*** Second Call for Papers ***

              Evaluating Ubiquitous Systems with Users:
                 Current Issues and Novel Approaches

    Workshop at the European Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI)
                November 7, 2007, Darmstadt, Germany

          http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/c.kray/ubieval.html

*** Update ***

The workshop will now take place on Wednesday, November 7, 2007.

*** Scope ***

Ambient Intelligence applications address a large range of scenarios,  
including safety-critical medical applications, customised support in  
the workplace, and leisure-related applications. Users interact with  
these systems via implicit or explicit means, e.g. by moving about in  
an environment or using custom-built devices. At the same time, many  
ambient applications deploy sensors to gather information about the  
context, in which those interactions take place, and system behaviour  
can change depending on contextual factors. All this adds up to a  
fairly complex situation, which poses new challenges for evaluation,  
pushing the boundaries of traditional evaluation methods and opening  
up opportunities for novel approaches.

The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers with an  
interest in this area to discuss the current state of the art in  
evaluating ubiquitous systems with real users, to identify  
shortcomings and benefits of traditional evaluation methods and to  
explore novel approaches. We are inviting position papers addressing  
issues such as:

     * Experiences from conducting user studies with ubiquitous systems
     * Factoring in contextual factors in evaluation
     * Benefits/shortcomings of lab-based/in-field user studies in  
Ubicomp
     * Novel approaches to evaluate ubiquitous systems with users
     * Comparing different methods for evaluation
     * Evaluating implicit interactions
     * Evaluation of user experience prior to deployment/completion
     * The role of prototyping in evaluating ubiquitous systems
     * Cultural/technological probes
     * Virtual and simulated environments as platforms for user studies

This list is indicative of the topics covered but we explicitly  
invite papers discussing other related questions. Submissions should  
consist of three parts:

    1. A position paper discussing a related topic (up to two pages)
    2. A short research statement of the submitting author describing  
their particular interests and previous research relating to the  
workshop topic (up to half a page)
    3. A particular issue/question that should be discussed at the  
workshop

All three parts should be saved as a single PDF file and should be  
sent to Chris Kray ([log in to unmask]). The submission deadline is 20  
August 2007.

*** Format ***

The workshop will be organised as a one-day event, and will mostly  
comprise structured discussions. We will use the first session to  
introduce participants (via brief talks of about 5 mins), which will  
be followed by an initial round of discussion. One outcome of this  
discussion will be the (sub-)set of questions to discuss more  
thoroughly in break-out groups. During the second session, we will  
break up into smaller groups to discuss the previously identified  
questions in-detail. We will all come together again for the third  
session, where individual groups will report on their discussion. We  
will conclude on a plenary discussion of the points made and on how  
to proceed with the topic in general. We aim to limit the workshop  
size to about 20 participants.

*** Expected outcome ***

In organising this workshop, we aim to achieve a number of goals:

     * community building for researchers interested in this topic
     * creating an initial research agenda
     * outlining open questions and promising new research directions.

We will also discuss the option of initiating a special issue of a  
related journal on the topic of the workshop.

*** Important Dates ***

20 August 2007 		Submission deadline
20 September 2007 	Notification of acceptance
20 October 2007 	Camera-ready copy due
21 October 2007 	Position papers available on workshop web page
7 November 2007 	Workshop at AMI 07, Darmstadt, Germany

*** Organising Committee ***

Christian Kray, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Lars Bo Larsen, Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg, Denmark
Patrick Olivier, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

*** Program Committee ***

Ian Bishop, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Cornelia Boldyreff, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK
Keith Cheverst, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Mark Dunlop, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK
Connor Graham, Lancaster University and University of Melbourne
Paul Holleis, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
Judy Kay, University of Sydney, Sidney, Australia
Jesper Kjeldskov, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
Ingrid Mulder, Telematica Instituut, Enschede, The Netherlands
Julian Newman, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, UK

    ---------------------------------------------------------------
                To unsubscribe, send an empty email to
     mailto:[log in to unmask]
    For further details of CHI lists see http://sigchi.org/listserv
    ---------------------------------------------------------------