Ali Mohamed

I’m Ali Mohamed, a postdoctoral researcher in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) at KTH. I earned my PhD in Education from Stockholm University in 2023 with the dissertation Collective Identity Formation in Social Media: Interaction in Three Facebook Groups. My work integrates pedagogy, digital learning, interaction design, and digital accessibility to understand how people learn and participate online, and how design, governance, and platform dynamics shape whose participation becomes possible, visible, and sustainable.

I currently work and lead key components of the Erasmus+ project European Centre of Vocational Excellence in Accessibility (AccessCoVE) in collaboration with 22 partners from four European countries: Greece, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. As Work Package Leader for the project’s digital platform, I coordinate user-centred, participatory design, build a Europe-wide accessibility curriculum, and develop certification tools and assessment instruments to validate professional competencies in digital accessibility.

My research programme spans three tightly coupled strands:

1. Identity, legitimacy, and the future of UX work in the age of AI: tracing how acceleration, organisational ambiguity, and ethical tensions reconfigure UX roles and competencies, and how communities on public platforms negotiate a shared professional identity.

2. Concepts and frameworks of digital accessibility across domains: synthesising reviews to clarify definitions, map gaps (primarily cognitive/neurodiversity), and move beyond compliance toward participatory, user-centred design and evaluation.

3. Power, participation, and learning in platformed publics: netnographic studies of interaction styles (resistance, support, nuance), roles (gatekeepers, thread-starters, active contributors, observers), and affordances (emojis, moderation, algorithms) that mediate who speaks, who listens, and how communities learn.

A fourth, practice-oriented strand examines how organisations operationalise accessibility: translating values and law (e.g., EAA, WCAG/EN 301 549) into ownership, acceptance criteria, governance devices, capacity-building, and everyday collaborative routines across sectors.

I often work from sociocultural perspectives on learning (e.g., Säljö, 2016) and connect them with Science and Technology Studies to link theory to concrete design, policy, and curriculum decisions.

Umbrella question
How do design choices, organisational governance, and platform affordances enable, or constrain, equitable participation and learning in digital environments, and how can accessibility be operationalised as an ongoing organisational learning practice rather than a one-off compliance task?

Programmatic sub-questions

1. How do UX professionals construct and negotiate their identities amid AI-driven acceleration, shifting design values, and organisational ambiguity, and what competencies legitimise human-centred practice today?

2. How is “digital accessibility” defined across domains, where are the conceptual/methodological gaps (especially for cognitive and neurodivergent users), and what unified, cross-domain definition supports practice?

3. In large social media groups, which interaction styles and participant roles dominate, how do platform affordances mediate power/visibility, and what redesigns would foster reflective, empathetic dialogue?

4. Within organisations, what governance devices, acceptance criteria, collaboration patterns, and training models translate accessibility from values and law into sustained everyday practice?

Methods and approach

Qualitative, iterative, and situated: netnography and ethnography; reflexive thematic analysis; participatory and user-centred design; triangulation between public platform discourse, interviews, and organisational practice. I have extensive experience with ethical review, grant writing, and multi-stakeholder collaboration, and I translate empirical insight into actionable frameworks, curricula, and tools.

Selected recent & in-progress work

• UX Identity Crisis in the Age of AI and Challenging Times: netnography + 16 interviews; five themes (learning/mentorship, accessibility as ethical anchor, AI acceleration vs. drift, organisational marginalisation, identity work across arenas) and practical steps to legitimise flexible roles.

• Redefining Digital Accessibility: A Meta-Analysis of Research Trends, Gaps, and Design Considerations. This meta-analysis of 14 reviews proposes a broader cross-domain definition and highlights gaps in cognitive accessibility and over-reliance on compliance.

• Digital Interaction and Power Dynamics: A Netnographic Study in Three Facebook Groups: identifies interaction styles (resistance, support, nuance), role ecologies, and affordance effects; outlines optimistic/pessimistic futures for platform moderation and discourse.

• Operationalizing Accessibility: From Strategy to Practice: Interviews with 15 professionals reveal four themes that link empathy, governance, technology/collaboration, and capacity-building. These themes frame accessibility as organisational learning, utilising EAA-aligned governance devices and competency agendas.

Impact and aspiration

Across research and leadership, I work to lower barriers to participation by aligning accessibility with pedagogy and interaction design, and by building organisational capacity that lasts. The aim is not minimal compliance but meaningful engagement, designing digital spaces where more people can learn, contribute, and belong, and where accessibility is a shared, measurable responsibility.

Keywords: Digital accessibility; human–computer interaction; technology-enhanced learning; social media and platform governance; participation and inclusion; emotion and polarisation; sociocultural learning; Science and Technology Studies; ethnography/netnography; reflexive thematic analysis; participatory and user-centred design.