iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

YY Teng @yyteng.com · 13/09/2026

This is the opening of a conversation. We'd love for researchers to test, extend, and challenge our frame.

YY Teng @yyteng.com · 13/09/2026

technologies built by/for sighted users encode visual logic as the default, leaving BLV collaborators to negotiate with a medium that was never theirs. The way forward, we argue, is grounding infrastructure that supports differing processes and representations without privileging the visual frame.

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 13/09/2026

We analyze assistive tech across three media: face-to-face, digital documents, and freeform GUIs. Developmental Flourishing depends on the process of building shared understanding that is continuous, bidirectional, and emergent. But a structural resistance cuts across all three media:

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 13/09/2026

When a blind person and a sighted person work together, the challenge isn't making sure they both get the same information. They each make sense of things differently. So the real question is: how can technology support not getting the task done, but helping people truly construct meaning together?

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 13/09/2026

At #CHI2026, we (w/ Darren Gergle) proposed a new frame, Developmental Flourishing: assistive technology not for access, but through which blind and low-vision (BLV) people explore, create, and make meaning. At #CSCW2026, we share a sequel on mixed-ability collaboration (preprint: on my website).

Front page of the paper "Developmental Flourishing in Mixed-Ability Collaboration" to appear in CSCW2026 Companion.

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Reposted by YY Teng

Jessica Hullman @jessicahullman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Nice post from @eytan.adar.prof on the cargo cult science of "AI-native" PhD students, who come in super productive because they perform all major parts of research with genAI. No one needs all these quick papers, and they can really hurt students down the road. eytanadar.medium.com/ai-native-ph...

eytanadar.medium.com

AI-Native PhD Students

If you’re a student and just want the tl;dr, feel free to jump to the end.

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 28/08/2026

✈️ I'm in Atlanta, Georgia (8/29–9/2), attending the ACM AI Leadership Summit. My research advances human-AI technologies that support human developmental flourishing by focusing on the process (not just the outputs) of creativity and problem-solving. If you'll be there, I'd love to connect.

yyteng.com

YY Teng — HCI Researcher & Architect

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 16/04/2026

#CHI2026 Today 2:15pm📍Green Zone #8! Our poster "Access Is Not Enough: Toward Developmental Flourishing." Two versions: one visual, one OCR-optimized. If BLV folks have a different process, the poster should too. Come debate: What is the purpose of assistive technology, and how?

CHI poster design with two versions. On the left is a visually rich design featuring colors, images, and a diagrammatic layout. On the right is a version optimized for OCR legibility, where subsections are sequentially numbered and the text uses a monospace, OCR-friendly font.

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Reposted by YY Teng

Jessica Hullman @jessicahullman.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

In “Six Memos for the Next Millenium”, Italo Calvino distilled six literary virtues he felt should endure regardless of how the world changed. As we enter an age of automated evaluation & production of science, what are the parallel epstemic virtues we should try to preserve? We want your input! 🧵

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Reposted by YY Teng

Jessica Hullman @jessicahullman.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

If you're a faculty, research scientist, postdoc, or senior PhD in any area of science, select your top 6 virtues at this link: shorturl.at/bV2lF You can also tell us if you think we missed any. We want broad participation, so pls RT! 🙏 In collab w/@devezer.bsky.social @statmodeling.bsky.social

shorturl.at

Epistemic Virtues for Scientific Inquiry — Community Survey

In Six Memos for the Next Millenium, Italo Calvino proposed six literary virtues he felt should be preserved and cultivated in literature regardless of how the world changed: lightness, quickness, exa...

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 12/04/2026

Stop by, we'd love to hear what you think: 📍Green Zone, #8 🕐 Thursday, April 16, 2:15pm Darren Gergle will be there in person. I am joining the conversation via video, audio, and text. Paper preprint is linked on my website: www.yyteng.com/pub.html (5/5)

yyteng.com

Publications — YY Teng

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 12/04/2026

Embodiment as Communication, Evolving-through-use System. Each has concrete implications for how we design interactions, structure sensory loops, and architect adaptive systems. We raise more questions than we answer. We're hoping for a real conversation about where the field orients next. (4/5)

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 12/04/2026

that are valuable and authentic to the individuals. Access and flourishing can co-occur. The field needs both orientations, and right now we are overlooking one. The new frame demands paradigm shifts in process and system design. We distill 3 shifts: Interface as Cognitive Representation, (3/5)

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 12/04/2026

something fundamental: the process. “Developmental flourishing” positions assistive technologies not as end goals, but as means for exploratory, creative, and sensemaking processes that give activities their depth and personal significance. Technologies should expand capabilities (2/5)

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YY Teng @yyteng.com · 12/04/2026

"Access Is Not Enough", we need a new frame. At #CHI2026, we share an opinion paper at Thursday’s poster session that reorients assistive technology toward “Developmental Flourishing.” The “access” frame has driven important advances, but measuring success by outcome equivalence overlooks (1/5)

front page of the paper titled "Access Is Not Enough: Toward Developmental Flourishing" by Yuanyang (YY) Teng and Darren Gergle, Northwestern University

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