Presentation at CHI 2026: "The Digital Attention Heuristics" (TOCHI paper)
Yesterday, I presented our paper “The Digital Attention Heuristics: Supporting the User’s Attention by Design” at CHI 2026 (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) in Barcelona, Spain. The paper was published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) and invited for presentation at this year’s conference.
The research, led by myself and Luigi De Russis from Politecnico di Torino, in collaboration with Kai Lukoff from Santa Clara University, introduces a set of eight design heuristics aimed at preserving user attention and fostering digital wellbeing. The heuristics are grounded in Self-Determination Theory, addressing the three core psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Unlike traditional digital wellbeing interventions that place the burden of digital self-control on users — think screen time dashboards and app timers — our work shifts the focus to designers, offering actionable heuristics to create interfaces that respect users’ attention and time by default. We argue that users should not be solely responsible for their own digital wellbeing: instead of using tech to limit tech, we should design attention-respecting tech from the ground up.
The eight Digital Attention Heuristics are:
- H1 — Promote user sense of agency: support users’ self-regulation and let them control content and interaction flows
- H2 — Informed usage sessions: help users set intentions before and reflect after usage sessions
- H3 — Balance goal-directed & ritualistic uses: accommodate both purposeful and casual browsing without exploiting the latter
- H4 — Customization: allow users to tailor the interface to their needs and preferences
- H5 — Align usage with user & context needs: adapt content and interactions to the user’s current context
- H6 — Inform about digital wellbeing: raise awareness about attention-capture patterns and digital habits
- H7 — Meaningful connections: prioritize genuine social interactions over superficial engagement metrics
- H8 — Support real-world connections: bridge online interactions with offline relationships
These heuristics were derived through a systematic literature review of 55 papers (2000–2023) following PRISMA guidelines, and each heuristic is accompanied by practical strategies with real-world examples from existing services.
To support practical heuristic evaluations, we also created the Digital Attention Heuristics Evaluator web app, which helps apply the heuristics in a structured way during interface analysis.
Beyond designing new interfaces, the Digital Attention Heuristics can also serve as a valuable tool for critically evaluating existing interfaces. By shifting the focus from user responsibility to design responsibility, our work has the potential to shape industry practices, inform policy discussions, and convince tech companies to prioritize user wellbeing over engagement metrics.
Below you can browse the slides from my presentation:
It was great to present this work at CHI and discuss it with the community. I’m looking forward to seeing how these heuristics can contribute to a broader shift in design practices towards more attention-respecting digital experiences.