HCI International News, Number 5, August 2004

In this Issue

Nobel laureate Dr. Gerald M. Edelman will be the keynote speaker at HCI International 2005. More details will follow in the Newsletter to be published in October 2004.

HCII 2005, the largest HCI International Conference ever

A year before holding HCI International 2005 in Las Vegas, one of the best conference locations in the world, and two months before the deadline for proposal submission, all indicators show that HCI I 2005 will be one of the largest conferences held in the field of HCI.

Under the auspices of 9 distinguished international Program Boards with 202 members from 31 countries, to date a total of 1373 people have proposed or agreed to present in 185 sessions.

Out of 40 Exhibition booths, 29 are already committed to a variety of state-of-the-art HCI technologies.

Thus if you have not already submitted your proposal, consider doing it before the deadline. And if you have not already reserved your booth space, please do it quickly since there are not many free booth spaces left. Don't miss this exceptional opportunity to meet thousands of scientists, academics, and professionals from research institutions, universities, and companies from all over the world.

The HCII 2005 objective is to provide an international forum for the dissemination and exchange of scientific information on theoretical, generic, and applied areas of HCI. Consequently we are doing our best to create the most exiting program that will satisfy the needs of every single conference attendee.

We want to see you all in Las Vegas, the "Entertainment Capital" of the World, USA, July 22-27, 2005.

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions.

Abbas Moallem, Ph.D.,
Communication and Exhibition Chair

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Book Review: User Interfaces for All: Concepts, Methods, and Tools

This important resource book offers contributions from prominent academics, researchers, and practitioners in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

In Part I, the book provides a broad and interesting overview of Human-Computer Interaction, emphasizing that "the scope and range of computer-mediated human activities have been expanded to facilitate more sophisticated business tasks of the 'knowledge' worker as well as a broad range of residential activities by non expert" users, thus "the design of new computer-embodied artifacts to facilitate the broad range of emerging activities." User Interfaces for All then provides a review of the human component (Part II), analyzes the design concepts and environment (Part III), and presents an overview of modeling, technologies, and evaluation (Part IV and V). In Parts VI and VII, the concept of Unified User Interfaces is introduced, and ample analysis, examples, and methodological input "to provide a principled and systematic approach towards coping with diversity in the target user requirements, tasks and environments of use" are provided. Finally, in Part VIII, C. Stephanidis, Gavriel Salvendy, et al., introduce "the visionary goal of an Information Society for all, in which the principles of universal access and quality in use prevail and characterize computer-mediated human activities," and describe the HCI challenges of the future.

In the evolving world of HCI technologies, a field whose future is hard to predict, and it consequently hard for researchers to keep up-to-date with the literature, this book serves as a useful resources for academics and practitioners active in the HCI field.

User Interfaces for All: Concepts, Methods, and Tools
edited by Constantine Stephanidis,
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publisher, 2001
760 pages. ISBN 0-8058-2967-9.

A.M.

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Book Review: Handbook of Task Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction

Handbook of Task Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction provides 30 selected contributions that are grouped into five major parts, entitled Foundations, IT Industry Perspectives, Human Perspectives, Computing Perspectives, and Today and Tomorrow.

After reviewing the foundations and principles of task analysis and its application in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field, the editors present an interesting selection of papers (Part II) summarizing the practitioners' views in implementing task analysis in HCI, which puts in perspective the theoretical findings of Part I.

Parts III and IV take on the difficult task of categorizing a range of diverse topics into two groups: human perspectives and computing perspectives. Even though, as the editors admit, this classification is not ideal, these two parts still provide readers with a good understanding of different perspectives on creating, implementing, and elaborating task analysis in human-computer interaction.

The three contributions in Part V provide a fair summary of different perspectives on task analysis and the challenges faced in performing a task analysis.

The book includes an accompanying CD, presenting the book's content in an electronic format. In this way, the editors facilitate the task of referencing and reading the book, an initiative that will be particularly appreciated by the practitioner's community.

Handbook of Task Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction, in both content and tone, is a good reference for all practitioners in the field of HCI and a useful book for academic and researchers.

Handbook of Task Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction
edited by Dan Diaper and Neville Stanton
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publisher, 2004
650 pages. ISBN 0-8058-4433-3.

A.M.

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Abstract submission for HCII 2005

Abstract submission for Paper, Tutorial, SIG, and poster/demonstration contributions for HCI International 2005 and the affiliated Conferences is now open through the Conference Management System (CMS)

Prospective authors will need to create their individual account by filling-in an Account Signup Form with the CMS in order to proceed with abstract submission. Once they have created their account, they can login into the CMS and submit an abstract, view their submission(s), and update their account and contact information.

Registration to the Conference will also be available through the CMS at a later stage.

