Work-In-Progress

General Information

The Work-in-Progress track in TEI 2026 is the venue for presenting cutting-edge findings, front-line innovations, or thought-provoking work that is relevant to the TEI community, and truly in progress. Work-in-Progress provides a unique opportunity to share ideas, elicit feedback on early-stage work, and foster discussions and collaborations among colleagues.

We encourage researchers and practitioners to submit intermediate reports on high-potential, original, imaginative research projects. We welcome promising results, early prototypes, inspiring problems and ideas, puzzling research data, outstanding problems, horizons, and conceptual analyses that are all grounded in solid – yet unfinished – research and design work. We encourage tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction projects that, although in progress today, promise to become hotly debated breakthroughs in the future.

Contribution types

Work-in-Progress submissions should present high-quality original work relevant to the TEI community. Topics and application areas are diverse, including tangible user interfaces, physical interaction design, flexible and shape-changing displays, haptic interaction, smart objects and environments, interactive surfaces, augmented and mixed reality, ubiquitous computing, interactive art and performance, social and wearable robotics, hybrid games, embodied cognition and perception, fashion and material design, furniture and architectural design, learning and education, music and sound interfaces, human-augmentation, as well as productivity and creativity tools in domains ranging from scientific exploration to artistic practice.

All WiP submissions are semi-archival. Authors may re-use and re-submit the content to other peer-reviewed venues (e.g., could be reused in a future TEI full paper submission).

TEI Ethical Research Statement

As a TEI community, we follow the ACM ethical research guidelines and adhere to the ACM policy of involving human participants. Authors are encouraged to include details in the methodology section on participants' recruitment, selection, and consent. Deviations or novel considerations should be discussed, when different from typical practice. Some examples include:

• A clear statement on whether the study involved human participants, if this is the case
• Details on how participants were recruited and selected
• An explanation of the consent process (e.g., whether participants provided informed consent, what information was shared with them, and how consent was documented).
• A description of how participants were treated during the research.
• Information on data handling and sharing, including how privacy and confidentiality were addressed.
• Any additional ethical considerations relevant to participant involvement?
• Information on ethical approval, including the name of the institutional review board or ethics committee, if applicable.

For details, please consult the ACM guidelines below:

1. ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:
   https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics
2. ACM Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects:
   https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/research-involving-human-participants-and-subjects

Submission guidelines

Submissions consist of a paper and an optional video. Upon acceptance, authors will be asked to provide a publication-ready copy that includes this information, along with any recommended improvements as suggested by the reviewers. Details for each process stage are indicated below (submissions for review and presentation material to submit after the paper is accepted).

MATERIAL TO SUBMIT FOR REVIEW

Submissions should be up to 8 pages long in the ACM Primary Article Template (single column submission format, same as full papers), not including references. Submissions are anonymous and should not include any author names, affiliations, and contact information.

SUPPORTING MATERIALS FOR PRESENTATION

Given the emphasis on tangible interaction at TEI, the paper should explicitly reference (at least) one of the following tangible expressions that you can eventually bring to the conference for presentation. More than one of these expressions is possible, and you can choose a format that best represents your current thinking and recent insights:

• A physical prototype/demo (provide pictures in the paper);
• Audiovisual footage of user testing and/or ethnographic materials (provide link or video stills in the paper);
• A visualization of a pivotal diagram, model, or framework you are developing, possibly with earlier versions to show its evolution (provide link to hi-res version, Prezi, or visual animation if so needed);
• Design-research probes or other kinds of tangible objects, toolkits, materials, research equipment that significantly contributed to your work and which you can physically bring and display at TEI (provide pictures on paper);
• A video of your design/research process may help communicate your concept (if included, please provide a link in the paper).

SUBMISSION AND REVIEW PROCESS

All submissions must be made via Precision Conference (PCS).

Submissions will be reviewed in a double-blind process by two reviewers (one committee member and one external reviewer), and a final decision will be consolidated with a meta-review after a discussion among the committee members.

