The Night of CHI27

September 11. The date I had been repeating to myself for so long had finally arrived. “Complete submission.” A comma at the end of everything, a moment to breathe. I went home, cooked dinner, did the laundry, and lay down as usual. But sleep would not come.

“Summer is over,” a friend said. In one sense, it was. The CHI manuscripts were submitted, and many friends would soon leave, returning to their universities or home countries to pick up the main threads of their lives. In another sense, it was not. Summer in Hong Kong would last another month. I would still be walking its sunlit streets with my shadow, wondering who would still be around to meet.

HCI has always been a field people argue about. As a newcomer, I am learning how to make research rigorous and inclusive while finding my footing amid dismissive attitudes toward the field and its career prospects. Sometimes I feel tired. Sometimes I lose heart. Sometimes I wonder whether what I do matters at all. What if a new model appears tomorrow and makes my research obsolete overnight?

Over time, research life can feel like a sheet of paper soaking in the basin where ink brushes are rinsed. Day after day, a little more gray seeps into it.

Recently, a participant with hearing loss brought some light into a corner of that life. I met her while helping a friend run a study. After the session, I walked her out through the workstations, crowded with machines and gadgets like some peculiar beehive. She paused in the automatic doorway, turned back, and smiled. “I feel like everyone here is a superbrain. You really are doing things that change the world.” The glass doors slowly closed, casting a pale tint over the hearing device at her hairline. Her final goodbye stayed on the other side. But “things that change the world” lodged in my mind. I kept returning to those words over the next few days.

The system she had tested was nowhere near a finished product. Even calling it a prototype felt generous. Yet every participant gave positive overall feedback. One said excitedly, “I feel like it is smarter than me!” Another asked when it would be available on their phone. None of this was what I had expected.

I began to wonder whether I had been arrogant. I had been so focused on scientific grounding, validation, and evaluation that I had left little room for these responses. Hearing what the system might mean to someone was more immediate, and more joyful, than I had anticipated. I felt like a robot with an empty battery, connected to a thin cable, happily drawing power again.

Back in my own project, that feeling was quieter. I returned to the familiar questions: Which method should I use? How should I analyze the data? Am I overclaiming? Still, one of the things I value most about HCI is the chance to encounter real people. Whether I am reading someone else’s reflections or meeting participants whose lives would otherwise never cross mine, these encounters open cracks in my enclosed thoughts and let unexpected colors in.

At a time when AI can quickly take over so much of our digital work, these encounters encourage me to hold on to my own judgment. To see, talk, touch, and experience things more directly.

Do something as though it could change the world.

Summer is over. There will be countless summers still to come.