Posted on behalf of Kasper Hornbæk [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 


CALL FOR PAPERS: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION 
 
SPECIAL ISSUE ON "The Interplay Between Usability Evaluation and User Interaction Design" 
 
EDITOR: Kasper Hornbæk ([log in to unmask]) and Jan Stage ([log in to unmask]) 
 
DEADLINE: August 15, 2005
 
FULL CALL FOR PAPERS: http://www.cs.aau.dk/~jans/events/IJHCI-SI2006-Call.pdf <http://www.cs.aau.dk/~jans/events/IJHCI-SI2006-Call.pdf> 
 
INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS
The International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, provides the highest quality of current research in HCI. 
 
For this special issue, manuscripts should be submitted to the co-editors of the special issue. The first submission is due on August 15, 2005. Your submission should either be an expanded version of the paper from the NordiCHI Workshop on the theme of this special issue, where you have taken into account the comments from participants at your NordiCHI presentation, or a new paper that deals with the topic described below. Both types of submissions will go through the same review process. 
 
The theme of the special issue is the interplay between usability evaluation and User Interaction Design. Research into how to build usable systems consists of two, largely independent strands. On the one hand, more than 20 years of research in HCI has created and compared techniques for usability evaluation. On the other hand, methods for design of user interaction have significantly advanced in the last decades, through the widespread of for example contextual design, agile development methods, and participatory design. However, we have seen little substantial exchange of results between the strands, and sparse efforts to combine their methods in practice. Larry Constantine, a prominent software development researcher, and his colleagues observe that "Integrating usability into the software development process is not easy or obvious" (Juristo et al. 2001, p. 21). 
 
In practical software development, usability evaluation and user interaction design are frequently carried out in surprising independence of each other. For example, integrating usability evaluation at relevant points in user interaction design with successful and to-the-point results has proved difficult. The organization of software development and short development cycles exacerbate this difficulty. 
 
With this special issue, we seek to significantly advance our understanding of issues that influence the interplay between usability evaluation and user interaction design. To accomplish this goal, we solicit papers describing qualitative or quantitative empirical studies of the current state of that interplay and/or efforts to improve it. 
 
Possible topics include studies that explore: 
 
* organizational, social and psychological factors affecting the interplay between usability evaluation and user interface design, * different products from user interaction design as the basis for usability evaluation, * usability evaluation techniques particularly relevant in specific development phases, * various forms of feedback from usability evaluation to user interaction design and their strengths and weaknesses, * characteristics of usability evaluation results needed in user interaction design, * integration of usability evaluation into existing or novel approaches to user interaction design or software development. 
 
Manuscripts are accepted for review with the understanding that the same work has not been and will not be published nor is presently submitted elsewhere, and that all persons listed as authors have given their approval for the submission of the paper. Further, that any person cited as a source of personal communication has approved such citation. Written authorization may be required at the Editor's discretion. Articles and other material published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction represent the opinions of the authors and should not be construed to reflect the opinions of the Editors or the Publisher. 
 
Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that if it is accepted for publication, copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to the Publisher. The Publisher will not refuse any reasonable request by the author for permission to reproduce any of his or her contributions to the Journal. 
 
Responsibility for the accuracy of material in the manuscript, including appropriate reference to related work, lies entirely with the authors. 
 
Note the page limit: The manuscript should fit within 30 double-spaced pages including references, figures, and tables. 
 
See the full call for further details.