Submission Tracking
This is a brief writeup of every “submission” I’ve made throughout my PhD. Some were accepted to become published papers right away, others have evolved over time and eventually been accepted as papers, others are still – shall we say – currently evolving. I’m writing this with a few goals: 1) in the hopes of celebrating the submission (since that’s the only part of the publication process I have control over) and 2) demystifying the publication cycle (and especially “failure”) for others. This writeup was inspired by many others, including Jeff Huang, who has presented a similar collection of ‘paper journeys’, Leslie Lamport, and Matt Keeter.
| Draft | Conference | Submission title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| #32 | CHIWORK'22 | Secret VR Paper (Title redacted until work is published) |  |
| I'm one of many co-authors on this project lead by a fellow intern at Microsoft. Finally accepted! | |||
| Journey: | |||
| Final Outcome: Started life as submission 14. Resubmitted a heavily re-worked version to GROUP'22 (submission 25), then CHIWORK '22 (this submission). | |||
| #31 | DIS'22 | Secret Interaction Design Tool Paper (Title redacted until work is published) |  |
| Another MSR project :) | |||
| Journey: | |||
| Final Outcome: Work is ongoing... | |||
| #30 | DIS'22 | Secret Puppet Paper (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| This is part of my thesis. I'm sooo excited about it. | |||
| Journey: | |||
| Final Outcome: Work is ongoing... | |||
| #29 | DIS'22 | Secret Headphones Paper (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| Major absolute re-write. All new framework, new figures, new framing. Same demos, but telling a whole new story. | |||
| Journey: First submitted to DIS'21 (submission 18). Then significantly reworked (basically a new paper), and submitted to CHI'22 (submission 27). Reworked AGAIN for DIS'22 (this submission). | |||
| Final Outcome: Work is ongoing... | |||
| #28 | CnC'22 | Creative and Motivational Strategies Used by Expert Creative Practitioners |  |
| I may have finally figured out what it is I'm trying to say. It also turns out that what I'm trying to say is something that's interesting to the folks at CnC, so I have fairly high hopes for this one. UPDATE - accepted AND won a Best Paper award!! This is absolutely the best version of this paper that has existed, and sending it to the right conference really matters. | |||
| Journey: Started life in 2019 (submission 10), then heavily reworked for CHI'20 (submission 13). Split into two papers with a different focus (submission 15 and 16), which went through revisions rounds at CSCW'21 where one was accepted (submission 21) and the other rejected (submission 23). CnC'22 will probably be the last attempt (submission 28). FINALLY accepted!! 5th time's the charm. | |||
| Final Outcome: C&C'22, Best Paper award | PDF Forthcoming | |||
| #27 | CHI'22 | Secret Headphones Paper (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| We thought we were really close with the last submission so we completely rewrote this and abandoned everything we had first discussed. Just kidding but also not really. | |||
| Journey: First submitted to DIS'21 (submission 18). Then significantly reworked (basically a new paper), and submitted to CHI'22 (this submission). Reworked AGAIN for CHIWORK'22 (submission 32). | |||
| Final Outcome: CHIWORK '22 | |||
| #26 | CHI'22 | Understanding Multi-Device Usage Paterns; Physical Device Configurations and Fragmented Workflows | |
| I'm a co-author on this paper, lead by an awesome fellow intern at Microsoft. | |||
| Journey: Got a revise-and-resubmit at CHI'22, then after extensive work by the first author accepted! | |||
| Final Outcome: CHI'22 | |||
| #25 | GROUP'22 | Secret VR Paper (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| This paper has evolved - lots of co-authors with different home research methodologies, and finding the version of the paper that satisfies everyone has been an interesting challenge! Also did you know that GROUP is not double-blind?? | |||
| Journey: Started life as submission 14. Resubmitted a heavily re-worked version to GROUP'22 (this submission), then CHIWORK '22 (submission 32). | |||
| Final Outcome: CHIWORK '22 | |||
| #24 | UIST'21 | AirConstellations | |
| An amazing project led by Nicolai Marquardt. This work is so inspiring, and I learned so much collaborating with all of these amazing researchers. I helped design some of the interaction techniques, and contributed to sections of the paper. | |||
| Journey: Accepted on first submission. | |||
| Final Outcome: UIST'21 | PDF | |||
| #23 | CSCW'22 | Creative Strategies and Heuristics in Creative Professionals | |
| I honestly knew in my heart that CSCW wasn't the right place for this paper, but submitted it anyway knowing it would probably get rejected. However, we got super lucky with the reviewers and one gave us absolutely incredible, thoughtful, detailed feedback. The reviewer feedback from this draft absolutely directly resulted in the last version being so good. | |||
