[I18n-sig] CFP: IUI4DR Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces for Developing Regions with IUI 2008 (DEADLINE EXTENDED)

[Nitendra Rajput]

THE PAPER/DEMO SUBMISSION DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO NOV 21, 2007 (11:59
pm SPAIN TIME) !!!!

**** We apologise for any cross-postings ****

**** Submission deadlines have been changed ****

Call For Papers:

          Workshop on IUI4DR - Intelligent User Interfaces for Developing
Regions
                                           (in conjunction with IUI '08)
                                               Canary Islands, Spain
                                                 January 13, 2008

                                      http://research.ihost.com/iui4dr


Organisers:

    * Sheetal K. Agarwal, IBM Research, India
    * John Canny, UC Berkeley, USA
    * Apala Lahiri Chavan, Human Factors International, India
    * Nitendra Rajput, IBM Research, India


Advisory Committee:

    * Michelle X Zhou, IBM T J Watson Research Center, USA


Program Committee:

    * Ravin Balakrishnan, University of Toronto, Canada
    * Michael Best, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
    * Mary Czerwinski, Microsoft Research, USA
    * Gary Geunbae Lee, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea
    * Sougata Mukherjea, IBM Research, India
    * Oscar Murillo, Microsoft, Colombia
    * Shimei Pan, IBM T J Watson Research Center, USA
    * Pearl Pu, EPFL, Switzerland
    * Anxo Cereijo Roibas, Vodafone, UK
    * Andy Smith, Thames Valley University, UK
    * Andrew Thatcher, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa


Theme:

Information Technology has had significant impact on the society and has
touched all aspects of our lives. So far, computers and expensive devices
have fueled this growth. It has resulted in several benefits to the
society.
The challenge now is to take this success of IT to its next level where IT
services can be accessed by masses. "Masses" here mean the people who
(a) are not yet IT literate and/or
(b) do not have the purchase power to use the current IT delivery
mechanisms (PC centric model) and/or
(c) do not find current IT solutions and services relevant to their life or

business.

Interestingly, a huge portion of the world's population falls in this
category.
To enable the IT access to such masses, this workshop aims to focus on
easy-to-use and affordable, yet powerful, user interfaces that can be
used by this population.

The workshop aims to bring together researchers in the industry and the
academia to focus on user interface issues related to designing interfaces
for
this population.


Topics of Interest:

Considering the social, cultural, educational and economic diversity of
developing regions, the challenge is to develop appropriate and effective
interfaces/interaction techniques that will enable these users to access
services that currently remain elusive to them. The focus areas of the
workshop include, but are not limited to:

    * Novel and effective interfaces that reduces the cognitive load on the
       users who usually operate in chaotic environments:
           People in developing regions often would access these interfaces
           in noisy and crowded surroundings. Providing privacy through the
           intelligent UI and handling the noise would be a challenge for
such
           interfaces.
    * Interfaces for semi-literate and illiterate users:
           Iconic interfaces, speech-based interfaces and multimodal
           interfaces offer promising solutions to overcome literacy
issues.
          Any other interface that does not need language skills will be of
          interest to this workshop.
    * Designs tailored to factor social and cultural issues:
          If an interface technology is culturally not acceptable to a
          society, it may not have  acceptability. So interfaces that
reflect the
          culture of the society are bound to be promising.
    * Shared user interfaces and devices:
          People developing regions seldom own a computing device on an
          individual basis. Access to applications or services is mainly
through
          kiosks or phones. Most families now own a cell phone that is
shared
          among family members.
    * Cost-effective interfaces:
          Since the purchase power of this society is not high, expensive
          and sophisticated interfaces may not be the right choice.
Intelligent
          use of cost-effective devices will therefore be more  acceptable
          for this population.

We seek original, unpublished papers in the following three categories:
(a) Position papers that describe novel ideas that can lead to interesting
research directions, (b) Early results or work-in-progress that has
significant promise, or, (c) Full papers. Papers should be of 4-6 pages
in length in the IUI publication format. The LaTeX
(http://www.iuiconf.org/LaTeXclassfile.zip) and Microsoft Word
(http://www.iuiconf.org/chi2008pubsformat.doc) templates are
available through these links. All submissions should be in the PDF format
and should be submitted electronically through the IUI4DR Easychair
Conference site (http://www.easychair.org/iui4dr08). Since the submission
deadlines are dependent on the IUI conference, we will not be able to
grant any extensions in any circumstances.

Since the workshop also aims to be a meeting point for researchers
working in this area, atleast one author of accepted papers should
attend the workshop to present their work.



Demos:

In addition to the papers, participants are also invited to submit
interesting demonstrations of working systems. These demos should
reflect the usability of the systems for developing regions. A one page
description of the system should be submitted through the workshop
submission site by November 21, 2007. The description should also
provide any equipment that is required for the demo. Needless to say,
if accepted, the demonstrators should be able to travel to the workshop
for presenting their work.


Key Dates

* Paper/Demo Submission Deadline: Nov 21, 2007 (11:59 pm Spain Time)
* Notification:                                   Dec 10, 2007
* Early Registration Deadline:            Dec 17, 2007
* Workshop:                                    Jan 13, 2008.


Websites

* IUI4DR Workshop: http://research.ihost.com/iui4dr
* IUI '08 Conference : http://www.iuiconf.org/