Human-Computer Interaction Seminar - Spring semester 2026

This is the main seminar of the Interactive Intelligence lab of the Human-IST Institute. The topics will change each semester and will be proposed by I&I lab members. Each participant will be supervised by one researcher.

With the advent of autonomous cars, mobile devices and conversational agents, the question of the interaction with digital devices in everyday life is becoming everyday more relevant. Through embedded objects, AI is penetrating our daily routines and raises important questions of agency and privacy. The aim of the HCI seminar is to look at this question over several specific contexts and expose students to state-of-the art research in interactive embedded AI.

Through a set of topics for the participants to choose from, the different fields studied within the I&I lab will be reviewed and discussed. Each specific topic is proposed by a member of the I&I team who will be available during the semester to follow the work of the student.

Prof. Denis Lalanne

Dr Julien Nembrini (contact person)

The introductory lecture will be held on Monday 23.02 15h15 in presence in PER21 A420. This session can be attended online, the sessions during the semester are in presence. Please contact Dr Julien Nembrini julien.nembrini@unifr.ch, with copy to Prof. Denis Lalanne denis.lalanne@unifr.ch, if you wish to attend.

Semester topics

Current trends in interactive embedded AI

The general aim of the semester is to map current research in interactive embedded AI. Please find below the topics related to research fields of I&I researchers.

UPDATE: The topics will be presented on the first session on Monday 23.02.2026 (please see details above)

Seminar schedule

(may be subject to changes)

  • 23.02 15h15 1st introductory session, in presence
  • 02.03 (at the latest) communication of preferred topics (1st, 2nd and 3rd choice)
  • 30.03 15h15 1st presentation (concepts,papers,research gaps) in presence
  • 13.04 1st complete draft (no session)
  • 20.04 15h15 2nd presentation in presence
  • 11.05 2nd draft (no session)
  • 18.05 15h15 final presentation in presence
  • 08.06 final draft (no session)

Work to be done

Students will be asked to :

  • Study in depth the papers proposed for the chosen topic, including relevant references
  • Discuss their findings with their respective tutor
  • Present the papers, their methodology and results
  • Identify potential research gaps and imagine a user experiment addressing one of
  • Write a 4-pages article summarizing their review work
  • Present their article to the seminar participants

Interested computer science students are invited to participate by expressing their interest on three specific topics (1st, 2nd, 3rd choices) among the topics presented above.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the seminar, students will be exercised in writing a scientific article. Further, they will build a general knowledge on the field of interactvie embedded AI and its current techniques and trends, as well as an in-depth understanding on their chosen topic.

Registration

Attend the introductory session and express your interest about both your chosen topics with a short text (3-5 sentences) to Dr Julien Nembrini, mentioning (1) your preferred topic, (2) your second-preferred topic, (3) your third-preferred. Each reference person will then contact you if you are chosen for participating to the seminar. Others will receive a notification email.

emails : julien.nembrini@unifr.ch and denis.lalanne@unifr.ch

Registration process

  1. Participate to the first introductory session on Monday 23.02 15h15 in presence in PER21 A420 or online.
  2. Express your interest for the topics as mentioned above at the latest the 02.03 (first come, first served).
  3. Wait for confirmation of your participation.

Seminar Process

In addition to the first session, there will only be three plenary sessions during the semester, which consist in participants presenting their work. These sessions will be in presence and will happen on Mondays at 15h15. Reference persons will organize additional bilateral meetings during the semester.

The seminar process is as follows:

  1. Select state-of-the-art references relevant to the chosen topic, synthesize these references to identify research gaps, discuss and refine your approach with your topic reference person.
  2. Present your findings to the other participants of the seminar for the intermediate presentation.
  3. Synthesize the selected bibliographic references in a written 4 pages article, authored in LaTeX following ACM SIGCHI format.
  4. Define a user experiment within the chosen topic that is relevant with regard to existing research
  5. Discuss and refine your article with your topic reference person.
  6. Present your article in the final presentation session (end of semester)

Evaluation

The evaluation will be conducted by the topic reference person and the person responsible for the seminar.

The evaluation will be based on the quality of :

  • Your written article: readability, argumentation, English
  • Your review work: reference selection and field structure
  • Your final presentation
  • Your initial draft
  • Your review of a colleague's first draft

If each step described below is not formally marked, each contribute towards producing a good final paper

Date: Spring 2026