| Journey: Started life in 2019 (submission 10), then heavily reworked for CHI'20 (submission 13). Split into two papers with a different focus (submission 15 and 16), which went through revisions rounds at CSCW'21 where one was accepted (submission 21) and the other rejected (submission 23). CnC'22 will probably be the last attempt (submission 28). FINALLY accepted!! 5th time's the charm. | |||
| Final Outcome: C&C'22, Best Paper award | PDF Forthcoming | |||
| #22 | CSCW'22 | Friendscope; Shared Experiences on Camera Glasses | |
| We re-wrote the Intro each time, trying to make things more clear. This was the best version for sure. We also got a bunch of excellent reviewer feedback, which definitely improved this paper. | |||
| Journey: Started life as submission 11. Then rejected from CHI (submission 12). Reworked a bit for IMWUT (submission 20). Eventually published at CSCW'22 (this submission). Total rejections before acceptance - 3 | |||
| Final Outcome: CSCW'22 | PDF | |||
| #21 | CSCW'21 | Towards Creative Version Control | |
| The reviewers asked us to do additional interviews, which we did. It was a great suggestion - those interviews really helped clarify our claims. | |||
| Journey: Started life in 2019 (submission 10), then heavily reworked for CHI'20 (submission 13). Split into two papers with a different focus (submission 15 and 16), which went through revisions rounds at CSCW'21 where one was accepted (this submission) and the other rejected (submission 23). CnC'22 will probably be the last attempt (submission 28). Total rejections before acceptance - 3. | |||
| Final Outcome: CSCW'21 | |||
| #20 | IMWUT'21 | Friendscope; Shared Experiences on Camera Glasses | |
| Reworked our rejected CHI 2021 submission. It makes more sense for this conference anyway! REJECTED. The feedback was helpful, but I'll probably never submit to IMWUT again. I disliked everything about this process. | |||
| Journey: Started life as submission 11. Then rejected from CHI (submission 12). Reworked a bit for IMWUT (this submission). Eventually published at CSCW'22, see submission 22. | |||
| Final Outcome: CSCW'22 | |||
| #19 | CnC'21 | Secret Haptics Project (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| Trying once again with our favorite haptics paper. This is definitely the best version of this paper that has ever existed, but still not good enough I guess. REJECTED, mainly because reviewers felt it was a bad fit (which is fair honestly - it was a stretch for CnC). R4 - 2, R3 - 2, R1 - 1, R2 - 2. | |||
| Journey: | |||
| Final Outcome: | |||
| #18 | DIS'21 | Secret Headphones Paper (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| A summer hackathon project from Microsoft we were all super excited about. Really weird scores - R4 - 2.5, R2 - 3.5, R1 - 3, R3 - 3. Seemed like it was juuuuuust about to get in. | |||
| Journey: First submitted to DIS'21 (this submission). Then significantly reworked (basically a new paper), and submitted to CHI'22 (submission 27). Reworked AGAIN for DIS'22 (submission 29). | |||
| Final Outcome: Work is ongoing... | |||
| #17 | DIS'21 | Expanding the Design Space of Technology-Mediated Theatre Experiences paper. | |
| My first first-author paper. I'm so so proud of this project, and super excited about how this work came together. It was honestly a disaster at first. About two weeks after the show closed, I moved down to Santa Monica where my laptop (with all of the user data from the audience interviews/surveys/etc) was stolen. Then, a year later (March 2020) I decided to work with another theatre group to recreate the project....3 days later everything shut down for COVID-19. It took me another 6 months to slowly iterate on a draft about the design process, which eventually became this paper. | |||
| Journey: Accepted on first submission | |||
| Final Outcome: DIS'21 | PDF | |||
| #16 | DIS'21 | Towards Creative Version Control | |
| Significantly reworked versions of the rejected CHI'21 paper (submission x), now split into two papers. We were consistently getting feedback that the story was too messy but we had so much cool stuff to talk about so we wrote two full papers each with an entirely separate focus. R4 - 2.5, R3 - 2.5, R1 - 4, R2 - 2. | |||
| Journey: Started life in 2019 (submission 10), then heavily reworked for CHI'20 (submission 13). Split into two papers with a different focus (submission 15 and this submission), which went through revisions rounds at CSCW'21 where one was accepted (submission 21) and the other rejected (submission 23). CnC'22 will probably be the last attempt (submission 28). | |||
| Final Outcome: CSCW'21 | |||
| #15 | DIS'21 | Creative Heuristics in the Wild | |
| Significantly reworked versions of the rejected CHI'21 paper (submission x), now split into two papers. We were consistently getting feedback that the story was too messy but we had so much cool stuff to talk about so we wrote two full papers each with an entirely separate focus. R4 - 2, R3 - 1.5, R1 - 3, R2 - 2.5. | |||
| Journey: Started life in 2019 (submission 10), then heavily reworked for CHI'20 (submission 13). Split into two papers with a different focus (submission 15 and 16), which went through revisions rounds at CSCW'21 where one was accepted (submission 21) and the other rejected (submission 23). CnC'22 will probably be the last attempt (submission 28). FINALLY accepted!! 5th time's the charm. | |||
| Final Outcome: C&C'22, Best Paper award | PDF Forthcoming | |||
| #14 | CHI'21 | Secret VR Paper (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| A paper from an amazing summer project lead by a fellow intern at Microsoft. I was asked if I wanted to contribute an hour and a half before the Abstract deadline...uh...yes???? I analyzed all the user data and wrote the user study section here. Reviews all 1.5s, so we only submitted a `thank you for your thoughtful feedback' rebuttal. | |||
| Journey: Started life as submission 14 (this submission). Resubmitted a heavily re-worked version to GROUP'22 (submission 25), then CHIWORK'22 (submission 30). | |||
| Final Outcome: CHIWORK'22 | |||
| #13 | CHI'21 | “It’s not garbage if I can evolve on it”; The Shifting Purposes, Goals, and Re-Uses of Artifacts in Diverse Creative Practices | |
| Significantly reworked draft of submission 10 that had been rejected from DIS'20. We completely changed the structure and re-wrote it three times in the week leading up to the deadline. We were SO proud of it and hoped the reviewers would love it as much as we did! Spoiler - they did not. MetaReviewer R4 - 2.5; R1 (2AC) - 3; R5 - 2.5; R2 - 3; R3 - 2. We did get this encouraging note though - "This paper was discussed extensively during the PC meeting and the ultimately had a 3rd AC added to the review." It feels nice to know your paper was under discussion. | |||
| Journey: Started life in 2019 (submission 10), then heavily reworked for CHI'20 (submission 13). Split into two papers with a different focus (submission 15 and 16), which went through revisions rounds at CSCW'21 where one was accepted (submission 21) and the other rejected (submission 23). CnC'22 will probably be the last attempt (submission 28). FINALLY accepted!! 5th time's the charm. | |||
| Final Outcome: C&C'22, Best Paper ward | PDF Forthcoming | |||
| #12 | CHI'21 | Friendscope; Shared Experiences on Camera Glasses | |
| Rework of submission 11 to IMWUT. MetaReviewer (1AC) - 2.5; Reviewer 1 (2AC) - 3; Reviewer 2 - 3; Reviewer 3 - 2. We're taking it as a hopeful sign for the future that the 2AC gave us a 3... No luck this time but we did make a bunch of great changes. | |||
| Journey: Started life as submission 11. Reworked a bit for IMWUT (submission 20). Eventually published at | |||
| Final Outcome: CSCW'22 (see submission 22) | |||
| #11 | IMWUT'20 | Friendscope; Shared Experiences on Camera Glasses | |
| Desk-rejected for incorrect format (they had the wrong insturctions on the website, but wouldn't budge on the rejection decision). | |||
| Journey: Resubmitted for CHI (submission 12) and IMWUT (submission 20). Eventually published at CSCW'22. | |||
| Final Outcome: CSCW'22 (see Submission 22). | |||
| #10 | DIS'20 | Investment vs Catalyst; A Design Ethnography of Documentation in Creative Practices | |
| We LOVED this project and I think our love blinded us to the faults in our draft. Looking over the draft now, it's clear we didn't know what story we wanted to tell, and just dumped a bunch of semi-organized user quotes on the readers. Rejected! | |||
| Journey: Started life in 2019 (submission 10), then heavily reworked for CHI'20 (submission 13). Split into two papers with a different focus (submission 15 and 16), which went through revisions rounds at CSCW'21 where one was accepted (submission 21) and the other rejected (submission 23). CnC'22 will probably be the last attempt (submission 28). FINALLY accepted!! 5th time's the charm. | |||
| Final Outcome: C&C'22, Best Paper ward | PDF Forthcoming | |||
| #9 | ISWC'19 | Secret Haptics Project (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| We absolutely refused to let this project die. Each submission we re-wrote massive chunks of it, trying to incorporate reviewer feedback whiel still staying true to our original vision/goal. It also got shorter and shorter each time. | |||
| Journey: This paper started life for CHI'19 (submission 7). Then went to DIS'19 (submission 8), and ISWC'19 (submission 9), then CnC'21 (submission 19). | |||
| Final Outcome: Work is ongoing... | |||
| #8 | DIS'19 | Secret Haptics Project (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| Resurrected submission 7. We remained SO enthusiastic about this project and sure people would love it. We were very very wrong. | |||
| Journey: This paper started life for CHI'19 (submission 7). Then went to DIS'19 (submission 8), and ISWC'19 (submission 9), then CnC'21 (submission 19). | |||
| Final Outcome: Work is ongoing... | |||
| #7 | CHI'19 | Secret Haptics Project (Title redacted until work is published) | |
| Collaborating with another lab, we worked for several weeks to design and construct an extremely elaborate and delicate user study setup for testing something very delicate, then ran 18 participants. Ok, *running* user studies isn't my favourite part (I do like it), *analyzing* user data is my favourite part. In total our lab submitted 6 papers to CHI this year, and all 6 were rejected. Ouch! | |||
| Journey: This paper started life for CHI'19 (submission 7). Then went to DIS'19 (submission 8), and ISWC'19 (submission 9), then CnC'21 (submission 19). | |||
| Final Outcome: Work is ongoing... | |||
| #6 | TEI'19 | A Conversation with Actuators; An Exploratory Design Environment for Hybrid Materials | |
| Recycled our paper from UIST 2018 - finally accepted! We did another user study to flesh out the world and expand our framework. I didn't help as much with this second round (mostly helped w the camera-ready and a bit with the video). | |||
| Journey: Rejected from UIST, accepted on second attempt. | |||
| Final Outcome: TEI'19 | PDF | |||
| #5 | DIS'18 | Guardians of Practice; A Contextual Inquiry of Failure-Mitigation Strategies within Creative Practices | |
| One of my favorite research projects. Working on this shaped my thinking around all forms of creativity, and heavily influenced how I carry out research. This really sparked my interest in qualitative methods, and inspired me to imagine ways in which expertise from one creative practice can be imported into another. I helped with every aspect of this project, from original conception, study design, and interviews. This project originally started as part of a class, and we didn't decide to submit it until 24 hours before the deadline. We had no user study for this one, but I'm still very very proud of what we made. Honestly this has been the project that has most impacted my research life. | |||
| Journey: Accepted on first submission. | |||
| Final Outcome: DIS'18 | PDF | |||
| #4 | CHI'18 | AlterWear; Battery-Free Wearable Displays for Opportunistic Interactions. | |
| Worked with Christie Dierk on her super cool wearable interfaces. Lots of circuit building and another 1-hr user study (quickly becoming my favourite part). | |||
| Journey: Accepted on first submission. | |||
| Final Outcome: CHI'18 | PDF | |||
| #3 | TEI'18 | HairIO; Human Hair as Interactive Material | |
| This project started existence as a paper that Christie had been working on for a while, and which had been rejected from UIST. She invited Sarah and I to collaborate with her, and when the deadline was extended by two weeks, we did a major brainstorming session and re-did nearly the whole thing. As with many of our lab’s papers, this project was highly collaborative. Christie was the lead when it came to design decisions, but we all contributed to writing the code, designing the circuit, framing the paper, planning the user study, and writing the paper. I was primarily responsible for running and analyzing the user study. I also did the filming and editing of the video. We worked stupidly hard for two weeks, then got a week-long deadline extension from the organizers of TEI. This filled us with rage and loathing, energy which we redirected to completely restructure our paper and run a full user study. | |||
| Journey: Accepted on first submission. | |||
| Final Outcome: TEI'18 | PDF | |||
| #2 | UIST'17 | Actuation Aesthetics; Expanding the Expressivity of Computational Materials in Time-based Mediums | |
| Another César Torres collaboration. Ran a user study approximately.....four days before the deadline? This one was rough. | |||
| Journey: 2nd attempt was accepted to TEI '19. Partly because of better fit with the conference. | |||
| Final Outcome: TEI '19 (see Submission 6) | |||
| #1 | CHI'17 | Illumination Aesthetics; Light as a Creative Material within Computational Design. | |
| The first research paper I wrote. Joined the team 3 weeks before the CHI deadline. My personal contribution involved running and analyzing the user study - César trained me up with a few days left before the deadline. I was also responsible for synthesizing themes and writing the user study section of the paper (which was later specifically identified by reviewers as high quality). Jumping right into this project was an awesome way to get started with research. If you have a chance, I highly recommend getting involved with existing research when you start. I picked up a bunch of new skills and it really helped to get my hands dirty (so to speak) working on a research project. | |||
| Journey: Accepted on first submission, won a Best Paper Award. | |||
| Final Outcome: CHI '17 Best Paper Award | PDF | |||