Reasoning About Reasoning: Towards Informed and Reflective Use of LLM Reasoning in HCI

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Main Authors: Mothilal, Ramaravind Kommiya, Zhang, Sally, Ahmed, Syed Ishtiaque, Guha, Shion
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Mothilal, Ramaravind Kommiya
Zhang, Sally
Ahmed, Syed Ishtiaque
Guha, Shion
author_facet Mothilal, Ramaravind Kommiya
Zhang, Sally
Ahmed, Syed Ishtiaque
Guha, Shion
contents Reasoning is a distinctive human-like characteristic attributed to LLMs in HCI due to their ability to simulate various human-level tasks. However, this work argues that the reasoning behavior of LLMs in HCI is often decontextualized from the underlying mechanics and subjective decisions that condition the emergence and human interpretation of this behavior. Through a systematic survey of 258 CHI papers from 2020-2025 on LLMs, we discuss how HCI hardly perceives LLM reasoning as a product of sociotechnical orchestration and often references it as an object of application. We argue that such abstraction leads to oversimplification of reasoning methodologies from NLP/ML and results in a distortion of LLMs' empirically studied capabilities and (un)known limitations. Finally, drawing on literature from both NLP/ML and HCI, as a constructive step forward, we develop reflection prompts to support HCI practitioners engage with LLM reasoning in an informed and reflective way.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_22978
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reasoning About Reasoning: Towards Informed and Reflective Use of LLM Reasoning in HCI
Mothilal, Ramaravind Kommiya
Zhang, Sally
Ahmed, Syed Ishtiaque
Guha, Shion
Human-Computer Interaction
Reasoning is a distinctive human-like characteristic attributed to LLMs in HCI due to their ability to simulate various human-level tasks. However, this work argues that the reasoning behavior of LLMs in HCI is often decontextualized from the underlying mechanics and subjective decisions that condition the emergence and human interpretation of this behavior. Through a systematic survey of 258 CHI papers from 2020-2025 on LLMs, we discuss how HCI hardly perceives LLM reasoning as a product of sociotechnical orchestration and often references it as an object of application. We argue that such abstraction leads to oversimplification of reasoning methodologies from NLP/ML and results in a distortion of LLMs' empirically studied capabilities and (un)known limitations. Finally, drawing on literature from both NLP/ML and HCI, as a constructive step forward, we develop reflection prompts to support HCI practitioners engage with LLM reasoning in an informed and reflective way.
title Reasoning About Reasoning: Towards Informed and Reflective Use of LLM Reasoning in HCI
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22978