Things that interest me.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a call for papers here. I’m not involved in this, but it looks like a really interesting issue. More importantly, I don’t think I can resist reposting a CFP that includes a headquote from Eddie Izzard.

Next Generation Experience Design
Call for Papers
New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 2009 (2)
Special Issue

Guest Editors

Mark Blythe, University of York
Marc Hassenzahl, Folkwang University, Essen
Effie Law, University of Leicester

“In the old days and by the old days I mean two years ago…”
Eddie Izzard

Youtube, Facebook, Second Life, Wikipedia, Google Earth and even Google
itself are all less than a decade old and yet for many they are as taken
for granted and indispensable as books or pens and paper. It is not only
the pace of technological change which is unprecedented but also the
speed of distribution and acceptance. These technologies affect every
aspect of our lives: work, play, sex, politics and religion. Small
wonder then that studies of human computer interaction (HCI) have
adopted a term as wide as “user experience” to address their impact. HCI
has begun to consider such areas as: fun, enjoyment, beauty, aesthetics
and affect. As users become more concerned with the social and
environmental impact of their technologies “user experience” is being
conceived in still wider terms to include such topics as: ethics,
politics and sustainability.

“User experience” has become the default label for almost every study in
HCI. It appears to have replaced usability as a focus for interaction
design in both academia and industry. Courses in User Experience Design
are offered at many universities and job titles such as “User Experience
Engineer” are commonplace. Yet there are a very wide range of
methodological and theoretical approaches to user experience some of
which are radically opposed to one another.

A variety of methods and techniques have been developed from social
science disciplines such as psychology, which tend to break user
experience into component elements in search for general models and
rules. Others employ more holistic and situated approaches, taking
contextual factors into consideration. These two types of approaches
have their advantages and disadvantages – together they provide new
opportunities to transform HCI into the practice and science of
experience with technology.

This special issue will reflect the diversity of approaches to user
experience and explore the limits of current methods. We encourage
submissions of both empirical and theoretical work.

Possible topics include but are not limited to –

Fun, enjoyment and affect
Beauty and Aesthetics
Ethics and Religion
Human Computer Sexual Interaction
Green HCI and sustainability
Approaches from Cultural and Critical Theory

The deadline for submissions is the 20th of February. Submissions may
take the form of research papers or shorter technical notes and should
be submitted electronically at the Journal’s Manuscript Central site

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tham

Important Dates:

Paper submission 20th February 2009
Notification of Acceptance 3rd April 2009
Final papers due 28th April 2009.

Informal enquiries may be sent to: mblythe@cs.york.ac.uk

For instructions for authors etc. see: http://www.informaworld.com/nrhm