Workshops and Tutorials
Call: WS Beyond Chat
Beyond Chat: Visual Languages for Embodied Human-LLM Interaction in Sensemaking
Welcome to join us!
Workshop Summary
Date and Location: TBD, co-located with IEEE VL/HCC (October 6-10, 2025), Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
User interfaces for Human-LLM interaction in information-intensive tasks such as sensemaking have predominantly been limited to the chatbot style of interaction. The linear nature of chat poses significant limitations on sensemaking activity that often requires nonlinear thinking, incremental formalization, use of diverse information sources, etc.
Human cognition in sensemaking tasks exploits a psychological phenomenon called embodied cognition, which externalizes thought processes onto interactive visual workspaces and canvases that enable complex iterative structuring of ideas. These nonlinear structures often represent various forms of visual languages for sensemaking —- space to think.
While LLMs also exploit the notion of external memory in the form of prompt context or chain of thought, these are often limited to sequential text inputs. Is there a possibility of marrying the analogous concepts of human embodied cognition and LLM context? Can the visual languages of embodied cognition serve as a common ground between human cognition and LLM processing? Can LLMs have a form of embodied AI cognition that exploits visual languages? As AI agents become increasingly autonomous, how can visual languages support incremental progression and reduce uncertainty in various sensemaking scenarios, from simple coordination to active collaboration to full teaming, while enabling trust between humans and AI?
This workshop seeks contributions that push these frontiers and bring together a multi-disciplinary group of researchers in HCI, AI, cognitive science, visual languages, and computer vision. The workshop will foster a community that will discuss and prepare a forward-looking research agenda for embodied human-LLM interaction with visual languages.
Topics of Interest
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
- Design or evaluation of visual languages for AI
- User interface or visualization design for human-AI interaction
- Theories for human-AI common ground in sensemaking
- Methods for human steering or explainability of AI sensemaking
- NLP methods for augmenting LLMs with embodied cognition capabilities
- Models for LLM processing of visual languages
- Evaluations of human-AI teaming for sensemaking
Call For Participation
Two types of contributions are sought, each with separate deadlines and review criteria.
Research Papers: Manuscripts that contain results suitable for publication, which will be presented at the workshop. Research paper submissions will be peer-reviewed by a minimum of one organizer and one knowledgeable external reviewer recruited by the organizers to ensure relevance, quality, and soundness of results. A length of 4-8 pages is required. The VL/HCC Conference plans to publish accepted workshop manuscripts in an accompanying volume published by IEEE.
Submission deadline: Friday, July 11
Acceptance notification: Friday, August 1
Camera-ready deadline following minor revisions: Friday, August 8
Submissions should be uploaded to EasyChair: TBA
Position Statements: Statements relating to a topic of interest that can be discussed at the workshop. Position statements will be reviewed by the organizers to ensure relevance to the workshop. A length of 1-4 pages is required.
Submission deadline: Friday, August 22
Acceptance notification: Friday, August 29
Submission method: TBA
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Session: 9:00am-12:30pm EDT
- (9:00–9:10) Welcome and Charge
- (9:10–10:10) Paper presentations or demos
- (10:10–10:40) Lightning talks/position statements
- (10:40–11:00) Break
- (11:00–11:40) Group brainstorming session
- (11:40–12:20) Collaborative affinity diagramming
ORGANIZERS
Chris North, Virginia Tech (Contact: human-ai-sensemaking@googlegroups.com)
Joel Chan, University of Maryland
Rebecca Faust, Tulane University
Xuxin Tang, Virginia Tech
Xuan Wang, Virginia Tech
John Wenskovitch, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Siyi Zhu, University of Maryland (12:20–12:30) Closing and action items
Call for Workshops and Tutorials
The 2025 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) invites proposals for workshops and tutorials to be held in conjunction with the symposium. VL/HCC 2025 workshops are small meetings intended to foster discussion in an area related to the symposium. Tutorials allow conference attendees to expand their knowledge by introducing researchers to emerging areas or new technologies or providing an overview of the state of the art in an existing research area. Workshops and tutorials should be on topics related to the conference, such as (but not limited to): visual languages; human aspects and psychology of software development and language design; end-user development, adaptation and programming; representations and user interfaces; modeling; thinking more deeply about code; future of work with AI; low-code/no-code paradigms; and education and computational thinking. This year’s special theme is “Human-AI Collaboration”, and workshops and tutorials around this topic are highly appreciated.
Prospective workshop and tutorial organizers must submit a proposal package, which will be reviewed by the Workshops and Tutorials chairs, and may either be accepted or rejected. The preferred format for workshops and tutorials is either a half-day or full-day standalone session. However, we are also happy to consider alternative or experimental topics and formats. If the workshop/tutorial is accepted, then both the symposium organizers and the workshop/tutorial organizers will publicize the event to help ensure that it draws a sufficient number of attendees. Please note that an accepted workshop/tutorial may be canceled due to low registration if the number of participants (including the organizers) is less than twelve.
Accepted workshops have the possibility to publish their proceedings in a VL/HCC accompanying volume published by IEEE CPS.
To motivate participation in the workshops, we will try to keep the cost of registration as low as possible (see Table below).
Workshop Day 1 Early Registration | Amount |
---|---|
Full-Day Member Fee | $185.00 |
Full-Day Non-Member Fee | $225.00 |
Full-Day Student Member Fee | $130.00 |
Full-Day Student Non-Member Fee | $160.00 |
Half-Day Member Fee | $140.00 |
Half-Day Non-Member Fee | $100.00 |
Half-Day Student Member Fee | $100.00 |
Half-Day Student Non-Member Fee | $120.00 |
Submissions can be sent at any time and will be assessed on a rolling basis. Please submit proposals via email.
