Workshop Sessions All-at-Once

8. Development of an HCI Research Agenda

Jean Scholtz, National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA
David Novick, European Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Engineering, France
Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland, USA
Michael Muller, Lotus Development Corporation, USA
Dan R. Olsen, Jr., Brigham Young University, USA
Cathleen Wharton, US WEST !NTERPRISE, USA

The goals of this workshop are to begin the development of an HCI research agenda statement, and to create plans for soliciting input from the greater HCI community, maintaining the agenda, and disseminating the agenda to research and funding organizations. Our primary objective is to build on previous efforts in order to develop a research agenda proposal that can be considered for endorsement by ACM SIGCHI.

Prospective participants are asked to review materials and references available on the workshop's web site, and submit a position paper identifying both breadth and depth issues for an HCI research agenda.

Please list:

• the areas you consider most critical and why
• the top five issues in your area of expertise

Issues may include process issues, such as how to connect HCI theory and practice. Participants will be selected based on the position papers, the need for participation across the diverse range of subfields that compose the HCI community, and the need for wide geographical representation.

Prior to the workshop, the organizers will assemble a working list of HCI areas and issues, which participants will be expected to review in advance of the workshop.

Contact:
Jean Scholtz
DARPA-IT
3701 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203-1714
Tel: +1 703 696 4469
Email: jscholtz@darpa.mil

9. Organizing Web Site Information: Principles and Practical Experience

Kate Dobroth, American Institute for Research, USA
Paul McInerney, IBM, USA
Sharon Smith, Compaq Computer Corporation, USA

As web sites continue to grow in their complexity, one of the most important usability design decisions in web site design is how to structure the web site topic hierarchy. If anything is clear about the organization of web sites, it is that there is no single best way to go about it. Different types of web sites seem to demand different approaches to organization.

The primary purpose of this workshop is to discuss and develop solutions for organizing information in web sites taking into account:

• theories about how humans process categories
• solutions arrived in the course of the practice of web site design

We will select 10-20 participants with practical experience in web design and/or theoretical knowledge in relevant disciplines, e.g. cognitive psychology, library science, and information retrieval. Applicants should provide a position paper on their background and information on one or both of the following:

• Web design experience: describe up to three web sites you helped design or evaluate and include interesting issues in organization and categorization, as well as description of the content, size, users, user's tasks, usage patterns, topic hierarchy, rationale behind the topic organization, pre-design analyses (if any), and design evaluations (if any).
• Research experience: describe research (including hypotheses and supporting data) that you have done relevant to web site organization and categorization. We are especially interested in hearing about research that you have applied to the design of a site.

More information is on the workshop's web page.

Contact:
Sharon Smith
Compaq Computer Corporation
550 King Street
Littleton, MA 01460 USA
Tel: +1 978 506 5672
Email: sharon.louise.smith@digital.com

10. The Hunt for Usability: Tracking Eye Movements

Keith S. Karn, Xerox Corporation, USA
Steve Ellis, Lucent Technologies, USA
Cornell Juliano, Xerox Corporation, USA

Usability testing methods have not changed significantly since the origins of the practice. Studies typically measure time on task, success/failure, error types, etc. Some questions cannot be answered with these techniques. Imagine a user spending longer than expected looking at a screen without making appropriate selections. Is the user overlooking the appropriate control or distracted by another display element? Does the user see the control, but not comprehend its meaning? User's eye movements can offer additional insight.

Workshop Sub-topics:

1. Incorporating eyetracking in usability tests

• What questions are best addressed with this data?
• How does eye position data fit with other usability data?
• What eye movement measures are useful?

2. Interpreting eye movement data

• How to best process raw data?
• Do measures correspond to cognitive processes?
• Can we interpret data using theories of other disciplines using eye tracking?

3. Resolving technical issues with the eye tracking technology

• Which tracking technology is best?
• What type of calibration process is needed?
• How is the user constrained?

We welcome participation of anyone experienced in usability evaluation or eye movement research. Participants will be selected based on position statements that address questions listed in at least one of the three subtopics above, and a description of your work. Selection criteria are familiarity with the topic and potential for innovative contributions.

