A graphic titled "Comparing Design Metaphors and User Driven Metaphors" that compares design metaphors and user metaphors for platforms like ChatGPT, YouTube, and Twitter.

If a platform is modeled after a community, do users actually experience a community?

If not, what do users experience? If so, does the experience translate to all users or just some?

Had a great time answering these questions at #chi2026!

doi-org.stanford.idm.oclc.org/10.1145/3772...

14 things our PhD supervisors got right and why it mattered PhD students reflect on how their supervisors made a meaningful difference — from quiet acts of kindness to career-shaping guidance.

This was a nice piece www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I love that they all look like they're sharing a good joke and enjoying being in each others' company 😊

I wrote some stuff about some very cool women in Baltimore.

On Black PhD students:

it's like being part of the celebration 🥹 more of these of cute UI interactions!

Georgia Is Letting a Railroad Seize Land a Black Family Has Owned For 100 Years Descendants of enslaved people are fighting an attempt to use eminent domain to carve a spur through one of Georgia’s largest Black‑owned farms.

In the 1800s, a slave owner purchased over a dozen people in Georgia and set the foundation for his family’s generational wealth

Generations later, a railroad company owned by one of his descendants is using eminent domain to seize land of Black farmers

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I love having the alternative paths.

I'm wondering if reflective observer might open new pathways for analysis rather than critical observer.

And if guidelines can help students simultaneously learn about fair critique (a balance of pros, cons, patterns, improvements, etc.)

The way people’s jobs are ending - especially if they were hired to do TT marketing for an org. The app was entertaining, but more important it offered the informational, cultural and economic value

This made me want to renew my interest in trying to sneak song names into paper titles 🤭

It’s like every paper has a soundtrack that just captures the point

incredibly!

even when we put a notice and used scripts to disable copy/paste, we still found two people who used chatgpt - because they put the exact same answer to an open-ended question 🫠

the algo. management of online gig work is messy and - so I don't fault users.

on the other, it makes doing HCI research harder 😭 like we want people!

the prolific subreddit promotes *not* using AI - and some responders are falsely accused - so I'd rather pay and just not include the data

b) it feels like there has been as ton of advertising around Spotify's algorithmic features (e.g.: DJ X, custom playlist, etc.).

Yet, I haven't seen that same emphasis on highlighting the "humaness" of the platform (e.g.: placing other users'/dj-created/editor-created playlists higher in search)

given how red pen works in those margins, I might need to lay off for a while 🤭

oh this is cool! thanks for sharing!

Bringing my 1-person campaign for professionally narrated academic papers to Bluesky 😂 the text-to-speech services aren’t cutting it #academicsky