Spotlights

The following research areas have been selected to appear as Spotlights in CHI 2014:

The CHI 2014 spotlights call for participation can be found here.

What are Spotlights?

Spotlights replaces what used to be known as Communities at CHI. Spotlights are a chance for SIGCHI members with a common area of interest to gather and advance their area through the CHI conference. If your emerging area has grown enough to where you can organize a significant body of work, and volunteers to ensure its quality, consider proposing it for a Spotlight at the conference. A chosen Spotlight proposal will be highlighted and given space in the conference program.

CHI Spotlights might address new areas of research and practice, new methodologies, emerging application areas, design innovations, management and organizational issues, HCI education, engineering and modeling, systems development, theory or other areas. Some will represent strategic areas for SIGCHI or the conference, and others will represent areas of interest within the larger SIGCHI community. Their influence may be felt through existing contributions and may innovate in how the content is treated within the program. Spotlights emerging through the CHI conference may even spawn new, more specialized conferences in the future.

If a proposal is chosen to be a Spotlighted area, it will be spotlighted at CHI 2014, and if successful, might also be spotlighted at next year's CHI-conference.

Kristina Höök, Mobile Life, KTH, Sweden
Ed Chi, Google, Inc.

spotlights@chi2014.acm.org

Being in the Spotlight?

The field of human-computer interaction is built on the premise of diversity, balance, collaboration and evolution. We believe that our strength lies in seeing problems from multiple viewpoints and in integrating expertise from multiple domains to find solutions as needs change and new technologies emerge.

In recent years, CHI has identified several major communities of practice: Design, User Experience, Engineering and Management - all well-established at CHI. Newer spotlighted areas include Games, Interactive Arts, HCI for development, Sustainability and Child-Computer Interaction. Each has brought fresh new perspectives and substantial contributions to what constitutes modern Human-Computer Interaction.

Each Spotlight area comprises chairs and committees who are experts in the domain and who have had significant experience working within the greater CHI community, and will have the opportunity to innovate within the conference and influence the program to better satisfy the needs of their community.

CHI Spotlights serve three major roles:

  1. They are the primary entry points and guides for researchers and practitioners new to CHI. Each of the Spotlight web pages describes the area, its personality, and provides guidance on its role within CHI. They help attendees and authors find ways to connect with the conference and one-another.
  2. They are engaged across the submission types and are instrumental in creating the most interesting, diverse and informative program. In this role, they advise respective contribution chairs on issues surrounding the culture and expectations of work in the domain and how to satisfy them. For several contribution types (e.g. Case Studies and SIGs), authors may also choose the Spotlight area that they would like to review their paper.
  3. They are responsible for driving innovative area specific events and contributions.

For all Spotlight areas, the following interactions with the CHI technical program are offered:

  • Spotlight areas are featured on the conference call for submissions, on the conference web site, in the printed and electronic program and at the conference
  • Each Spotlight area will be given space in the CHI technical program. Each Spotlight area proposal needs to specify which form this should take in order to attract the most interest from your specific community - it might be a panel, performance, competition, SIG or other novel form of participation
  • Spotlight chairs work with the Technical Program Chairs to provide input to shape the program
  • Spotlights identify and publicize the talks and other technical program content that is particularly relevant to members of their community. "Spotlight trails" will be listed on each Spotlight area's web page, and through electronic versions of the program that are being created for the conference (e.g., TrailMaps, and smartphone apps)