Instructions for Workshop Proposals
The workshop proposal package must contain a summary sheet for the proposal that lists:
- The workshop details:
- The title of the workshop
- Names, contact information for all organizers (one organizer should be highlighted as the contact for the workshop chairs)
- Organizers’ backgrounds
- URL to a preliminary workshop web page (optional). For existing workshop series, a URL for a previous edition suffices.
- A description of the topic and rationale for the workshop, including a brief description of why the workshop will be relevant to VL/HCC attendees
- A detailed plan for carrying out the workshop, including:
- The method for soliciting papers from potential attendees
- The method for selecting attendees from submitted papers
- An approximate schedule for the workshop
- An approximate number of expected participants
- A brief description of any post-workshop activities (e.g. curating a journal special issue).
- Proceedings plans, if any
- A Call for Participation document (500 words or less) that can be used to advertise the workshop on mailing lists, the VL/HCC web site, etc. We strongly recommend that organizers plan their workshop to encourage interaction among the attendees and avoid structuring the workshop as a long series of individual paper presentations. Note also that workshops are not courses where an instructor teaches the attendees (see Tutorials below for this instead).
Please send to the WS chairs: Chris Brown and Dulaji Hidellaarachchi
Instructions for Tutorial Proposals
Prospective tutorial instructors must submit a tutorial proposal package, which will be reviewed by the Workshops and Tutorials chairs and may either be accepted or rejected. If the tutorial is accepted, then both the conference organizers and the tutorial instructors will publicize the tutorial to ensure that a sufficient number of attendees will choose to attend the tutorial. The tutorial package must contain:
- A course abstract of at most 500 words that lists:
- Title
- Instructor(s) name and affiliation
- Course duration
- Description of the benefits that attendees will receive from this course, the features of the course, and background on the instructor(s)
- A course description of 1–4 pages. This should contain:
- Proposed duration of the tutorial (half day or full day, though shorter tutorials could also be proposed)
- Learning objectives
- Justification: Why will this tutorial be of interest to the VL/HCC community?
- Content: Describe in detail the material that will be covered.
- Presentation format and schedule: Describe in detail the format of the presentation and how it will be organized.
- Tutorial history: Describe the history of the tutorial, if any.
Please send to the WS chairs: Chris Brown and Dulaji Hidellaarachchi
Call: WS on Designing for Everyone
Advancing User Experience Through Human-Centric Design Methodologies
Description of the Workshop
Human-centric design aims to address and prioritize the needs of all users within software beyond systems tailored specifically for diverse individuals to underscore equal access to opportunities and resources. Human-centric design enhances software accessibility by embracing a broader population across gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, physical and cognitive disability, geographical region, language dialect, socio-economic status, age, and experience.
The lack of diversity in Computer Science causes broader populations to be overlooked, leading to exclusion of their concerns and considerations in software design. Designing for Everyone aims to foster discussion on current and emerging HCI human-centric design methodologies, regardless of the potential gap in software practitioners, exchanging ideas on human-centric software creation, in an effort to advance human-centric computing.
Expected Workshop Outcomes
We expect that the workshop will gather a dynamic and diverse group of interdisciplinary academic researchers and industry professionals, united by a shared passion for advancing inclusivity.
We expect to foster a discussion on the role of human-centric design in HCI, SE and the impact on software. The workshop will facilitate the exchange of human-centric design best practices, enabling participating authors to improve their current design methodology.
We expect that the workshop will support the application of current and emerging HCI methodologies to promote human-centric design.
Workshop Topics
We invite participating authors to submit Extended Abstracts, Research Papers, and Position Papers on human-centric design, focusing on how to promote human-centric design methodologies for all individuals. Submissions can address human-centric design across various populations in:
- User Experience (UX) Design: Personas, prototyping, walkthroughs
- Collaboration: Team, human-AI, pair programming
- AR/VR: Augmented reality and virtual reality environments
- Video Games: Video game design
- AI/ML: Bias, stereotyping, fairness, trust, ethics
- Large Language Models (LLMs): Conversational agents, chatbots
- Education: CS, SE, and HCI education for K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students
- Software Engineering: Technology design, autonomous systems, facial recognition
- **Accessibility: **Technology, software development, empirical studies
- Algorithms: Natural language processing (NLP), human-robot interaction (HRI)
- Ethics/Policy: Data privacy, security, regulation
- Fashion: Wearable technology, virtual clothing for avatars, social shopping platforms
Workshop Agenda
The following is a framework for the program of the Workshop:
Program Event |
---|
Workshop Introduction and Icebreakers |
Workshop Participant Lightning Talks |
Roundtable Discussion on Human-Centric Design Methodologies |
Refreshment Break |
Introduction of Small Group Activity |
Small Group Activity |
Small Group Share Out and Discussion |
Workshop Closing |
Guidelines to Prospective Authors
Prospective authors should submit their proposals in PDF format. They are welcome to submit ideas exploring the workshop topics in the form of Extended Abstracts, Research Papers, and Position Papers.
Extended Abstracts should be a maximum of 800-words on both existing research and potential future directions in human-centric design methodologies.
Research Papers should be a minimum of 4 pages and a maximum of 8 pages in length, with an optimal length of 6 pages.
Position Papers or Best Practices submissions should offer insightful analysis or best practices in the field, supported by evidence or experience. Position papers should be a minimum of 4 pages and a maximum of 8 pages in length, with an optimal length of 6 pages.
Workshop Deadlines
Submission of Workshop contributions | 15 July 2025 |
Authors notified of decisions on acceptance | 1 August 2025 |
Camera-ready deadline for accepted submissions | 8 August 2025 |
Organizers
Shandler A. Mason samason4@ncsu.edu
Sandeep Kaur Kuttal skuttal@ncsu.edu