Mingming Fan

Multi-step decision-making tasks, such as booking a hospital appointment, on mobile devices present a two-fold challenge for blind and low vision (BLV) users: they might struggle to gather relevant information and make informed decisions, as screen readers present task-relevant elements sequentially alongside irrelevant ones. We present FocalFlow, an LLM-powered system that (1) decomposes tasks into actionable subtasks and provides an error recovery process, (2) dynamically filters out task-irrelevant information while preserving the original interface layout, and (3) utilizes progressive disclosure to present critical information first, with decision-support details available on demand. Our evaluation with twelve BLV participants demonstrated that FocalFlow enables them to engage in more deliberate decision-making. We then discuss design implications for future non-visual systems to balance automated information curation with user agency.

1. Inclusive design aims to create products and services that are accessible and usable by the widest possible range of people, yet its success depends on bridging the “empathy gap” between designe...

1. Immersive environments (VR/AR) (Billinghurst and Nebeling, 2021; Azuma, 1997; Speicher et al., 2019) are increasingly adopted across design, education, and entertainment. However, content creati...

1. Group collaboration has become a central approach for addressing multifaceted problems and advancing decision-making processes. In classroom group discussions, design critique sessions, or proje...

Target selection is a fundamental interaction task in virtual reality (VR) systems, particularly for older adults who face unique challenges due to age-related declines in motor and cognitive abilities. While controller-based raycasting is widely used for its accuracy and efficiency, the design of selection feedback remains an open question, particularly in enhancing usability and accessibility for aging populations. In this study, we propose seven feedback techniques, including three uni-modal (visual, audio, haptic) and four multimodal (visual-audio, visual-haptic, audio-haptic, visual-audio-haptic) approaches. To evaluate these techniques, we conducted two user studies focusing on selection tasks in controlled and realistic scenarios. Our results indicate that visual-based feedback, particularly expansion techniques, significantly improves selection accuracy and user experience. Moreover, multimodal feedback does not always yield better performance; rather, a combination of visual and haptic feedback provides the most effective balance between usability and cognitive load. Based on our findings, we derive six design implications to guide the development of VR selection feedback tailored to older adults. This work contributes to the understanding of optimal selection feedback mechanisms, promoting more inclusive and accessible VR interactions for aging users.

This paper proposes a decolonial approach to interactive music performance grounded in Chinese everyday life. Responding to critiques that dominant interaction models and evaluation norms often reflect Western legacies, we design locally situated digital musical instruments (DMIs) that treat domestic routines as primary interface logic. Our embodied performance system, To Perform/To Live , repurposes familiar objects used in Chinese women’s daily lives: an abacus, a vegetable washing basin, a soup pot, a fan, and a massage hammer. Across three stages, performers transform counting, soup-making, and restoration gestures into musical control through tempo, pressure, repetition, and pause, rendering gendered labor audible without romanticizing it. After each performance, we extend the work through human–AI co-creation: recorded audio is analyzed to generate a terrain-like surface, 3D printed as a tactile disk that encodes the performance for touch and re-performance. We contribute a China-situated decolonial DMI strategy, a feminist sonic practice of performable labor, and the E2E framework linking embodied knowledge to AI-enabled material extensions.