Contact:
Keith S. Karn
Industrial Design/Human Interface Dept.
Xerox Corporation, Mail Stop 0801-10C
Rochester, NY 14623 USA
Tel: +1 716 427 1561
Email: keith.karn@usa.xerox.com

1. Basic Research Symposium

Yvonne Waern, Linkoping University, Sweden
John F. McGrew Pacific Telesis, Shared Services, USA

The CHI Basic Research Symposium presents an opportunity for researchers from different disciplines to exchange new developments and insights from their own fields and thereby expand their vision of human-computer interaction. This two-day event is a cross between a mini-conference and a workshop. Participants are selected by a program committee that reviews submitted position papers to bring together a diverse group of researchers with innovative research underway. The symposium itself includes interactive research presentations, group discussions around common themes, and small-group break-out activities.

The mission of the CHI Basic Research Symposium is to provide a venue where researchers conducting ground-breaking, controversial, and emerging research can discuss that research with a diverse group of peers.

Our vision for this year's Basic Research Symposium is for each participant to leave with a better understanding of the research methods, goals, and frontiers of a wider range of HCI disciplines. Each participant should contribute to the collective understanding and leave with new ideas for conducting, integrating, and applying research.

The BRS welcomes two types of submissions:

• Position Papers. Up to ten pages introducing your field and your work. Authors of accepted position papers will be given time to present their work in an interactive discussion format.
• Position statements. Up to two pages introducing you and your interests.

Contact:
John F. McGrew
Pacific Telesis Shared Services
5850 Las Positas Boulevard
Pleasanton, CA 94588 USA
Tel: +1 925 737 2632
Email: jfmcgre@ptss.com

2. Interacting With Recommender Systems

Patrick Baudisch, GMD-IPSI, Germany
Loren Terveen, AT&T Research, USA

Recommender systems automate the process of passing experience from a community of users to an individual user who is about to make a decision. They support people in making recommendations and in finding a set of people who are likely to provide good recommendations for a given person.

This workshop will focus on user and usage aspects of recommender systems. The workshop will consider, among others, the following issues:

• for which domains and which communities of users are recommender systems appropriate?
• empirical evaluation of deployed systems
• can interest profiles be constructed automatically from implicit input?
• what types of incentives must be provided to motivate users to participate?
• how should recommender systems communicate their results to users?
• privacy aspects

Applicants should send position papers (3-5 pages, preferably in pdf format) to the organizers, articulating their interests, ideas, and experiences in recommender systems. Application demonstrations are strongly encouraged. We welcome people with a variety of insights and perspectives, e.g. HCI, artificial intelligence, visualization, information retrieval. Participants will be selected based on their position papers, while seeking to balance the perspectives and interests of participants. This workshop is limited to 15 participants.

All accepted position papers will be placed on a web site by the organizers. Participants will be expected to read the position papers of all other participants prior to the workshop and to prepare a brief presentation of their own views. Participants will be asked to assist in the preparation of a report after the workshop.

More information is on the workshop's web page.

Contact:
Patrick Baudisch
GMD-IPSI
Dolivostrasse 15
D-64293 Darmstadt Germany
Tel: +49 6151 869854
Email: baudisch@gmd.de

3. Interacting in the Large: Developing a Framework for Integrating Models in HCI

Eamonn O'Neill, University of London, UK
Hilary Johnson, University of London, UK
Peter Johnson, University of London, UK

Modeling in early HCI concentrated largely on the individual user of a computer system. HCI has expanded its range of concerns to include the social, organizational, and environmental setting of interaction between possibly more than one user and more than one computer. The range of models used in HCI has correspondingly increased. The workshop objectives are to bring together researchers and practitioners in order to produce a shared understanding of what needs to be modeled and of the problems of integrating diverse models in interactive systems development; to provide suggestions of how to overcome those problems, and to undertake initial attempts at an integration of the models in an example domain. This example shall be provided by the workshop organizers in the form of a scenario of use in mobile computing. In the weeks before the workshop, the scenario will be circulated to the accepted participants.

