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Design Community

Quick Facts

  • Submission Start: 19 August 2008
  • Submission End: 19 September 2008 (5:00pm PDT)
  • Notification: 30 January 2009
  • Camera Ready: 4 February 2009

Introduction

We are extremely fortunate to work in a field in which ideas flow rapidly from research to practice – and back again. Designers are thirsty to learn about new tools and methods that can be used to rethink existing interaction paradigms. And researchers are equally eager to see their work applied to real world applications. This rich collaboration is ever more critical as digital technologies shape our social fabric and cultural experience. More and more businesses, organizations and disparate communities are looking to information technologies to address pressing social and environmental problems. The Design Community at CHI 2009 offers a unique opportunity to showcase the results of the ongoing collaborations between the research and design communities. We are particularly interested in submissions that demonstrate tangible results in meeting these challenges. Please consider submitting work to CHI2009 that:

  • Showcases new methods that integrate research and practice in addressing real world problems
  • Demonstrates the effective applications of research concepts to new markets and areas of human activity
  • Produces singular, original solutions that are exemplative of the potential of our craft
  • Creates demonstrable and sustainable improvements in human social conditions and behavior
  • Provokes new ways of understanding the role of the HCI designer within a broader social or business context

Submissions

This year we seek three categories of contributions from the Design Community:

  • Papers & Notes (Archival Format) - Due 19 September 2008
  • Design Practice - Due 7 January 2009
  • Design Methods - Due 7 January 2009

We encourage members of the design community, inclusive of researchers and practitioners in design, usability, engineering, and management disciplines, whose work meets the criteria to submit directly to the Design Community. Submissions to the Design Community are peer reviewed by design practitioners. Accepted works will appear in the CHI2009 Extended Abstracts disk and in the ACM Digital Library as appropriate (please see acceptance criteria). While contributions to the Design Community are focused on design methods, concepts, and implementations, work in these areas is also appropriate and welcome in other conference venues. Please review the submission guidelines for each venue before you formulate your contribution and decide to which venue it is best suited.

1. Papers & Notes (Design Subcommittee)

Papers follow the standard CHI archival format (you can find more info on the Papers & Notes page). When you submit, you can choose to have it reviewed by the Design Subcommittee. The subcommittees offer authors a better target for choosing what community of researchers will review your paper. An important thing to consider in selecting a subcommittee is that you are not describing your paper, you are instead providing information about the type of researchers who you feel are most qualified to review your paper.

2. Design Practice

Design Practice submissions are very flexible in their format. The goal is to demonstrate the broadest diversity of design practice possible, while grounding these examples in relevant theory and concepts. We believe that the flow of ideas between research and practice should be bi-directional. Design practitioners are constantly adapting their approach to real world constraints and conditions and getting direct feedback based on user engagement. We encourage practitioners to submit examples illustrated through a wide range of visual materials. We will be posting a cover sheet that you will need to complete so that we can get a snapshot of the context surrounding the project. We are particularly keen to identify projects that:

  • Showcase novel & successful solutions to human interaction problems in the real world
  • Are not limited to traditional computing platforms, extending our notion of technology
  • Extend our awareness of interaction design challenges to new spheres of activity, communities, industries and technologies
  • Have demonstrable social value, addressing poorly served or marginalized needs
  • Provide compelling examples of creativity in interface and interaction design

3. Design Methods

Design Method submissions are very flexible in their format. The goal is to showcase the diversity of methods and tools related to the practice of interaction design. This is a key area of innovation and opportunity for collaboration between the academic and practitioner communities. We encourage practitioners to submit examples illustrated through a wide range of visual materials. We will be posting a cover sheet that you will need to complete so that we can get a snapshot of the context surrounding the method. We are particularly keen to identify new design methods that:

  • Combine creative methods (such as sketching) and analytic methods (such as ethnography)
  • Move beyond the traditional designer / consumer production model, engaging users in new forms of collaborative and emergent co-creative behavior
  • Apply methods from other design practices (such as theatre or architecture) to interaction design
  • Are innovate in their use of materials
  • Capture user needs and insights in a novel manner

Robert Fabricant, frog design
Anijo Mathew, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology
Mark Baskinger, Carnegie Mellon University - School of Design
Contact us: design@chi2009.org