Kurzbeiträge

Info at a Glance

  • Submissions are due on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, AoE (Thursday, June 4, 2026, 2pm CEST) (NO EXTENSIONS).
  • Submission length is limited to 6 pages excluding references.
  • Submissions will be reviewed in a double-anonymous fashion.
  • Submissions can be submitted in English or German.
  • Submissions and camera-ready versions need to follow the respective ACM templates and the SIGCHI Accessibility guidelines.
  • Submissions are handled through Precision Conference.

Call for Short Papers – Theme “Transforming Interactions”

The “Mensch und Computer” (MuC) conference, established in 2001, is one of Europe’s leading conference series on Human-Computer Interaction, and the  2026 edition will be held in Duisburg.

This year’s theme, “Transforming Interactions,” highlights the relationships between societies and interactive technologies, along with their potential for transformations. The term “transforming,” as a verb, emphasizes the role of HCI researchers and practitioners in shaping individual, social, and collective interactions, while as an adjective, it prompts us to critically examine the transformational power of digital technologies.

We particularly invite contributions that explore how digital technologies influence individual, social, and societal changes, provide examples of interactive technologies that facilitate transformations, and critically reflect on the futures of interactions within HCI. However, contributions are not required to relate to this theme.

Contribution Types

The Short Paper track provides the Mensch und Computer community with an opportunity to present new and exciting contributions that showcase innovative technologies, extend prior research conversations, detail short self-contained studies, or provide provocations for new work and ideas to emerge. We welcome submissions around a diversity of topics and methodologies. Examples might include:

  • An original and innovative technology, technique, or prototype with or without an accompanying evaluation
  • A short qualitative or quantitative study with a complete analysis
  • A “sequel” to a prior research contribution
  • A “prequel” to motivate or provoke novel conversations or future work
  • A theoretical or methodological contribution that provokes novel conversations for the discipline

We encourage all members of the Mensch und Computer community and newcomers to submit Short Papers to elicit useful feedback, foster discussions, and share valuable and original ideas at the conference.

All Short Papers are formally reviewed and accepted submissions are published as semi-archival and might be extended for, e.g., a future full-paper submission.

Important Dates

All deadlines are set to Anywhere on Earth (AoE). In contrast to previous years, the deadline will not be extended at a later point. Please consider all dates and times final. 

Paper Submission: Wed, June 3, 2026 AoE (Thu, June 4, 2026, 2pm CEST) (NO EXTENSIONS)

Decision Notification: Wed, July 1, 2026 AoE (Thu, July 2, 2026, 2pm CEST)

Camera-Ready Deadline: Wed, July 22 , 2026 AoE (Thu, July 23, 2026, 2pm CEST)

Preparing and Submitting Your Short Paper

A Short Paper must be submitted via the PCS Submission System. The submission should comprise the paper itself and related metadata. It may also include an optional appendix and/or additional material. The following submission criteria apply: 

  • Paper. The primary submission material consists of an extended abstract in the ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column; up to 6 pages, excluding references).
  • Information that is essential to the understanding of the paper (e.g., study protocol, statistical analysis, etc.) has to be included in the main part of the paper and will count towards the page limit.
  • An optional appendix in the paper file can include further information for illustrative purposes.
  • Supplementary material files can be provided via ZIP upload. The materials are not part of the main text and not needed to understand it but may provide additional details, e.g., for replication, may be included in the supplementary material part (not in the main paper). As such, these do not count toward the page limit.
  • Papers can be submitted either in English or in German. German papers require an English subtitle and second abstract (not counting towards the page limit).

Please keep in mind that reviewers are not expected to consider any additional material. They do not have to check the appendix and supplementary material to get a good understanding of the potential study, analysis, or results.

Formatting

Submissions must be prepared using the LaTeX or Word templates from ACM. The correct template for submission is the single-column Word Submission Template or single-column LaTeX using \documentclass[manuscript,review,anonymous]{acmart}. We strongly encourage authors to familiarize themselves with the template early on. We recommend using the LaTeX template as it yields far fewer issues, which then require time-consuming debugging.

Einreichung

Full and short papers must be submitted via the Precision Conference system. Authors may submit and edit their materials until the submission deadline. Should you encounter any difficulties, technical problems, or questions about this process, please contact the Paper Chairs via papers@mensch-und-computer.de. 

Metadata Integrity

All submission metadata, including required fields in PCS like author names, affiliations, and order, must be complete and correct by the submission deadline. This information is crucial to the integrity of the review process and author representation. No changes to metadata after this deadline will be allowed.

Accessibility

Authors are expected to follow SIGCHI’s Guide to an Accessible Submission. If you have questions or concerns about creating accessible submissions, please contact the DEI & Accessibility Chairs via accessibility@mensch-und-computer.de early in the writing process (the closer to the deadline, the less time the team will have to respond to individual requests). Papers flagged as inaccessible by a reviewer will have to be reassigned. Note that while we strive to match the best reviewer to each paper – the best reviewers for the work may not be able to review an inaccessible submission.

