Ali Rizvi

Research

I do applied HCI: how designed systems land in real institutions, and what that means for method. Schools, care homes, vans, card tables.

Doctorate

Thesis

Towards Design of Interaction Systems for Constrained Spaces. University of Waterloo, 2025, supervised by Mark Hancock. I study what happens when technology designed for large, stable environments is used in small, moving, improvised ones: vans, cockpits, classrooms, card tables. The work runs from field studies to physical artefacts.

Current

In progress

  • Proteus Card Deck: affordable, scalable, and familiar electronic cards. With Oliver Schneider and Mark Hancock. CHI PLAY 2026.
  • Designing supportive haptic technologies for NICU mothers. With M. Prakash, S. G. Sehl, Y. Li, T. S. Pawar, and C. MacArthur. In revision for DIS 2027.
  • A/B Testing IRL. Textbook chapter, Springer, 2026.
  • How field-site access strategies compound and transfer across studies. Methods paper for Graphics Interface 2026.

Published

Refereed papers

  • Rizvi, A. H. (2026). Embed, don't isolate: designing holistic dashboards for stigma-sensitive parent communication. ACM Interactive Health (IH '26). doi
  • Rizvi, A. H., & Hancock, M. (2024). Small spaces, many places: a phenomenological analysis of technology-mediated placemaking in small spaces. Graphics Interface (GI '24). doi
  • Rizvi, A. H., Morayko, K., Hancock, M., & Song, A. (2021). Provocations from #vanlife: investigating life and work in a community extensively using technology not designed for them. CHI 2021.
  • Rizvi, A. H., Singh, L. P., & Bhardwaj, A. (2009). Human integration matrix: an adaptive framework to enhance human systems integration in new product development. PICMET '09.
  • Rizvi, A. H., & Sachdeva, A. (2009). Optimization of retail clusters by improving individual store performance. PICMET '09.

Workshops

Workshop papers

  • Proteus Card Deck: enabling remote play with a physical card deck. CHI PLAY Companion 2024. doi
  • Considerations for experimental design within funnels. CSCW 2023.
  • Building an extensible ontology for voice user interfaces. CHI 2021.

Teaching

Courses taught

Nine courses at Waterloo between 2021 and 2024, across Global Business and Digital Arts and Management Sciences: Introduction to UX, Advanced UX Design and Research, the UX research seminar, the undergraduate capstone, Human-Computer Interaction, and Analytics and User Experience. Around 700 students from nine departments.

Community

Service

  • Reviewer for CHI, CSCW, and CUI, with outstanding-reviewer recognition at each.
  • Local Arrangements Chair, CHI PLAY 2023.
  • Programme Committee, Understanding and Evaluating UX Outcomes at Scale, CSCW 2024 workshop.
  • Elected member, Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Waterloo Games Institute, 2021–2022.