[fg-arc] Call for Papers - IEEE VL/HCC 2026 - Paderborn, Germany (Sep 29 - Oct 2)

[Stefan Sauer]

We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this Call for Papers.

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Call for Papers:

*IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing 2026 (VL/HCC)*

29 September - 2 October 2026
Paderborn, Germany

https://conf.researchr.org/home/vlhcc-2026

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The IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing is the 
premier international forum for research on this topic. Established in 1984, the 
mission of the conference is to support the
design, theory, application, and evaluation of computing technologies and 
languages for programming, modeling, and communicating, which are easier to 
learn, use, and understand by people.

The 2026 symposium is scheduled to take place in October 2026 in Paderborn, 
Germany. VL/HCC 2026 is sponsored by IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee 
on Multimedia Computing (TCMC).

IEEE VL/HCC 2026 will be co-located with the *IFIP 11th International Working 
Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering (HCSE 2026)*. Visit 
https://conf.researchr.org/home/hcse-2026 for details.

*Important Dates:*

- Abstracts only: Friday, April 24, 2026
- Submission deadline: Friday, May 1, 2026
- Reviews sent to authors: Monday, June 15, 2026
- Rebuttal phase: Monday, June 15 - Sunday, June 21, 2026
- Notification: Friday, July 3, 2026
- Camera-ready: Friday, July 24, 2026
- Conference: Tuesday, September 29 - Friday, October 2, 2026

All deadlines are AoE.

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*Scope and Topics*

We solicit original, unpublished research papers on computing technologies and 
languages for modeling, programming, and reasoning, which are somehow “better” 
(e.g., easier, faster, more effective, …) to learn, use or understand by humans 
than the current state-of-the-art. Papers should focus on efforts to design, 
formalize, implement, or evaluate those technologies and languages. This 
includes technologies and languages intended for wide audience groups (e.g., 
professional or novice programmers, or the public) or domain-specific audiences 
(e.g., people working in business administration, production environments, 
healthcare, urban design or scientific domains). Empirical papers that validate 
current proposed solutions or expand our understanding of users via rigorous 
scientific means (i.e., empirical studies, controlled experiments, rigorous case 
studies, etc.) are also welcome. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Visual languages: Novel visual languages; design, evaluation, and theory of 
visual languages and application; development of systems for manipulating and 
interacting with diagrammatic representations
- Human aspects and psychology of software development and language design, such 
as supporting inclusion and diversity in programming
- End-user development, adaptation and programming; Creation and evaluation of 
technologies and infrastructures for end-user development
- Representations: Novel representations and user interfaces for expressing 
computation; Software, algorithm and data visualization
- Modeling: Model-driven development; Domain-specific languages, including 
modeling languages; Visual modeling of human behavior and socio-technical systems
- Thinking more deeply about code: Debugging, program comprehension, code review 
(including AI-generated code)
- Programming for AI/ML: Novel languages and tools for programming AI models; 
Debugging, comprehending, reviewing and maintaining AI model code
- Human-AI Collaboration: Human-centric AI-based tools, modeling end-user 
interactions with AI powered tools; Explainable AI
- Low-Code/No-Code paradigm: Approaches for creation and deployment of fully 
functional applications using visual abstractions and interfaces
- Education and Computational thinking: Using or teaching human-centric 
languages & systems in education, educator and student perspectives

If you are not sure if your paper is a good fit for VL/HCC, feel free to email 
the PC Co-chairs (see “Contact” below). We welcome those new to the VL/HCC 
community to submit!


*Special Emphasis for 2026: Human-centricity in the Era of Generative AI*

Generative AI has lowered the barrier to new skills and capabilities, 
fundamentally altering how people interact and work with technology. In this 
special theme, we encourage submissions about how human-centric computing adapts 
to the new technological landscape. This comprises changes to notions of 
programming, interactivity, creativity, labor, motivation, including for 
populations traditionally underincluded in human-centric research in VL/HCC 
topics (e.g., non-Western, people with disabilities).


*Paper Submissions*

We invite two kinds of papers:
- full-length papers, up to 10 pages - plus unlimited additional pages 
containing only references and/or acknowledgements
- short papers, up to 5 pages - plus unlimited additional pages containing only 
references and/or acknowledgements

All accepted papers, whether full or short, should be complete, self-contained, 
archival contributions. Contributions from full papers are more extensive than 
those from short papers. Papers do not have to reach the maximum page limit, but 
they should be of an appropriate length for the content. Note that some full 
paper submissions may be accepted as short papers if reviewers deem 
contributions to be comparable in size to a short paper.

Papers could be research findings, industry experience reports, replication 
studies, or well-researched vision papers. Please select the appropriate page 
length for the content of your paper.

Papers must be submitted using the IEEE two-column conference paper format. Be 
sure to use the current IEEE conference paper format (which was updated in 
2019), and to select the “US letter” template 
(http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html).

Papers should be submitted via the EasyChair system: 
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=vlhcc2026. To facilitate the assigning 
of papers to reviewers, authors should submit paper abstracts via EasyChair at 
least 1 week prior to the paper submission deadline (see Important Dates below). 
The abstract must be no longer than 250 words.

