XR for Challenging Environments

Motivation

Extended Reality (XR) combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize how professionals operate in Challenging Environments (CEs), ranging from emergency response and firefighting to advanced industrial manufacturing. These are contexts defined by a confluence of complexity, risk, and unpredictability that pushes human decision-making to its limits.

However, current research often fails to address the unique demands of embodied, mission-critical work. When stakes are high, systems cannot just be "seamless"—they must be resilient. We argue for three crucial shifts in perspective to bridge this gap:

Shift 01: Trust

From Generic Trust to Calibrated Trust

Moving beyond static trust to dynamic models that help professionals appropriately gauge reliance in real-time under duress.

Shift 02: Resilience

From Seamlessness to Resilience by Design

Rejecting brittle perfection in favor of systems that fail gracefully, ensuring the human remains the ultimate authority during breakdowns.

Shift 03: Explainability

From Transparency to Situated Explainability

Replacing complex text explanations with embodied cues integrated directly into the physical workspace and available at a glance.

Call for Participation

We invite researchers, practitioners, and domain experts to join us in building a cross-disciplinary community. Our goal is to identify key problems and co-create a shared research agenda for the next generation of mission-critical XR. This long-format, in-person workshop will focus on bridging the gap between foundational principles and domain-specific issues in embodied, mission-critical work.

Topics of Interest

We welcome submissions that address the three proposed shifts (Trust, Resilience, Explainability) or other relevant themes, including but not limited to:

The Augmented Professional: Measuring cognitive load, skill evolution, and human agency in high-stakes contexts.
Resilient Systems: Design patterns for graceful failure ("resilience by design") and robust interaction.
Situated Explanations: Multi-modal feedback and embodied XAI for hands-free work.
Prototype to Practice: Sociotechnical challenges of adoption in fields like medicine, manufacturing, and public safety.
Trust Calibration: Methods for measuring and modeling trust in real-time high-stress scenarios.
Collabration: Human-AI teaming, XR-based teleoperation and remote embodiment.
Case Studies: Experiences and lessons learned from emergency response, industry, and other challenging environments.

Submission Details

We solicit 2–4 page position papers (excluding references). Submissions may present novel concepts, empirical findings, design provocations, or case studies.

Format: ACM Master Article Submission Template (Single Column).

Review Process: All submissions will be peer-reviewed (single-blind) by the organizers based on quality, relevance, and their potential to stimulate discussion.

Publication: With author consent, accepted papers will be published as open-access proceedings on platforms such as arXiv or CEUR-WS.

Note: At least one author of each accepted submission must register for and attend the workshop in person to present their work.

Submission Deadline: February 12, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: Early March 2026
Workshop Date: April 2026 (at CHI)

→ Link to Paper Submission System (Easychair)

Workshop Schedule

A full-day, highly interactive workshop designed to move from problem mapping to a concrete research agenda.

Session 1: Framing the Challenges
14:00	Welcome & Introduction: Framing the workshop topic and the three seismic shifts
14:15	Lightning Talks: Leading experts presents real-world, high-stakes challenges
14:30	Breakout 1 ‐ Design for the Future: Groups sketch out future scenarios
15:10	Plenary 1 ‐ Results from the Future: Groups present and discuss their artifacts
15:30	Coffee Break
Session 2: Envisioning & Agenda Setting
15:45	Breakout 2 ‐ Backcasting the Path: Groups create a 10-year timeline of necessary research breakthroughs
16:30	Plenary 2 ‐ Synthesizing the Grand Challenges: Discussion and Creation of a joint research agenda
17:00	Summary & Next Steps: Synthesizing the "Grand Challenges" for the co-authored vision paper