acm-conference-on-designing-interactive-systems - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: acm-conference-on-designing-interactive-systems description: Use when targeting ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) or deciding whether a computer-science manuscript fits this venue. Encodes conference fit, framing, evidence bar, submission-cycle checks, rebuttal posture, and desk-reject risks for interaction design.

ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS)

Conference positioning

ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) is a top computer-science conference venue for interaction design, design methods, critical computing, prototyping, and human-centered systems. It rewards a design research paper with a strong artifact, method, or theory contribution. Treat this skill as a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool for conference submission strategy, not as a substitute for the current year's CFP, author kit, ethics policy, or submission portal.

Because CS conferences change deadlines, templates, page limits, review workflow, artifact rules, AI-use policy, and rebuttal formats every cycle, always verify the live official instructions before making a submission-ready recommendation. Start from the official source anchor recorded for this venue in ../../resources/conference-roster.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md.

When to trigger

The author names DIS / ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems as the target venue.
A manuscript in interaction design needs a conference-fit read before being formatted or submitted.
The paper must be re-framed from journal style or arXiv style into a selective CS conference narrative.
The author needs an evidence-gap, anonymity, artifact, rebuttal, or re-routing diagnosis for this venue.

Scope & topic fit

Core fit: interaction design, design methods, critical computing, prototyping, and human-centered systems.
Best submissions make a precise contribution type visible: algorithm, theorem, system, dataset, benchmark, empirical finding, design artifact, tool, or socio-technical analysis.
The paper should explain why the result matters to DIS's reviewers, not just why it is interesting to the authors' lab or product context.
Position related work against the most recent conference-cycle papers in this venue and its closest siblings; stale comparisons are a common early-review weakness.
If the contribution is interdisciplinary, state which part is CS research and which part is domain evidence.

Venue-specific calibration

Reviewer lens: Treat DIS as a interaction design venue whose reviewers expect the scope and evidence to match its own community. Do not submit a generic CS paper until the introduction names the exact subcommunity, contribution type, and proof or empirical standard.
Contribution hook to foreground: the venue-specific contribution bar.
Scope vocabulary to use naturally in the abstract and introduction: interaction design, design methods, critical computing, prototyping, and human-centered systems.
Distinctive fingerprint for reviewer calibration: interaction, design, methods, critical, computing, prototyping, human-centered, venue-specific, contribution.
Official anchor domain: dis.acm.org. Quote annual rules only after opening that source and the current-year CFP/author kit.

Close-neighbor routing guardrail

Use this profile only when the manuscript's central contribution is genuinely in interaction design and the author can say why DIS reviewers are the primary audience, not merely a convenient deadline.
Closest roster neighbors to compare before final routing: acm-ieee-joint-conference-on- digital-libraries (JCDL), conference-and-labs-of-the-evaluation-forum (CLEF), acm- interactive-surfaces-and-spaces (ISS), international-symposium-on-research-in-attacks- intrusions-and-defenses (RAID). Break ties by contribution type, evidence shape, reviewer community, and the current official CFP from dis.acm.org.

DIS-specific routing detail

Prefer DIS when the contribution is design knowledge: an artifact, design method, critical/reflective inquiry, participatory process, speculative system, or prototype that teaches the field how to design interactive systems differently.
Use CHI when the broad HCI contribution is primarily empirical, behavioral, accessibility, social-computing, or human-centered systems evidence; DIS should not be a fallback for underpowered CHI studies.
Compare with TEI/ISS for tangible and surface interaction, CSCW for collaborative practice, CHI for general HCI breadth, and design/HCI journals when the argument needs richer reflective or longitudinal presentation.

Method & evidence bar

Match the contribution type to the evidence: controlled study, field deployment, design inquiry, technical system, dataset, or theory.
Report participants, recruitment, analysis method, consent/ethics, and limitations with enough detail for HCI review.
For AI-infused interfaces, evaluate both model behavior and user experience; either alone is usually insufficient.
For DIS, the evidence must support the venue-specific signature: a design research paper with a strong artifact, method, or theory contribution.
Include limitations, negative results, compute/resource reporting, data provenance, and ethics details when they affect the claim.

Structure & house style

Explain who benefits, what interaction changes, and what design knowledge the paper contributes.
Avoid treating users as a decoration for a technical system; the human evidence has to shape the claim.
Use the current official template exactly; do not guess page limits, font sizes, supplement rules, anonymity exceptions, or camera-ready requirements from old cycles.
The introduction should answer: problem, why now, what is new, why this venue, and what evidence proves the claim.
Put the strongest result in the main paper, not only in the appendix or supplement; reviewers should not have to reconstruct the contribution.

Official-cycle checklist

Open the live official venue page: https://dis.acm.org/
Re-check the current cycle's CFP, author kit, submission system, abstract/paper deadlines, page limits, supplementary-material rules, anonymity policy, dual-submission policy, ethics policy, AI-use policy, artifact/code/data expectations, rebuttal/author-response format, and camera-ready requirements.
Confirm the review workflow and portal: the current ACM PCS/Precision Conference author guide and contribution-type policy.
Check whether accepted papers require in-person presentation, separate registration, artifact badges, proceedings copyright, or post-acceptance release forms.
If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

One sentence states why this manuscript belongs at DIS, using the venue's scope rather than generic "top conference" language.
The claim is calibrated to the evidence: no broader than the datasets, proofs, systems, user studies, deployments, or threat model support.
Related work includes the nearest current-cycle interaction design papers and explains the technical delta.
The paper satisfies the current official template, anonymity, ethics, artifact, and rebuttal requirements.
The main paper is self-contained enough for reviewers to evaluate novelty and correctness without hunting through external links.

Common desk-reject triggers

Underpowered or poorly matched user study for an ambitious design claim.
Novel interface demo without contribution to interaction knowledge.
Ethics, accessibility, or community context handled superficially.
Formatting, anonymity, dual-submission, external-link, or supplement violations under the current-year policy.
A contribution framed for a neighboring field while giving DIS reviewers too little technical or empirical substance.

Re-routing decision

If the paper misses DIS's bar, compare against acm-chi-conference-on-human-factors-in-computing-systems / acm-symposium-on-user-interface-software-and-technology / acm-conference-on-computer-supported-cooperative-work-and-social-computing / acm-conference-on-intelligent-user-interfaces. Re-route based on contribution type, not prestige: theory to a theory venue, systems to a systems venue, application-heavy work to a domain venue, and early ideas to workshops or shorter tracks when the official CFP supports them.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS)
[Contribution type] algorithm / theory / system / dataset / benchmark / empirical / design / security / other
[Main evidence gap] <single most important missing proof, experiment, study, artifact, or policy check>
[Official items to re-check] CFP / author kit / deadline / format / anonymity / ethics / AI-use / artifact / rebuttal / camera-ready
[Top rejection risk] <venue-specific risk>
[Re-route suggestion] <better-matched conference or journal if not a fit>