INTERACT 2025, which took place from 8 to 12 September in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is one of the most prestigious international conferences in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). As the 20th IFIP TC13 International Conference, it brings together researchers, practitioners, and academics to discuss current challenges and innovative solutions in HCI. Under the theme “Blending Experiences in Interaction Design”, the conference provided an ideal platform for presenting research on inclusive and accessible technologies – a central concern of the AutARK project.
Meinhardt Branig, David Gollasch, and Gerhard Weber attended the conference and organised a full-day workshop on 8 September together with international colleagues on the topic “Technology Design for and with Neurodivergent Users: Considerations from Research Practice”. The workshop was supported by the IFIP TC 13 Working Group 13.3 and provided space for critical reflection on existing design methods as well as exchange about neuroinclusive approaches in technology development.
Particularly noteworthy was the development since the last workshop at INTERACT 2023 in York: whilst two years ago the focus was still strongly on ADHD and neurodivergence in children and the participants were largely not affected themselves, this time the topic of autism in adulthood took centre stage. Above all, people who were themselves affected took part in the workshop, which led to authentic and valuable discussions and emphasised the importance of a first-person perspective in research.
As part of the workshop, David Gollasch and Meinhardt Branig presented the AutARK team’s work on supporting email communication. The developed MailSupport tool uses a locally running Large Language Model (LLM) to provide data protection-compliant support in interpreting emails, automatically extracting tasks and appointments, and assisting with composing replies. This assistive technology addresses concrete challenges faced by autistic people in their professional daily lives and generated great interest amongst workshop participants.
The joint hosting of INTERACT 2025 with the Brazilian IHC conference (XXIV Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems) enabled a particularly valuable exchange with researchers from Brazil. The topic of neurodiversity is also increasingly coming into focus at Brazilian universities, and interest in the workshop was surprisingly high. This international networking provides important impulses for further work in the AutARK project and underlines the global relevance of neuroinclusive technology development.
