Workshop on New Methods to Support Table-Based Creation Processes at the ACM Creativity & Cognition 2009
Attending
Participants will be chosen based on the quality of the position papers and the expected contribution to the workshop theme. We will try to get a maximum of 20 people and at least 4 different disciplines.
The workshop will be held on tba. Registration opens at tba, and there will be signs and student volunteers available to help you find your way. Please arrive early to be sure you have plenty of time to register and find the room.
Workshop Description
The primary goal of this workshop is to foster interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. We also want to connect arts practice and HCI research by bringing all to one table. The workshop will raise new challenges for the design of tabletops while introducing new methods for people from the arts. A design space of commonalities and differences in the way the different communities act during their table-based work will be created based on the interviews and observations during the workshop.Audience
The intended audience of this workshop consists of practitioners and researchers that rely heavily on table-based interactions or did, 50 years ago, and chose to switch to common computer systems because of advantages in digital data processing. Diversity of disciplines is an important role for the workshop and thus the number of applications from the same discipline is limited. Disciplines include architects, linguists, theologists, artists, painters, composers, writers, and engineers.Call for Participation
Workshop participants will be selected based on a 2-4 page position paper in two-column SIGCHI paper format (http://chi2010.org/authors/format.html ->HCI Archive). The participants should describe what part of their daily work consists of table-based interactions and what impact an improvement of these work processes could have.Submissions, in PDF format, should be sent to Max Möllers by tba.
Important Dates:
Submission: tba
Notification: tba
Schedule
The workshop will be held in three sessions. Each takes roughly two hours , and the schedule should look like:
09:00am - 11:00am first session
coffee break
11:30am - 1:30 pm second session
lunch break
03:00pm - 05:00pm
We will organize dinner on our own from 7pm to stimulate further projects for anyone who is interested.
The first session will begin with two minutes per participant to introduce themselves and their view on the topic.
We will then split into smaller groups. Each one of us will take people from one discipline (4-5 people). We will interview about their specific table-based interactions and typical workflow. They should propose a “dream” system.
Groups will then merge and present the results. We will summarize similar interaction metaphors.
After the coffee break, we will give a demonstration of our tabletop system, which we developed as part of the Brain, Concept, Writing project. We will also show other technologies, which could be useful for table-based interactions. After a short Q&A session, we will split into the same groups and discuss technological possibilities and limitations of our and other systems.
After lunch we will, reform the groups and start our first designs based on a brainstormed small prototype.
At the end, groups will present their findings and try to find commonalities or differences in the proposed designs.
The idea behind this schedule is not to bias or limit the participants’ imagination by showing them the technological possibilities and limitations too early. We also plan the breaks to give them free time to think about what they said in the interviews and a long time (during lunch) to think about what they had been demonstrated.
Organizer’s Background
Coming from an interdisciplinary project, we think that our workshop committee is strong at the technology aspect, while still being able to communicate with people from the arts.
Jan Borchers is professor of computer science and head of the Media Computing Group at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, after holding faculty positions at ETH Zurich and Stanford University. He is interested in human-computer interaction, in particular, interfaces for smart environments, ubiquitous, wearable, and physical computing, interactive exhibits, and time-based media such as audio and video. He has published the first book on HCI design patterns, several other book chapters, and some eighty other articles at conferences such as ACM CHI, ACM DIS, NIME, or ICMC, and in journals such as ACM interactions, IEEE Multimedia, and others. His group is Germany's best-published research group in terms of archival CHI publications over the last 6 years. HumTec (Human Technolog Center) is part of the Excellence Initiative Program launched at RWTH Aachen University with its new status as elite university. HumTec focuses on the interaction of people and technology, making it an ideal project house for the Media Computing Group.
Karin Herrmann is a junior professor at RWTH Aachen University and head of the interdisciplinary project Brain, Concept, Writing, which is part of the Human Technology Center. She is one of the main authors of the upcoming edition of Ernst Meister’s late work. Her interests are lyric poetry, text processes, intertextuality, and cultural memory. She acquired funding for a symposium on intertextuality in Aachen in 2005, organized it, and published the proceedings.
Max Möllers is working as a PhD student and research assistant at the Media Computing Group at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. Max is involved in research about how usability can be measured to further integrate the concept of usability into corporate product development. Since 2008, Max is also working in the Brain, Concept, Writing project at the Human Technology Center. He is now focussing on the support of creative processes in different disciplines.
Moritz Wittenhagen is a PhD student and research assistant at the Media Computing Group at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. Like Max, he joined the Human Technology Center in 2008 to research how new technologies can benefit research in the humanities. Moritz’s other research interests include video navigation and interaction with large displays used in the classroom.
For more information, please contact Max Möllers