Applicants should send position papers (2-4 pages) articulating the author's particular interest in the topic of the workshop; the author's background in modeling; an outline of a modeling approach with which the author has been associated either as a producer or as a user; and the author's experience with this approach. We envisage several papers coming out of the workshop which might comprise a special issue of a journal or an edited book.

Contact:
Hilary Johnson
University of London
Mile End Rd E1UNS UK
Tel: +171 975 5238
Email: hilaryj@dcs.qmw.ac.uk

4. Research Issues in the Design of Online Communities

Amy Bruckman, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Thomas Erickson, IBM, USA
Wendy Kellogg, IBM, USA
Lee Sproull, Boston University, USA
Barry Wellman, University of Toronto, Canada

Online communities are rapidly becoming a part of how we work, play, and learn. But how are they designed? What is already known in this emerging field? What are the key questions for future research? Research in this field is interdisciplinary, drawing on diverse fields including anthropology, architecture, computer science, human factors engineering, political science, psychology, and sociology. This workshop aims to bring people from these diverse fields together.

Those desiring to participate should submit a position paper:

• summarizing what your research has shown about online communities,
• outlining future directions your research will explore, and
• highlighting a few additional questions that you feel are important to the future of the field.

Papers must be submitted in HTML to asb@cc.gatech.edu. A length of less than 2500 words is suggested. Accepted papers will be posted on a workshop website. After the workshop, some participants will be invited to expand their papers into book chapters.

The primary criteria for acceptance are relevance to the topic and soundness of research methodology. Work of a speculative nature will not be included. We will also try to ensure that a variety of disciplines are represented.

More information is on the workshop's web page.

Contact:
Amy Bruckman
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
801 Atlantic Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280 USA
Tel: +1 404 894 9222
Email: asb@cc.gatech.edu

5. Designing Electronic Books

Gene Golovchinsky, FX Palo Alto Laboratory, USA
Cathy Marshall, Xerox PARC, USA
Bill Schilit, FX Palo Alto Laboratory, USA

Science fiction introduced the idea of an electronic book; some early prototypes showed the potential of such devices; now we have the technology to implement these ideas. Still missing, however, is a principled look at features and interaction design that make electronic books usable. Getting the user interface right is critical. We would like to apply the expertise of the HCI community to understand the work practices e-books support, and to inform interaction and user interface design.

This workshop will bring together practitioners, researchers, and designers to explore the future of electronic books with an emphasis on HCI issues. About twenty participants will be selected based on two- to four-page position papers on HCI issues (practical or theoretical) related to e-books. Accepted participants will be expected to submit longer versions of their papers to provide more detail. Papers should address one or more of the following issues slated for discussion at the workshop:

How will e-books fit into existing practices, and how will they change them? Which activities will benefit from such devices, and which are better left on paper?

Do e-book features depend on the document genre? Which features are appropriate for which tasks? Can we identify design guidelines for electronic books?

Is the book an appropriate metaphor for an electronic book? Does familiarity with the book outweigh some of its limitations? Can we identify other appropriate metaphors?

Can we describe the relationship between the form factor of an e-book and its software interface?

Contact:
Gene Golovchinsky
FX Palo Alto Laboratory, Inc.
3400 Hillview Ave., Bldg. 4
Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA
Tel: +1 650 813 7361
Email: gene@pal.xerox.com

6. Interacting with Statistics: Designing Interfaces to Statistical Databases

Michael D. Levi, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA
Frederick G. Conrad, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA

Suppose you move to a new neighborhood. You might want to know if you should worry about crime, whether the local schools are good, or whether the drinking water is clean. In each of these cases the relevant information exists in statistical data bases (SDBs). Whether a typical information seeker can find the information, however, is another question.

The purpose of this workshop is to foster the development of better, more usable interfaces to statistical databases: large, numeric data sets concerned primarily with social science. We will focus on the HCI problems that are peculiar to communicating requests for statistical information and presenting the results in a usable form. The outcome of the workshop will include a catalogue of HCI problems related to statistical information, a set of implemented solutions with accompanying commentary, and a set of research topics.