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Submission Deadlines

• Paper Presentations (Abstract Length 800 words)
  
  • Deadline for Abstract Receipt: 1 Oct 2004
  • Notification of Review Outcome: 20 Dec 2004
  • Deadline for Receipt of Accepted Proposal: 1 Mar 2005
• Posters/demonstrations (Abstract Length 300 words)
  
  • Deadline for Abstract Receipt: 1 Apr 2005
• Special interest groups (Abstract Length 800 words)
  
  • Deadline for Abstract Receipt: 20 Oct 2004
  • Notification of Review Outcome: 20 Dec 2004
  • Deadline for Receipt of Accepted Proposal: 1 Mar 2005
• Tutorials (Abstract Length 300 words)
  
  • Deadline for Abstract Receipt: 20 Oct 2004
  • Notification of Review Outcome: 20 Dec 2004
  • Deadline for Receipt of Accepted Proposal: 1 Mar 2005

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Plan your Participation in the HCII 2005 Exhibition early

HCI International, one of the most important and major international scientific conferences in the area of Human - Computer Interaction, will be held in Las Vegas, the "Entertainment Capital of the World" in USA, 22-27 July 2005.

HCI International Conference gathers over a thousand scientists, academics and professionals, representing research institutions, universities, and companies from all over the world. HCII 2005 will be held in one of the most famous hotel facilities, "Caesars Palace" of Las Vegas, which is one of the most exciting and best executive exposition locations in the USA.

HCII 2005 intends to attract a variety of related product and technology companies in its Exhibition. We have created a very attractive package for early registration at the Exhibition.

Exhibitors who have committed to exhibit early will have a better opportunity in booth location selection and very attractive pricing, plus the opportunity to be listed in the Advance Program that the will be distributed worldwide.

For more information, please contact Dr. Abbas Moallem, Communication and Exhibition Chair

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Sponsorship of HCI International 2005

Sponsorship is now open. Organizations wishing to sponsor a special event or to be a general sponsor of the Conference are welcome to contact the Conference Chair.

For questions about the sponsorship program at HCII 2005, please contact Dr. Abbas Moallem, Communication and Exhibition Chair.

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Interesting Recent Articles

• "Ten Best Government Intranets", Alertbox, June 21, 2004.
• "Masters of Design", Fast Company, June 2004.
• "HOT Lab user-needs assessment and UI design for the Rapid-Triage Management Workbench", HOT Topics, June 2004.
• "How to survive creative burnout", uiweb.com, June 2004.
• "Remote Control Anarchy", Alertbox, June 7, 2004.
• "Case study of the design and implementation of a small charity Web site: Testing for Accessibility (Part 2)", Ease of Use, June 2004.
• "Enough is enough... but five probably isn't", UI Design Update Newsletter, May 2004
• "Designing Online Help for Pocket PCs", STC Usability SIG Newsletter, April 2004.
• "Should visited links get distinctive styling?", Builder.com, June 16, 2004.

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Upcoming Conferences and Events in the HCI Area

• 1-4 August: DIS 2004, Designing Interactive Systems, Cambridge, MA, USA.
• 5-8 August: AMCIS'04 HCI Track, AMCIS 2004 Track on Human-Computer Interaction Studies in MIS, New York, NY, USA.
• 8-12 August: SIGGRAPH 2004, The World's premier conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
• 22-26 August: Mobiquitous 2004, The first annual international conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Networking and Systems Boston, MA, USA.
• 23-26 August: AH 2004, Adaptive Hypermedia Conference, The Netherlands.
• 25-28 August: ICINCO 2004, 1st International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, Setubal, Portugal.
• 1-3 September: ICEC 2004, 3rd International Conference on Entertainment Computing, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
• 2-3 September: ATIT 2004, First international workshop on Activity Theory based practical methods for IT design, Copenhagen, Denmark.
• 6-10 September: HCI 2004, The 18th British HCI Group Annual Conference, Leeds, UK.
• 7-10 September: Ubicomp 2004, The Sixth International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, Nottingham, England, UK.
• 12-15 September: ECCE - 12, Twelfth European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics, York, UK.
• 13-16 September: Mobile HCI 2004, 6th international conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
• 16-17 September: Coping with Complexity, Workshop on sharing new approaches for the design of human-computer systems in complex settings, Bath, UK.
• 19-22 September: IR 5.0, 5th annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, Brighton, UK.
• 20-24 September: IAT '04, 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International conference on Intelligent Agent Technology, Beijing, China.
• 20-22 September: SPECOM 2004, 9th international conference Speech and Computers, St. Petersburg, Russia.
• 26-29 September: VL/HCC'04, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, Rome, Italy.

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Previous Issues of the HCI International NEWS

• June 04: "HCI in the People's Republic of China"
• April 04: "Invitation to participate in the inaugural International Conference on Augmented Cognition in conjunction with HCI International 2005"
• January 04: "Breadth, Depth, and the Future of HCI"
• November 03: "Usability and Internationalization" - HCII 2005 Program

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Contribute to HCI International NEWS

We welcome your contribution to the HCI International News. Please send us interesting news, short articles, interesting websites, etc. We will consider your comments and contribution for upcoming issues.

Please send your contribution to the Editor, Dr. Abbas Moallem.

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About HCI International NEWS

The HCI International NEWS is a newsletter about Human - Computer Interaction topics, the HCI International 2005 Conference deadlines and activities, the HCI International 2005 Exhibition, news in the area of HCI, tips and techniques in preparing effective presentation for publication and more.

If you have any questions or comments, or if you want to contribute, please contact the Editor, Dr. Abbas Moallem. The opinions that are expressed in this newsletter are sole responsibility of their authors and do not represent any institution or company.

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