displays on the profile page, just as it has in the past. **‘Following you’:** The ‘Following you’ badge no longer displays on the profile. People we surveyed ranked this information remarkably low in terms of establishing both trust and interest an account. You still have numerous options to understand whether someone is following you: * **The ‘Follow’ button:** When you’re not following an account but the account follows you, the primary button label displays as “Follow back”. * **The accounts ‘Following’ list:** If the account is following you, you will see yourself at the top of that account’s ‘Following’ list. * **Profile overflow menu:** If the account is following you, a ‘Remove follower’ option appears in the overflow menu. * **Preview cards (desktop):** When hovering over an account, the preview cards still show ‘Follows you’ and ‘You follow each other’ statuses. ## Profile editing ### A unified editing experience Previously, profile editing on web was hidden within account settings. You had to take multiple steps to navigate back to your profile view. The new profile editing experience combines featured hashtags, link verification, and all other profile customisation in a single view. It’s easily accessible from an ‘Edit profile’ button directly on your profile – making switching between viewing and editing more seamless. A screenshot of the redesigned profile editing experience on desktop web. The page shows sections for profile and cover photo editing, display name and bio editing, custom fields, featured hashtags, and profile tab settings. ### More control during image upload You can now crop images, and add alt text to profile and cover photos. A screen recording showing a user zooming and cropping a profile photo within a modal, then clicking on the “Next” button. On the next step, the modal displays a preview of the cropped image and a text field where the user can enter alt text. ### Custom fields and verified links Previously, custom field editing was only available on web, and lacked accessible form labels. Additionally, link verification – a powerful feature for establishing credibility – was hidden in profile settings. Now, you can access link verification instructions directly from the custom field editing experience. You can also now add and edit custom fields in our iOS and Android apps. A zoomed-in view of the interface for editing custom fields, which contains buttons for adding, reordering, changing, and deleting custom fields. Beneath the custom fields, a hyperlinked text reads “How do I add a verified link?” ### Featured hashtags Featured hashtags are a useful way of helping others discover topics you frequently post about. We’ve decreased the friction and guesswork in adding featured hashtags on web: Suggested hashtags will appear on your profile view, and can be bulk added in a single click. For more granular control, hashtags can also be managed within the profile editor. Basic functionality for featured hashtags is now supported on iOS and Android. A screen recording showing the interaction of a user viewing a banner on their own profile that contains suggested hashtags with options to add or dismiss. The user clicks on “Add” and the suggested hashtags are immediately added to their profile. ### Customising tab displays The editing experience includes profile tab display settings, allowing you to hide the ‘Media’ and ‘Featured’ tabs if desired. Replies can also be excluded from the ‘Media’ tab, allowing for a more accurate gallery where creative people may showcase their work. We hope that these additional controls empower both people who use Mastodon day-to-day, and people who represent institutions. Before the 4.6 release, profile tab customisations will only impact a few servers that are testing the new profile experience. After the 4.6 release, these customisations will be reflected on most servers running the latest version of Mastodon. Displays may vary on third-party apps and independent servers. A screenshot of the Profile tab settings modal, which contains three settings allowing users to show/hide the Media tab, show/hide replies on the Media tab, and show/hide the Featured tab. A banner at the bottom of the modal explains that displays may vary on other servers. ## Availability The new design will be visible on `mastodon.social`, and other servers that run nightly builds of Mastodon, from today. The goal is to do some testing ahead of the 4.6 release, and make any adjustments based on feedback (see below). The new look will roll out to all Mastodon servers, as part of Mastodon 4.6, coming in a few weeks. ### We’re open to feedback We’ve shared our thinking, and the choices we made in this redesign, in this post. If you have things you’d like to let us know related to these updates, contact us at **feedback@joinmastodon.org**. We may not be able to respond to every individual message, but we’ll be reading every piece of feedback to inform our future plans.

blog.joinmastodon.org

RE: https://ecscw.eusset.eu/2026/2026/03/02/825/ Ever considered being part of an academic conference as a student volunteer? I'm coordinating the SV call for #ECSCW2026 and we're looking for people. I'd say “please apply if you're interested,” but knowing who follows me, “please forward this […]

Original post on fietkau.social

fietkau.social

ECSCW 2026@ecscw.eusset.eu · 5mo ago

ECSCW 2026 is looking for student volunteers! Benefits include free conference attendance & free use of public transportation in Munich. Let’s put together a memorable conference! 📌 Application Deadline: April 30, 2026 👉 Details: https://ecscw.eusset.eu/2026/attending/student-volunteers/