Master’s Project Accepted to the DIS 2026 Student Research Competition
Three MSc students at the Zurich People and Computing Lab, Sina Krumhard, Fabio Luca Haussener, and Lukas Huber had their master’s project SaferRave – Designing for Reflection and Awareness in Recreational Substance Use accepted to the Student Research Competition at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Conference 2026. As part of the competition, they presented their work as a poster at the conference, and their contribution was published in the ACM Digital Library – Congratulations! 🎉
The project explores how digital technologies can improve access to reliable information and support from drug checking services. The authors designed, developed, and evaluated an educational mobile application that offers anonymous, low-threshold access to trustworthy information for people who use recreational substances. Beyond presenting the application, their work shows how human-centered design can foster trust and help users feel heard and understood when engaging with sensitive and stigmatized topics.
The work contributes to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research by demonstrating how digital interventions can support harm reduction through accessible, trustworthy, and human-centered design. It further highlights the importance of designing technologies that not only provide reliable information but also create supportive user experiences for people engaging with sensitive topics. The work was supervised by Nimra Ahmed.
Link to the publication: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3802974.3810893