Laurianne Sitbon

This meet-up will bring together members of the ACM SIGIR Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR) community and the broader CHI audience to strengthen cross-community dialogue on interactive information retrieval (IIR), search interfaces, and human-centered evaluation methods. Through structured activities, networking opportunities, and collaborative brainstorming, the session aims to identify common challenges, inspire collaborations, and chart a forward-looking research agenda that connects CHI and CHIIR communities.

This study explores how adults with intellectual disabilities anthropomorphise social robots and construct their identities during interactions. We conducted a qualitative analysis of video data from two previous studies involving adults interacting with two robots, Pepper (a humanoid) and Cozmo (a small, toy-like robot). Using inductive thematic analysis, we examined how anthropomorphic design influenced participants’ perceptions, expectations, and social behaviours. Our findings reveal that participants readily attributed human-like qualities and identities (such as friend, companion, or learning facilitator) to the robots, shaping their interactions accordingly. Pepper’s human-like appearance raised user expectations, occasionally leading to frustration when those expectations were unmet. Conversely, Cozmo’s playful, non-humanoid design set lower expectations. Reciprocity and mirroring emerged as critical to rapport-building, while gender attribution and social roles were dynamically constructed by participants. We discuss practical implications for inclusive robot design, emphasizing the alignment of appearance with capability, clear reciprocal signals, and adaptable interaction modalities. This research advances our understanding of robo-identity, highlighting its fluidly constructed nature and offering insights into designing robots that meaningfully engage adults with intellectual disabilities.

Previous studies indicate that people with intellectual disability are interested in information about their daily life experiences. However, their information behavior has not been examined in relation to their executive function. In this article, we characterize the participants’ health information interests, preferred sources, and search experiences, in relation to their executive function reported through shopping-related activities. A total of 39 participants, aged 19–59 years, who could verbally communicate their daily-life information-seeking experiences were included in the survey. Data was collected using an accessible survey delivered through structured interviews by a researcher familiar with the participants. The quantitative data was used for bar chart creation and cluster analysis. The k -means cluster analysis grouped participants into two distinct clusters; within each cluster, the participant characteristics concerning preferred health information sources, highest educational attainment, and independence in shopping-related functions (functional independence) were found to be homogeneous. Participants who were independent in all four shopping-related functions had vocational training and reported accessing health information from the Internet and chemists. The study highlights that digital independence is linked to the participants’ functional independence. This behavior approach offers novel insights into user profiling, moving beyond traditional IQ-based models, which may guide inclusive technology solutions.