German Pre-CHI 2026: HAII at LMU Munich

From March 18 to 20, 2026, our group attended the sixth edition of German Pre-CHI, hosted this year at LMU Munich. The event brought together researchers from Germany and neighboring countries to present and discuss work accepted to CHI 2026, which will take place next month in Barcelona. As the leading international conference in Human-Computer Interaction, CHI is an important forum for sharing new research, and German Pre-CHI offered a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas, receive feedback, and prepare for the conference.

Spanning two and a half days, the event featured a keynote talk, paper presentations, posters, demos, and informal discussions. Hosted by the Media Informatics Group, German Pre-CHI created a welcoming setting in which researchers at different career stages could engage with current HCI work and connect across institutions. The event began immediately after the ACM PerDis closing. The opening day included a lab tour of LMU Munich’s Media Informatics group, followed by a poster and demo session that encouraged direct exchange and early feedback.

The demos included a wide range of setups and prototypes, from VR experiences to interactive displays. One that stood out in particular was a fully equipped kitchen with ceiling-mounted rails and robotic arms that could move around the space to assist with everyday tasks. It quickly became a conversation starter and offered a fascinating glimpse into how AI might move beyond our screens and into our physical homes to support daily living.

The next two days featured presentations across multiple sessions covering a broad range of topics, from XR interaction to AI acceptance and human–system interaction. One highlight of the program was the “poster madness” session, in which authors pitched their work in 60 seconds or less before the poster session. This format helped attendees quickly identify the work that interested them most and engage more effectively in the discussions that followed.

We were particularly engaged by the paper titled “Campus AI vs. Commercial AI: Comparing How Students and Employees Perceive their University’s LLM Chatbot vs. ChatGPT,” presented by Leon Hannig, a colleague from the Research Center for Trustworthy Data Science and Security. This study is both timely and relevant, highlighting the use of large language models (LLMs) and how they are perceived in the student community.

Soumik Bhattacharjee, PhD student at HAII, was especially intrigued by the paper “AirForce,” presented by Lukas Rambold from the Hasso Plattner Institute during the session on Haptics, Fabrication, and Physical Interaction. He was fascinated by the creative use of inflatables for robotic actuation, noting, “the scale and application of the project inspired me to explore their earlier work, trying to connect between fabrication techniques and my own research.”

Thursday concluded with a social dinner at the Löwenbräukeller, where participants enjoyed traditional Bavarian cuisine and continued conversations beyond the formal program.

The final day concluded with a celebratory summary of the German HCI community’s impressive contribution to CHI 2026. We also got the exciting news that the torch is being passed to TU Darmstadt, which will host German Pre-CHI from April 7 to 9, 2027.

While many of our team used the event to gain insight into the latest trends in HCI research, Prof. Sven Mayer also served as session chair for the Human-System Interaction session on Thursday afternoon. For early-career researchers in particular, German Pre-CHI provided a close-up view of the quality, scope, and ambition of current CHI work. Beyond the presentations themselves, the event offered insight into the culture of the field, how conference contributions are prepared, presented, and discussed within the HCI research. Its open atmosphere also made it easier to reconnect with familiar faces and start new conversations with potential future collaborators.

We left Munich feeling academically recharged and socially energized. We are grateful to the organizers at LMU Munich for bringing the community together in such a welcoming format and look forward to continuing many of these conversations at CHI 2026 in Barcelona.