Workshop participants must have concrete experience developing or evaluating interfaces to statistical databases. Applicants should send a 3 - 5 page position paper headed with name and contact information and a one-paragraph biographical sketch. The paper should summarize the types of statistical data sets they work with, the type of usability problems their intended audience typically faces, and one or more useful interfaces they have either designed or evaluated which attempt to overcome these problems. If possible, please email the paper using ASCII, HTML, or Microsoft Word.

More information is on the workshop's web page.

Contact:
Michael D. Levi
US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Room 5890
2 Massachusetts Ave., NE
Washington, DC 20212 USA
Tel: +1 202 606 6100
Email: levi_m@bls.gov

7. Tool Support for Task-Based User Interface Design

Birgit Bomsdorf, Universitaet GH Paderborn, Germany
Gerd Szwillus, Universitaet GH Paderborn, Germany

Task analysis and modeling are increasingly accepted as part of the user interface design process. This approach, referred to as task-based user interface design, must be supported by adequate tools, which stem from formal modeling or model-based approaches. The goal of this workshop is to learn more about these formal methods and the tool support needed when applying task-based user interface design in practice. We want to bring together researchers and practitioners to collect, structure, and interrelate work dealing with tools for task modeling, dialogue modeling, and the transition from task to dialogue modeling.

The workshop is intended for people from academia and research departments working, for instance, on model-based user interface design approaches or design environments, and for user interface designers in software development companies creating real designs in their everyday work practice. The workshop will be very interactive with most of the time used for discussion rather than presentations. Discussion will be encouraged by bringing together diverse groups such that different viewpoints can be developed and compared.

Participants will be selected based upon position papers addressing the following two discussion points:

• What formal methods and tool support do we need for task modeling, dialogue modeling, and the transition from task to dialog modeling?
• How is task modeling used in practice, what is its impact on the design process, and how can task modeling be further integrated into the design process?

More information is on the workshop's web page.

Contact:
Gerd Szwillus
Universitaet GH Paderborn
Fachbereich Mathematik/Informatik
D-33095 Paderborn Germany
Tel: +49 5251 60 6624
Email: szwillus@uni-paderborn.de

11. End-User Programming and Blended-User Programming

Carol Traynor, St. Anselm College, USA
Howie Goodell, Micrion Corporation, USA

End-User Programming has not met expectations: today's computer world is dominated by "fatware" programs with hundreds of features, not simple applications built by the users themselves. Yet, a strange convergence is occurring between roles of programmers and end-users. Professional programmers become end users of complex IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) indistinguishable from tools for non-programmers. A new group we call "blended-user programmers" has appeared -- professional application experts without software degrees, e.g. web designers or GUI programmers. Major end-user applications support a continuum of programming tools; advanced users may move into these new software careers.

This workshop will re-evaluate insights of classical end-user programming to understand the converging programming world. Questions it may address:

• What are useful boundaries of "programming" in an environment of check-box customization?
• What are appropriate programming abilities for schoolchildren and adults to learn?
• What are commonalties/differences between new areas of blended-user programming and forms studied earlier?
• What technical and social interactions develop when "real" programmers with computer science degrees work with blended-user programmers?
• Do certificate courses primarily expand blended-user programmers' repertoire of tinkering, or make them more analytical?

Fifteen experts in end-user programming or with psychology and sociology of programming backgrounds will be selected based on position papers (2-4 pages). If appropriate, these may be published as a book to inform research and practice in this emerging area.

More information is on the workshop's web page.

Contact:
Carol Traynor
St. Anselm College
100 St. Anselm Drive
Manchester, NH 03102 USA
Tel: +1 603 656 6021
Email: ctraynor@anselm.edu

12. HCI in Domains: Common Ground and Key Differences

Guy Boy, Eurisco, France
David Novick, Eurisco, France
Cathleen Wharton, US WEST !NTERPRISE, USA

The workshop will discuss HCI approaches, methods, and techniques used in different domains such as health care, engineering, education, or entertainment. The main goal is to understand the interaction of domain and HCI issues. For example, are design guidelines domain-neutral or not?

Our objectives are to produce a categorization of HCI methods and practices across domains, identifying the type of systems in which a technique is most useful; the stage of development in which a methodology is appropriate; the resources needed to conduct an HCI project; and the appropriate measures for various techniques. We plan to discuss various methods of data collection for HCI in specific domains that would be of interest to others.

We expect participants to search for common ground across domains, to identify key differences, and to synthesize new methodologies, where possible.

Participants will be selected on the basis of a 4-5 page position paper describing their background, a large HCI project in one specific domain, and the general and domain-specific methods and techniques applied during all phases of development. Three domains will be chosen for discussion at the workshop on the basis of participants' statements of experience and interest. These three domains will be presented on a pre-workshop web site.

Contact:
Guy Boy
Eurisco
4 Avenue Edouard Belin
31400 Toulouse France
Tel: +33 562 17 3838
Email: boy@onecert.fr

13. Designing the User Interface for Pen and Speech Applications

David Ferro, Unisys Natural Language Understanding, USA
James A. Larson, Intel Architecture Labs, USA
Sharon Oviatt, Oregon Graduate Institute of Science & Technology, USA

This workshop will bring together a small group of researchers and practitioners to discuss how to design applications with both a verbal user interface (the user hears and speaks to the application) and a visual user interface (the user draws/writes and sees the application). Our goals are to better understand the issues that face designers of multimedia interfaces supporting both visual and verbal interaction styles; to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information; and to increase communication among the extremely diverse groups involved in designing multimedia interfaces.

To be selected as a participant in this workshop, e-mail a 3-page paper to the organizers that describes: (a) an existing or proposed multimedia application that integrates visual and verbal interaction styles, and (b) brief position statements relevant to the following workshop topics:

1. Identify situations in which combined visual and verbal interaction is particularly useful, or in which switching between them is desirable
2. Identify principles and/or methodologies for designing visual/verbal human-computer interfaces
3. Recommend topics on which additional research is needed before effective visual/verbal multimedia interfaces can be designed.

A maximum of 15 applicants will be invited to participate in the workshop based on their unique insights and the diversity of viewpoints represented.

Contact:
James A. Larson
Intel Architecture Labs
2111 N.E. 25th Avenue
Hillsboro, OR 97124-5961 USA
Tel: +1 503 264 8463
Email: jim.a.larson@intel.com

14. The UI Design Process: Planning, Managing, and Documenting UI Design Work

Paul McInerney, IBM Toronto Laboratory, Canada
Rick Sobiesiak, IBM Toronto Laboratory, Canada

This workshop will examine best practices for managing and documenting the external aspects of UI design work. Participants will have an opportunity to share lessons learned, discuss published literature, and identify issues that remain unresolved. The following is a preliminary list of discussion topics: dividing the UI design process into stages; division of labor amongst team members; design change management; approaches to holding design reviews; UI design process maturity levels; the role of guidelines; dealing with implementation issues; documenting UI specifications.

The workshop will consist of 10-20 participants, each with project experience as a lead UI designer or UI team lead. We will seek to obtain a representation of various disciplines (e.g., human factors, graphic design, programming) and different project types (e.g., large vs. small projects, products vs. custom applications vs. component development). Participants will be selected based on submissions that consist of the following: summary of UI design experience (including role and project type), a specific case study experience or position related to at least two of the workshop topics identified above, and any proposed new discussion topics. The case study should include: 1) background on the project and the participant's role; 2) noteworthy UI design techniques or practices; and 3) discussion points. Discussion points could include: lessons learned, issues for further work, and related approaches.

More information is on the workshop's web page.

Contact:
Rick Sobiesiak
User-Centered Design
IBM Toronto Laboratory
1150 Eglinton Avenue East
North York, Ontario M3C 1H7 Canada
Tel: +1 416 448 3788
Email: ricks@ca.ibm.com