Theme
The context of use plays an important role in Human-Centered Software Engineering (HCSE) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Typically, user, environment, and platform are considered to make up the core aspects of the context of use. Changing the context of use, for example due to unplanned circumstances like the current pandemic situation, has significant impact on how we use systems, and how we adapt and adopt them even if the systems were not designed for such usages. In HCSE research we have to account for this change, making interactive system development context-aware or design and develop in a way that systems can adapt for novel forms of usage. Recently, we observe developments that strongly change contexts of use. For example, in the area of industrial automation (Industry 4.0) work environments change, new kinds of user assistance evolve, and workers are going to be supported by innovative types of devices and digital assistance tools to accomplish their working tasks. Typical examples are augmented, virtual, and mixed reality applications in training or support situations. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed where and the way how we work, particularly in collaboration with others to keep distance and increase personal safety. In contrast, the trend towards increasingly autonomous systems and systems that use and provide artificial intelligence gives rise to new kinds of interaction, particularly, human-machine interaction (HMI), in areas such as autonomous driving or human-robot collaboration in different domains such as industrial production, logistics, or health. These trends should be accounted for in the way we design and build such interactive systems, possibly coming to evolutionary or even revolutionary solutions. For example, expected or unforeseen changes of usage scenarios and their context of use may be accounted for by flexible and more resilient system solutions and be reflected in the development practices and technical frameworks. Specific kinds of interaction such as HMI, but also social and socio-technical interaction may demand for more prominent and explicit consideration. Quality aspects such as ubiquity, security, and safety may be seen in a different light. Changing contexts of use may even have an impact on the way we think about user motivation and user experience, away from short-term notions like emotions towards long-term traits like users’ values. We want to specifically account for these developments in addition to the general concerns of HCSE. Discussions and interactive working sessions will particularly deal with these concerns.

Objective

In this workshop, we aim to broaden the traditional scope of the workshop series of IFIP Working Group 13.2. We focus on the study of context of use, its long-term evolutionary trends as well as its short-term design and management in a user-centered design process, from a social and user-centered methodological viewpoint as well as from a technical viewpoint. Our aim is to cover a large set of user interface perspectives, aspects, and properties and fuel new ideas and approaches for research and practice. The long-term perspective of this workshop is to foster the development of theories, methods, tools and approaches for dealing with the changing context of use and its impact on HCI and collaboration that should be taken into account when developing interactive and socio-technical systems.

This workshop is a follow-up of the successful workshops organized at INTERACT 2017 in Mumbai, India and INTERACT 2019 in Paphos, Cyprus.

Target Audience and Expected Outcomes

This workshop is open to everyone who is interested in aspects of human-computer interaction from a user-centered perspective. Typical contributions to this workshop focus on user interface properties while designing and building interactive systems and study associated methods, processes and approaches. We expect a high participation of IFIP Working Group 13.2 members. We particularly invite participants to present position papers describing real-life case studies that illustrate the role of the context of use in HCI and its impact on the system design and use. Any perspective and related aspects of user interface design are welcome. However, we are especially interested in work that deals with current trends that change the way how humans use, interact and collaborate with technical components in socio-technical systems. We are also interested in methods, theories and tools for managing context of use at design and run-time. Position papers will be made available through the workshop website. Furthermore, an extended version of selected papers will be considered for inclusion in a Springer LNCS post-proceedings volume published in conjunction with the other INTERACT workshops organized by the IFIP TC13 Working Groups.

Workshop Format

This full-day workshop is organized around presentation of position papers and working activities in small groups. From the set of contributions, a subset of selected case studies will be invited to be presented at the beginning of the workshop and will be used to support the discussion that follows. The morning session will be dedicated to welcoming participants and presenting case studies. Participants will be invited to comment on the case studies and to report similar experiences. The afternoon sessions will be devoted to interactive sessions, where participants will be engaged to work in small groups and propose solutions to the problems of the case studies seen in the morning. Solutions proposed by the participants will be compiled and compared. Based on the lessons learned, participants will be incited to draft an agenda of future work that can be accomplished. We plan to run the workshop in a hybrid setting, allowing attendees to participate both physically and remotely in the workshop. If circumstances require it, we intend to switch to a completely digital format that will be run online. We will continuously adapt to any decision regarding the conference format by the INTERACT 2021 organizers.

Submission Instructions

In order to attend the workshop, participants are invited to submit position papers reporting original academic or industrial research relevant to the workshop's theme. These position papers (PDF files, 6-10 pages in Springer LNCS format, including abstract) shall report practical experiences related to research results on user-centered development processes for interactive systems with a particular focus on context-of-use aspects and the impact on software properties. Submissions are not anonymous and should include all author names, affiliations, and contact information. Authors should also provide in their submission a short summary of their experience in the field and their motivation to participate in this workshop. Papers are submitted through the EasyChair website.

Submitted position papers will be reviewed by an international program committee comprising the organizers and selected members of IFIP Working Group 13.2 who are experts in the field. Participants will be invited to attend the workshop based on the result of the reviewing process. Accepted position papers will be made available through the workshop website. Upon acceptance, at least one author of each accepted position paper must register and attend the workshop. Furthermore, an extended version of selected papers will be considered for inclusion in a Springer LNCS post-proceedings volume published in conjunction with the other INTERACT 2021 workshops organized by the IFIP TC13 Working Groups.

Important Dates

Deadline for submission: May 11, 2021 (extended!) April 30, 2021

Acceptance notification: June 11, 2021

Final version of position paper: June 28, 2021

Workshop date: August 31, 2021

Organizers

Stefan Sauer, Paderborn University, Germany (sauer[at]uni-paderborn.de)

Regina Bernhaupt, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands (r.bernhaupt[at]tue.nl)

Carmelo Ardito, Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy (carmelo.ardito[at]poliba.it)

Venue

The workshop will be hosted in the frame of the 18th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, August 30 – September 3, 2021, in Bari, Italy. Look at the main conference web site for further information (https://www.interact2021.org/).