Dear all,

I hope you don't mind me attracting your attention to a workshop on methodology for designing products for children.  

Here is the call for participation.  

The workshop URL is http://www.chici.org/interact.htm

The URL for the Interact conference is http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/interact2005.html

I hope some of you will be interested to participate.  

With kind regards,

Panos Markopoulos

*** WORKSHOP CfP ***

Child Computer Interaction: Methodological Research

INTERACT 2005 Workshop

September 13, 2005, Rome

* Organisers *

Panos Markopoulos, Johanna Höysniemi, Janet Read and Stuart MacFarlane

* Topic *

This workshop provides a forum for researchers in the emerging field of Child Computer Interaction.  This field relates to the broader field of human-computer interaction, but also to developmental psychology, education and educational technology.  It connects to art and design, and it has links to storytelling and literature. As a result of this heterogeneity, it borrows methods of inquiry.  Much published work is based on small samples, is anecdotal and difficult to generalise.  The mixture of methods of enquiry makes it difficult for researchers to gain an overview of research, compare across studies and gain a clear view on cumulative progress in this field.  Many practices used in design and experiences are not communicated and shared with the wider community.  Progress in this domain will benefit from a discussion and exchange of experiences that shall provide a coherent overview of current developments and future challenges.

* Aims of the workshop *

This workshop aims to gather together researchers who are interested in the phenomena surrounding child-computer interaction, and in developing methodologies suitable for the design of this interaction.  The following topics are of particular interest for this workshop:

-           Novel design and evaluation techniques for the design of products for children.

-           Comparison and assessment of established design and evaluation techniques.

-           Applications of developmental, educational theories or theories regarding media, literature, drama, etc., to guide the design of interactive products for children.

-           Case study reports reporting successes but also failures with methods in this domain.

* Submissions *

Interested participants are invited to submit position papers of 2-4 pages following the SIGCHI publications format (http://sigchi.org/chipubform/). Submissions should be sent by June 6, as .pdf files to P.Markopou...@tue.nl.  Authors will be notified of acceptance as from June 8.

* Format of the workshop *

The workshop is a 1-day event. The largest part of this day will involve short presentations.  These will be followed by discussion focusing on themes running through the position papers presented.  

* Publication *

We shall work towards a journal special issue where a selection of lengthier versions of the papers will be published.  

* Registration *

Registration will be possible through the conference website (http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/interact2005.html).  Registration will cost 150 Euro before June 10 and 200 Euro after this date.  It will be possible to register for a workshop but not for the conference.

See www.chici.org for fuller information