Inclusivity

Submissions should be prepared with active consideration of the respectful use of language, particularly towards marginalized groups, particularly around gender and disability.

Anonymity

All submissions need to be fully anonymized. This includes any appendices, supplemental material, external links to datasets and code repositories, as well as a potential acknowledgments section. Relevant prior works of the authors must be cited explicitly, but we recommend using neutral phrasings (e.g., ‘As previously shown by…’ as opposed to ‘As we have shown previously…’). Reviewing will be conducted in a double-anonymous fashion, i.e., reviewers and authors are anonymous to each other. Papers that violate the anonymization policy will be desk rejected.

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary material may include, for example, videos, survey text, experimental protocols, source code, and data, all of which can help others replicate your work. Videos should include closed captions as well as audio descriptions; see Accessible Presentation Guide. Any non-video supplementary material should be submitted as a single .zip file, including a README file with a description of the materials. Reviewers should be able to assess the contribution of the paper solely based on the main PDF submission. That is, the paper submission must stand independently without the supplementary material. All supplementary material must be anonymized.

Research Involving Human Participants

As a researcher, you have an overriding obligation to protect participants’ welfare and safety and to ensure they are treated fairly and with respect. We recommended the following document by the European Commission on “Ethics in Social Science and Humanities” and “Research Ethics in Ethnography/Anthropology.” for a wider and deeper understanding of the underlying basic ethical principles. These include doing good (beneficence), avoiding doing harm (non-maleficence), and protecting the autonomy, well-being, safety, and dignity of all research participants. Moreover, all researchers involving participants must meet appropriate ethical and legal standards as outlined in the following document: ACM Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects.

Use of Generative Tools

All authors should be aware of the ACM Policy on Authorship, which articulates the authorized use of generative AI in submitted works. All authors are responsible for the content created by these tools, the use of the tools must be disclosed (e.g., in the acknowledgements), and the tool cannot be listed as an author. As such, authors are responsible for plagiarism, misrepresentation, fabrication, or falsification of content and/or references generated through the use of generative AI tools and could be sanctioned with penalties, such as a publication ban. We will investigate submissions brought to our attention and will reject papers where LLM use is not clearly marked.

Selection Process

Full Paper submissions are formally reviewed by international peer HCI researchers and practitioners. Papers can be either Accepted with minor revisions or Rejected; there will be no rebuttal or revision phase. The criteria for evaluation are as follows:

  • Contribution/Importance of the paper to Mensch und Computer: Does this work present research contributions or ideas that will stimulate interesting conversations among conference attendees?
  • Significance: How important is the problem or question that this submission addresses? Is there an audience at the conference that would find this work influential and/or compelling?
  • Originality/Novelty: How does the work build on or speak to existing work in the area? Does it make a novel contribution?
  • Correctness/Validity: How well are the chosen methods described and justified within the submission? Is the system or study easily accessible and reproducible by others?
  • Clarity: How clear, understandable, and targeted is the writing? To what extent does the submission conform to all requirements?

The submission should contain no sensitive, private, or proprietary information that cannot be disclosed at the time of publication. All submissions are considered confidential during the review. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity.

For a sustainable reviewing process, all authors are required to volunteer as reviewers for at least two papers via Precision Conference (Review > Volunteer to Review > Mensch und Computer).

Upon Acceptance of your Short Paper

Camera Ready Process

The publication-ready version has to follow the new LaTeX and Word templates from ACM and the TAPS workflow. Authors must add accessibility metadata to their PDF (see the SIGCHI Accessibility Guide for Authors). Should you need technical assistance, please direct your technical query to the proceedings chairs via proceedings@mensch-und-computer.de. Authors whose paper is written in German are required to provide an English abstract and title that accompany the German version. Papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library as open-access publications; MuC ‘26 will cover publication fees for institutions that do not have an open-access agreement with ACM.

At the Conference

For each accepted Short Paper and each Work-In-Progress paper, at least one author must attend the conference in person and present a poster in order for the paper to be included in the conference proceedings. Authors will be assigned a day and time to present their poster to conference attendees. Posters should include (1) the title of the Short paper or Work-In-Progress, the authors’ names, and affiliations, (2) a concise overview of the research, (3) clear illustrations of key aspects of the Short Papers or Work-In-Progress, and (4) a compelling visual design. Posters might also include QR codes to link to online materials (e.g., scenario videos, and interactive prototypes). At the conference, no power outlets, or any audiovisual/competing equipment will be provided for the poster presentations.

After the Conference

Accepted Short Papers will be distributed in the Mensch und Computer Conference Proceedings available in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide.