Grazia Ragone
Grazia Ragone
Postdoctoral Researcher
IVU Laboratory
Dipartimento di Informatica
Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
Via Orabona, 4 - 70125 Bari - Italy
email: grazia.ragone@uniba.it

Grazia Ragone

Research Interests

Curriculum

Grazia Ragone is a research fellow at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Bari, where she is part of the IVU (Interaction Visualization Usability and UX) Lab. Her work focuses on Usability and User Experience (UX), contributing to the development of human-centered technologies that are transparent, reliable, trustworthy, and adaptable. She is also involved in research on Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, aiming to create systems that respond to user’s needs while remaining user-friendly and beneficial to people. Grazia holds a Master’s Degree in Psychological Research Methods and a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from the University of Sussex (United Kingdom). Her doctoral research centered on the designing and evaluation of interactive systems, with a particular focus on developing new metrics to measure non-verbal behaviour. Her research delved into concepts like Imitation and SOcial Motor Synchrony, specifically exploring how children engage with technology. With a background in psychology, her research has consistently focused on the complexities of human behaviour and cognition. Her interdisciplinary approach, which blends computer science with psychology, provides a unique perspective on the field of HCI. This foundation allows her to explore how human factors can be integrated into the design and development of AI systems, ultimately enhancing the human experience with technology. Currently, Grazia’s work at the University of Bari, is centered aruond the Future Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) project, her effort is pioneering new metrics for evaluating humans-AI symbiosis. Her academic journey reflects an active collaboration with international research groups and universities, including the HCT Lab, ChatLab, Creative Technology Group, the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS), the SCHI Lab at Sussex University, and the Interaction Design Group at UCL. These collaborations have enriched her work, enabling her to approach the challenges of HCI from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

Grazia is dedicated to advancing the field of HCI by fostering inclusivity, accessibility, and innovation, always striving to create interactive systems that are both human-centered and impactful. Through her research, she aims to contribute to a future where technology and humans can work together symbiotically to enhance everyday life.

She served on the Program Committee of several International Conferences:

She has been involved in the scientific organization of conferences like:

She is member of ACM (Association of Computing Machinery), ACM SIGCHI (ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) and SIGCHI Italy (the Italian Chapter of ACM SIGCHI)

She presented at several international conferences:

She held several courses, workshop and seminars:

She received several significant awards:

Grazia Ragone has co-authored several publications, including journal articles, international conference papers, and book chapters.

Publications

Journal Articles

  1. Andrea Esposito, Rosa Lanzilotti, Antonio Piccinno, Ludovica Piro, Emanuele Pucci, and Grazia Ragone. 2026. Conversational Ai for Digital Accessibility: An Experimental Study Involving Blind and Visually Impaired Users. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 44, 100726 (2026), 22.
  2. Grazia Ragone, Judith Good, and Kate Howland. 2025. Supporting and understanding autistic children’s non-verbal interactions through OSMoSIS, a motion-based sonic system. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 44, 100726 (2025), 22.
  3. Grazia Ragone, Judith Good, and Kate Howland. 2021. How technology applied to music-therapy and sound-based activities addresses motor and social skills in autistic children. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 5, 3 (2021), 11.

Conference Articles

  1. Grazia Ragone, Paolo Buono, Judith Good, and Rosa Lanzilotti. 2026. Do Children Trust AI, and Should They? Designing and Validating a Child-Centred K-AI Trust Scale for Intelligent Systems. In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–12. [Self-Archived Version]
  2. Grazia Ragone, Zhen Bai, Judith Good, Arzu Guneysu, and Elmira Yadollahi. 2025. Child-centered Interaction and Trust in Conversational AI. In Proceedings of the 24th Interaction Design and Children Conference, 1235–1238.
  3. Grazia Ragone, Sara Tibidò, Paolo Buono, Azzurra Ragone, and Teresa Baldassarre Maria. 2025. Evaluating the Gaps in Existing AI Ethics Frameworks for Children. In Proceedings of the 16th Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter, 1–7.
  4. Grazia Ragone, Sara Tibidò, Paolo Buono, Azzurra Ragone, and Teresa Baldassarre Maria. 2025. Towards a Rights-Based Metric Framework for Symbiotic AI Systems Designed for Children. In Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good, 390–395.
  5. Grazia Ragone, Paolo Buono, and Rosa Lanzilotti. 2024. Designing Safe and Engaging AI Experiences for Children: Towards the Definition of Best Practices in UI/UX Design. In arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.14218.
  6. Grazia Ragone Paolo Buono Domenico Desiato Francesco Greco Rosa Lanzilotti. 2024. Towards a human factors assessment questionnaire for cybersecurity incidents. In AVI ’24: Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, 1–3.
  7. Grazia Ragone, Judith Good, Kate Howland, and Ben Du Boulay. 2024. Enhancing Assessment of Social Motor Synchrony Through Full-Body Interaction: A Novel Approach with OSMoSIS Tool. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference, 749–753.
  8. Grazia Ragone, Safinah Arshad Ali, Andrea Esposito, Judith Good, Kate Howland, and Carmelo Presicce. 2024. Child-Centered AI for Empowering Creative and Inclusive Learning Experiences. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference, 1035–1037.
  9. Francesco Greco, Paolo Buono, Domenico Desiato, Giuseppe Desolda, Rosa Lanzilotti, and Grazia Ragone. 2024. Unlocking the Potential of Simulated Phishing Campaigns: Measuring the Impact of Interaction among Different Human Factors. In DAMOCLES: Detection And Mitigarion of Cyber attacks that exploit human vuLnerabilitiES workshop, co-located with AVI’24, 10.
  10. Maria Francesca Costabile, Rosa Lanzilotti, Maristella Matera, Antonio Piccinno, Nicolas Pinto, Ludovica Piro, Emanuele Pucci, and Grazia Ragone. 2024. Participatory Design for Creating Conversational Agents to Improve Web Accessibility. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference, 1035–1037.
  11. Grazia Ragone, Kate Howland, and Emeline Brulé. 2022. Evaluating interactional synchrony in full-body interaction with autistic children. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference, 1–12.
  12. Grazia Ragone. 2020. Designing embodied musical interaction for children with autism. In Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 1–4.
  13. Grazia Ragone, Judith Good, and Katherine Howland. 2020. OSMoSIS: Interactive sound generation system for children with autism. In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference: Extended Abstracts, 151–156.
  14. Zuzanna Lechelt, Yvonne Rogers, Nicola Yuill, Lena Nagl, Grazia Ragone, and Nicolai Marquardt. 2018. Inclusive computing in special needs classrooms: Designing for all. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–12.
  15. Grazia Ragone. ASSETS: G: Designing Embodied Musical Interaction for Children with Autism.

Book Chapters

  1. Grazia Ragone, Emeline Brulé, Kate Howland, and Judith Good. 2023. From Music Therapist to Action Research Designer: A Narrative Account. In Arts Therapies Research and Practice with Persons on the Autism Spectrum. Routledge, 182–194.

Theses

  1. Grazia Ragone. Sonification of autistic children’s movements: investigation through the lenses of Imitation and Social Motor Synchrony. PhD thesis. University of Sussex.

Projects