NordiCHI Workshop: Design for Audience Engagement (Oct 2012, Copenhagen)

Date: 14 October 2012, in conjunction with NordiCHI
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Website: http://ace.caad.ed.ac.uk/NordiCHIWorkshop/
Deadline for submission of position paper: UPDATED: 13 August 2012

Engaging the audience has always been of fundamental importance to the creative sector (performing and visual arts, video games, film, interactive narrative etc). Media producers, publishers and content providers are starting to use interactive technologies to involve audiences in the creative process — constructing audience journeys, and exploiting the potential of co-creation and crowd-sourced innovation. So design is central to engaging audiences. What are the best methods and processes for designing and evaluating audience engagement?

This workshop adopts an interdisciplinary approach to identify design strategies for audience engagement.

We are calling for position papers investigating, but not restricted to topics and questions such as:

-What is audience engagement and what are its goals?
-What design processes are appropriate for audience engagement?
-What contextual, cultural and ethical parameters should we consider when designing for audience engagement?
-Can audience engagement be evaluated and if so, which are the strategies that can be effectively employed?

We welcome contributions in:

– Original practical research and empirical studies
– Critical essays that explore design for audience engagement
– Models, methods and frameworks for designing and evaluating audience engagement
– New technologies and platforms built for this purpose

Outcomes of the workshop

We will
– identify design and evaluation strategies for audience engagement
– connect empirical studies and theoretical research across interrelated fields
– produce an online visual infographic document summarizing and interlinking the key points derived from the workshop’s activities, incorporating participants’ abstracts and/or papers and links to their work

Structure of the workshop

Accepted submissions will be circulated to the participants before the workshop. There will be an introduction by the organizers with a brief review of ongoing practical and theoretical work in the area of design for audience engagement — including case studies.
The main part of the workshop will involve presentations of the accepted papers in thematic sessions with discussion after each presentation. The day will continue with one design-led activity, involving an actual prototype as a practical focus for discussion on the issues raised in the workshop.

The key points and outcomes of the discussions will be integrated into the infographic document.

How to participate

We welcome participants from all parts of HCI and related disciplines. We seek to attract an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners in areas including HCI design (user experience, value-based design, design for affect, user-centred and user-driven design), interaction design, performing and visual arts, video games, film, interactive narrative, neuroscience, psychology and related fields with experience in the workshop theme. The workshop will accommodate between 10 and 25 participants selected on the basis of submitted position papers.

We invite workshop papers up to 4 ACM pages long, reporting on recent projects, studies of the field and theoretical accounts. We also invite position papers up to 2 ACM pages stating the submitters’ interest in the workshop’s theme. (The ACM CHI publication format is available at http://www.nordichi2012.org/content/chi2012extendedabstracts.doc).

Submit the position paper in PDF format by email to marizadima@ed.ac.uk no later than 3rd August, 2012.

About the organizers

Richard Coyne is Professor of Architectural Computing at the University of Edinburgh. He researches and teaches in information technology in practice, computer-aided design in architecture, the philosophy of information technology, digital media, and design theory. His most recent book is The Tuning of Place: Sociable Spaces and Pervasive Digital Media (2010, MIT Press).

Mariza Dima is a digital designer and researcher in HCI with extensive experience in the design and production of digital media projects. She is currently completing her PhD on design strategies for haptic workspaces that re-appropriate the embodied knowledge encountered in traditional animation techniques.

Mark Wright holds an interdisciplinary appointment between the School of Informatics at Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art. His research interests center on the relationship between culture and technology and how digital embodiment transforms creative practice. He is a founding member of Eurohaptics and co-founder of Mobile Acuity a mobile visual search company. He has worked with academia, digital creative industry companies and cultural organisations on the co-development of new forms of digital interactive platforms.

All three are currently working on Moving Targets, a three year Scottish Funding Council funded project, which brings together Scottish universities, industry, agencies and audiences to develop new models for new media audiences in the creative media industries.