Work-in-Progress submissions will be reviewed based on the following criteria:

• The work is truly 'in-progress';
• The work presents a 'tangible expression of the research' that can be physically displayed at the conference;
• Relevance for conference theme;
• Overall quality (given a Work-in-Progress: potential impact, research/design approach);
• Uniqueness (innovativeness, added value);
• Potential to enrich and provoke discussion.

PRESENTATION FORMAT

All accepted submissions will showcase their WiP paper as an A1 poster (594mm x 841mm), together with the tangible expression (prototype, video, probes, etc.) at the TEI conference. You are encouraged to include a barcode or tag in your poster to support mobile access to online versions and auxiliary materials for your work. Note that space is limited. Your tangible device can be displayed in the space in front of the poster. No tables are guaranteed, but we can ensure electric power and Wi-Fi.

TEI2026 is planned to offer a hybrid experience for certain programs. While only in-person attendance can provide the full 'tangible and embodied' experience, the Work-in-Progress track will provide options for authors to present either in-person OR remotely (physical poster presentation with tangible expression + live Q&A, tentatively).

The accepted authors will later be asked for their final plan of the presentation format (in-person/remote) at the conference, while this is not asked for or considered through the reviewing process.

[updated Sep 25 - Optional Demo Presentation] In addition to the poster presentation, TEI2026 invites accepted WiP authors for an optional in-person demo presentation during the conference reception. Based on the preferred presentation format indicated on the PCS, the committee will determine the presentation format, considering both the quality of the work and logistical availability. Authors will be notified if they are invited for the demo after acceptance.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Confidentiality of submissions will be maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference.

ATTENDANCE

One author of each accepted submission must register for the conference by the early registration deadline for the final Work-in-Progress paper to be published in the conference proceedings.

TAPS procedure

Further details on the TAPS publication procedure, what happens after acceptance of your paper? Read the following page carefully if you have not yet done so: https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions For papers to be published via TAPS, the following steps will take place:

• Some time after you submit the copyright form that you received from ACM, you will receive an email from TAPS asking you to upload your source files and supplementary files to TAPS.
• We strongly suggest using the LaTeX template instead of the Word template for preparing the camera-ready (TAPS) version. Finalizing the submission using the Word template/workflow has caused authors some frustration. Please use the ACM Master Article Class and the included template. It does not matter which documentclass you choose because TAPS will automatically apply \documentclass[sigconf]{acmart} to your source.
• If you are using the Word template, please prepare and submit your camera-ready version as a single-column manuscript by following these ACM provided guidelines: https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions
• Prepare your source files and pack them into a ZIP file that follows the directory structure shown on the TAPS page. Note: You are also required to submit PDF version of your paper. However, this PDF is just for troubleshooting – all content for the Digital Library is compiled directly from the sources.
• Upload the ZIP file either via the upload form on the TAPS page (only for small files) or by uploading it to the external service linked on the TAPS page.
• TAPS will check whether the sources are valid and can be compiled. After some time the TAPS page will either show you a success message or an error message (you need to check the page manually from time to time).
• In the latter case, you will be given an error log. Please fix all issues and upload the ZIP file again until the manuscript compiles successfully.
• Once upload and compilation are completed successfully, you need to check whether PDF and HTML versions were generated correctly. Please check whether author names, figures, equations, references, etc. are rendered correctly in both formats. If not, click the "reject" radio button in order to upload a new version.
• Once you are satisfied with the results, please click the "approve" radio button.
• The proceedings chairs will check your submission for completeness and obvious formatting problems. If there are changes required, they will contact the corresponding author by email. Further documentation on what TAPS is, can be found here: new ACM workflow.