All submissions will be reviewed by members of the Program Committee in a 
double-anonymous review process. Authors will then receive the reviews for their 
submissions and will be able to answer them in a rebuttal phase. Only after this 
step will the PC make a final decision about the acceptance of the submissions. 
Submissions and reviews for the technical program are managed with EasyChair. At 
least one author of each accepted paper is required to register for VL/HCC 2026 
and present the paper at the conference. IEEE reserves the right to exclude a 
paper from distribution after the conference, including IEEE Xplore Digital 
Library, if the paper is not presented by the author at the conference.

The proceedings of IEEE VL/HCC are published in digital form by the IEEE 
Computer Science Society and archived in the IEEE Digital Library with an 
official ISBN number. Accepted papers will be available to conference attendees 
via the IEEE Open Preview program in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library 
(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/).


*Double-Anonymous Reviewing*

We follow a double-anonymous reviewing process. Both authors and reviewers are 
expected to make every effort to honor the double-anonymous reviewing process. 
In case of questions, please contact the Program Chairs. Authors should ensure 
that the submission can be evaluated without it being obvious who wrote the 
paper. This means leaving author names off the paper and using terms like 
“previous research” rather than “our previous research” when describing 
background. However, do not hide previous work – papers must still reference all 
relevant research using full (non-anonymized) citations, including the author’s 
own prior work, so that reviewers can evaluate novelty. Please reference your 
own prior work in the third-person just like you would do for any other related 
work (e.g., avoid “As described in our previous work [10], … ” and instead write 
something like “As described by [10], …”).

It is also important that authors specify all conflicts of interest with 
potential reviewers during the submission phase. Reviewers should not undertake 
any investigation that might lead to the revealing of authors’ identity. If 
identities are inadvertently revealed, please contact the Program Chairs. The 
Program Chairs will check all submissions for obvious signs of lack of anonymity 
and may ask authors to make changes and resubmit the paper within three days of 
the submission deadline. Only changes to resolve anonymity issues will be permitted.


*Evaluation and Justification*

Papers are expected to support their claims with appropriate evidence. For 
example, a paper that claims to improve programmer productivity is expected to 
demonstrate improved productivity; a paper that claims to be easier to use 
should demonstrate increased ease of use. However, not all claims necessarily 
need to be supported with empirical evidence or studies with people. For 
example, a paper that claims to make something feasible that was clearly 
infeasible might substantiate its claim through the existence of a functioning 
prototype.

Moreover, there are many alternatives to empirical evidence that may be 
appropriate for justifying claims, including analytical methods, formal 
arguments or case studies. Given this criterion, we encourage potential authors 
to think carefully about what claims their submission makes and what evidence 
would adequately support these claims. Replication papers will be evaluated on 
their own merit in terms of methods used, findings discussed and comparison to 
original studies in terms of different context or use of different methods.

Vision papers should make a case for future needs and research directions in VL 
and/or HCC community interest areas within a timeline of the next 5 to 10 years.

Industrial experience reports with VL and/or HCC topics should describe context, 
lessons learned (positive or negative), and recommendations for research and 
practice as appropriate. We expect short papers to have less comprehensive 
evaluation than full-length papers, and may have less technical detail, but 
sufficient to make the case for the contribution. New ideas and early research 
results would be expected to use a short paper format.

*Adhering to IEEE Guidelines*

Please be sure that your submission follows the IEEE requirements 
(https://conferences.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/author-ethics/guidelines-and-policies/submission-policies/). 
Especially around Human Subject approvals and use of Generative AI:

*Research on Human and Animal Subjects*
Excerpted from the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB) 
Operations Manual, sections 8.1.1.E. Also see section 8.2.1.B.6.
Authors of articles reporting on research involving human subjects or animals, 
including but extending beyond medical research, shall include a statement in 
the article that the research was performed under the oversight of an 
institutional review board or equivalent local/regional body, including the 
official name of the IRB/ethics committee, or include an explanation as to why 
such a review was not conducted. For research involving human subjects, authors 
shall also report that consent from the human subjects in the research was 
obtained or explain why consent was not obtained.

*Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Generated Text*
The use of content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) in a paper 
(including but not limited to text, figures, images, and code) shall be 
disclosed in the acknowledgments section of any paper submitted to an IEEE 
publication. The AI system used shall be identified, and specific sections of 
the paper that use AI-generated content shall be identified and accompanied by a 
brief explanation regarding the level at which the AI system was used to 
generate the content. The use of AI systems for editing and grammar enhancement 
is common practice and, as such, is generally outside the intent of the above 
policy. In this case, disclosure as noted above is recommended.


*Adhering to Other VL/HCC Policies*

The organizers of VL/HCC 2026 commit that reviews shall be free of bias based on 
nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other demographic 
characteristics, or conflicts of interest. Instead, reviewers must provide a 
fair and honest review and publication decision based on the submitted work’s 
quality, relevance, importance, and/or other appropriate criteria as listed in 
the call-for-submissions.

*Important Dates (AoE)*
- Abstracts only: Friday, April 24, 2026
- Submission deadline: Friday, May 1, 2026
- Reviews sent to authors: Monday, June 15, 2026
- Rebuttal phase: Monday, June 15 - Sunday, June 21, 2026
- Notification: Friday, July 3, 2026
- Camera-ready: Friday, July 24, 2026
- Conference: Tuesday, September 29 - Friday, October 2, 2026

*Contact*
- David Piorkowski (Alinia, USA, david at alinia.ai)
- Sruti Srinivasa Ragavan (IIT Kanpur, India, srutis at iitk.ac.in)