AXLE Lab
The AXLE Lab is an interdisciplinary research group within the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. We develop technology solutions to support, enhance, understand, and celebrate Ability in its many forms. The research we conduct aims to improve the quality of human lives through the thoughtful application of technology and social interventions.
Research areas
-
Human-Centered Sensing and Interfaces
We create novel interactive experiences and examine the complexities of interaction for people who represent the diversity of human ability, building input and output into the everyday and “smart” devices people already use — including wheelchairs and other mobility equipment.
-
Mobility and Autonomy
We design and study mobility services and devices through community- and participant-engaged methods, toward systems that are accessible, integrated, and equitable — across public transit, rideshare, scooter- and bike-share programs, ground-based delivery robots, and autonomous vehicles.
-
Participation and Performance in Sports and Recreation
We develop and study technology supports for full experiences in competitive activities and games, with current projects reducing barriers to participation and enhancing the experience of capturing and using analytics to achieve excellence.
-
Immersive Technology and Interaction
We work to improve the overall experience of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality applications, engaging the interaction challenges imposed by today’s immersive interfaces, with a special emphasis on the experience and representation of motion and mobility in these contexts.
Recent publications
2026
-
Metaphorically Spatial: A Formative Design Exploration of Lightweight Smartphone Audio Guidance
2026 · Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI 2026). ACM.
-
Skeleton: Visual Authoring of Non-visual Data Experiences
2026 · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2026). IEEE.Best Paper Award
-
Not Just Pockets: Understanding Phone-Carrying Behaviors of Wheelchair Users for Mobile Context-Awareness
2026 · Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction (MobileHCI 2026). ACM.
-
OSCBench: Benchmarking Object State Change in Text-to-Video Generation
2026 · Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2026), Volume 1: Long Papers. ACL.
-
The Three Praxes Framework: A Thematic Review and Map of Social Accessibility Research
2026 · Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026). ACM.
-
“I followed what felt right, not what I was told”: Autonomy, Coaching, and Recognizing Bias Through AI-Mediated Dialogue
2026 · Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026). ACM.
- DOI — “I followed what felt right, not what I was told”: Autonomy, Coaching, and Recognizing Bias Through AI-Mediated Dialogue
- PDF — “I followed what felt right, not what I was told”: Autonomy, Coaching, and Recognizing Bias Through AI-Mediated Dialogue
- arXiv — “I followed what felt right, not what I was told”: Autonomy, Coaching, and Recognizing Bias Through AI-Mediated Dialogue
-
From Autonomy to Sovereignty: A New Telos for Socially Assistive Technology
2026 · Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026). ACM.
-
Toward Softerware: Enabling Personalization of Interactive Data Representations for Users With Disabilities
2026 · IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
-
Pluriversal Approach to Co-designing Delivery Robots with People with Disabilities
2026 · Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2026). ACM/IEEE.Best Paper Honorable Mention
2025
-
“Accessibility People, You Go Work on That Thing of Yours over There”: Addressing Disability Inclusion in AI Product Organizations
2025 · Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2025). ACM/AAAI.