Examples of previous work-in-progress

Work-in-Progress papers from the past three years of TEI:

• Jon Rogers, Justin Marshall, Jayne Wallace, Tom Metcalfe, Nick Taylor, Romit Raj, Jayn Verkerk, and Philip Heslop. 2025. PegBits: Experimenting with a 0.1" system for open hardware prototyping. https://doi.org/10.1145/3689050.3705978
• Hongci Hu, Mengqi Jiang, Kai Lin, Kinor Shou-xiang Jiang, and Ziqian Bai. 2025. ReKnit-Care: A Seamless-Knitted Sensing Glove for Sensory Rehabilitation and Adaptive Haptic Feedback. https://doi.org/10.1145/3689050.3705979
• Yifan Li, Ryo Takahashi, Wakako Yukita, Kanata Matsutani, Cedric Caremel, Yuhiro Iwamoto, Sunghoon Lee, Tomoyuki Yokota, Takao Someya, and Yoshihiro Kawahara. 2025. Plug-n-play e-knit: prototyping large-area e-textiles using machine-knitted magnetically-repositionable sensor networks. https://doi.org/10.1145/3689050.3705973
• Konrad Fabian, Dennis Wittchen, and Paul Strohmeier. 2024. 3D-Printed Cells for Creating Variable Softness. DOI: 10.1145/3623509.3635249
• Kaja Seraphina Elisa Hano and Valkyrie Savage. 2024. Hybrid Crochet: Exploring Integrating Digitally-Fabricated and Electronic Materials with Crochet. DOI: 10.1145/3623509.3635257
• Jules Sinsel, Anniek Jansen, and Sara Colombo. 2023. Facebook Data Shield: Increasing Awareness and Control over Data used by Newsfeed-Generating Algorithms. DOI: 10.1145/3569009.3573116
• Xinyi Yang, Susanna Chen, Katarina Bulovic, Junyi Zhu, and Stefanie Mueller. 2023. Azimuth Calculation and Telecommunication between VR Headset and Smartphones for Nearby Interaction. DOI: 10.1145/3569009.357310

Associate Chairs

We sincerely thank all our Associate Chairs for their dedication and invaluable contributions to the review process and to the success of the Work-in-Progress track at TEI 2026. Their expertise and commitment are essential to ensuring the quality and diversity of our program.

Name (alphabetical order)	Affiliation	Email
Ayush Bhardwaj	University of Texas at Dallas	ayush.bhardwaj@utdallas.edu
Martijn ten Bhömer	Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University	martijn.tenbhomer@xjtlu.edu.cn
Silvia Cazacu	KU Leuven	silvia.cazacu-bucica@kuleuven.be
Zeya Chen	Institute of Design (ID), Illinois Institute of Technology	zchen103@hawk.illinoistech.edu
Yijing Jiang	Aarhus University	y.jiang@cs.au.dk
Daphna Kaplan	Technion Intitute of Technology, Israel	daphnakaplan@campus.technion.ac.il
Danli Luo	University of Washington	danlil@uw.edu
Eddy Zexin Liang	Apple	eddyzexin.liang@gmail.com
Qiuyu Lu	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	qiuyulu@me.com
Ziyi Liu	Purdue University	liu1362@purdue.edu
Hanuma Teja Maddali	University of Maryland	hanumatejamaddali@gmail.com
Hila Mor	UC Berkeley	hilamor@berkeley.edu
Amy Melniczuk	Carnegie Mellon University	amelnicz@andrew.cmu.edu
Ziyue Piao	McGill University	ziyue.piao@mail.mcgill.ca
Sarah Delgado Rodriguez	Bundeswehr University	sarah.delgado@unibw.de
Yatharth Singhal	UT Southwestern Medical Center	yatharth.singhal@utsouthwestern.edu
Shyama Sastha Krishnamoorthy Srinivasan	IIIT-Delhi	shyamas@iiitd.ac.in
Yue Yang	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	yangyuedesign@gmail.com
Lina Zhang	City University of Hong Kong	linazhang8-c@my.cityu.edu.hk
Yunyi Zhu	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	yunyizhu@mit.edu

Work-in-Progress Chairs

wip_chairs2026@tei.acm.org

Liang He

UT Dallas

Rong-Hao Liang

TU/e

For further questions, please contact the Work-In-Progress chairs at wip_chairs2026@tei.acm.org