UIST 2026 Social (community-driven)

• UIST 2026 Social (community-driven)
  • What you can do
  • Get started
    • 1. Open the app
    • 2. Introduce yourself
    • 3. Find people
    • 4. Join a conversation
    • 5. Build your schedule
    • 6. Host an event
  • Change the app yourself
    • Make a change with AI
  • What others can see
  • Who made it
  • Questions and feedback

Meet other attendees, chat during sessions, and organize meetups. UIST 2026 Social is made by attendees and runs in your phone or laptop browser—no installation needed. It is a community project, independent of the conference organizers and ACM.

Open the app

What you can do

• Chat: Join a room’s conversation or talk with everyone in The Hallway Track.
• People: Find attendees by name, research interest, or paper.
• Program: Browse talks, build your schedule, and host events.

Use the SIGCHI program app for the official schedule and People’s Choice voting.

Get started

Screenshots use fictional profiles.

1. Open the app

Visit uist.acm.org/2026/social/app. You can read chats and browse the program without an account. Use the globe menu to choose English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, German, or Danish.

2. Introduce yourself

Tap Log in, then sign in or create a Graffiti account. You’ll return to the app to fill in your profile.

Add your name and research interests, plus a photo, pronouns, or papers if you like. To let others know you’re open to chatting, choose Yes! I want to meet other researchers and add how to reach you. Your profile is public.

3. Find people

Open People to search profiles by name, research interest, or paper title. Filter for people who are open to chat or presenting at the conference. Tap Let’s chat! on a profile to see how to reach them.

4. Join a conversation

Each venue room has a chat showing its current session. Tap the room name to switch rooms, or choose The Hallway Track for general conversation. All messages lets you read across rooms; choose a room to post.

Type a message and tap the arrow to send it. You can also:

• React to messages with emoji.
• Use Meet after or Clarify to start a message.
• Tap ＋ to add an image, emoji, or poll.
• Choose Ask the speaker to post a question. Anyone in the room can mark it as answered.

5. Build your schedule

In Program, choose a day and open a session. Tap the calendar button beside a session or talk to add it to your schedule. The app flags overlapping selections.

Turn on My schedule to see your selections, or use Download calendar to open them in your calendar app. Open a talk to read its abstract, like it, leave a comment, or view the paper in the ACM Digital Library.

6. Host an event

Have a lunch meetup or lab dinner planned? Once you’ve created a profile, go to Program → ＋ Host an event, fill in the details, and tap Publish event. All times are in Detroit time.

Choose who can see it:

• Everyone: Visible to all attendees in the program.
• Invited people: Visible only to the people whose usernames you list.
• Just me: A private entry in your schedule.

The event is added to your schedule automatically. Guests can tap Going to join and use the event chat to arrange details. Use Share to copy a link, including for people who haven’t used the app yet.

As the host, you can edit or cancel the event and add co-hosts or a sign-up link.

Change the app yourself

This app is malleable!! It means you can change how it looks and works. You can fix a bug, add a feature, or try a different design, either by editing the code yourself or asking an AI to help!

Your published changes appear in your own version immediately. Everyone else sees the shared version until an admin—Theia Henderson or Ryan Yen—reviews and publishes your change for everyone. The editor’s History tab records changes and lets you restore an earlier version.

Make a change with AI

1. Tap Edit this site on the home page (Edit on a phone), then Continue to editor.
2. In the Social.Wiki editor, choose Edit with AI.
3. Describe your change, such as “Add a dark mode switch,” and tap Copy instructions.
4. Paste the instructions into ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI chatbot. Copy its full response back into the editor.
5. Check the preview. When you’re happy with it, log in and publish with a short note describing the change.

Prefer to code directly? Choose Edit in the browser or Use a local editor. Choose Duplicate to make a separate copy of the app.

What others can see

• Public: Profiles, room chat messages, reactions, and the talks you mark as going. Anyone on the internet can read these.
• Invited people only: Invitation-only events and their chats.
• Only you: Events marked Just me.

You can delete your messages and remove your profile from the People page. Your data is stored by Graffiti, not the conference website.

Who made it

Theia Henderson started the app by adapting an earlier conference app built with Social.Wiki. Ryan Yen helped out integrating it with UIST program. You can contribute too—see Change the app yourself.

The app builds on two research systems:

• Social.Wiki lets people edit the websites they use. Read “Social.Wiki: A Web Held in Common” (UIST 2026) or see the code on GitHub.
• Graffiti handles accounts and stores profiles, messages, and other app data. Read “Graffiti: Enabling an Ecosystem of Personalized and Interoperable Social Applications” (UIST 2025, Best Paper).

Questions and feedback

Post questions, suggestions, or problems in The Hallway Track. The app is an ongoing experiment, and features may change during the conference.