UIST 2018

31st ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium

Berlin, Germany

October 14-17, 2018

Call for Participation

Papers Posters Demos Doctoral Symposium Student Volunteers Student Innovation Contest UIST Visions UIST School HCI Ambassadors

UIST 2018 took place in Berlin. For the call for papers for 2019 in New Orleans go to UIST 2019

Appropriate Topics

Appropriate topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Significantly novel enabling technologies such as innovative input devices, new interaction techniques, or new media that extend the boundaries of traditional interaction, such as natural user interfaces, augmented reality, mobile interaction, haptic and tactile interfaces, ubiquitous computing, wearable computers, social software, and computer-supported collaborative work.

  • Novel interactive hardware prototypes, prototype fabrication methods or tools, or processes for creating user experiences that involve physical devices, sensors, prototypes, or systems.

  • Innovative user interfaces for difficult interaction contexts or challenging applications. Examples include managing large and complex information sets, usable privacy and security, multi-user interaction, crowdsourcing, fabrication, or techniques that span devices distributed in time and space.

  • Breakthrough user experiences leveraging techniques such as machine learning, computer vision, computer graphics, speech processing, networking, or human perception and cognition.

  • Innovative software architectures, tools, toolkits, programming systems, development environments, tutorial and help systems that support the development and use of the above technologies in user interfaces.

Authors of all accepted papers will also be invited and encouraged to participate in the demo session. All papers should be submitted electronically to: http://new.precisionconference.com/~sigchi.

To create a new submission in PCS 2.0, first click “Submissions” at the top of the page. You will be presented with 3 dropdown menus for the submission society, conference, and track. Select “SIGCHI”, “UIST 2018” and “UIST 2018 Papers”, respectively, and hit “Go”.

Support for Student Presentations

The SIGCHI Student Travel Grant (SSTG) program is intended to enable students who lack other funding opportunities to attend SIGCHI-sponsored or co-sponsored conferences. This travel grant is intended to support students whose intention is to present at a SIGCHI-sponsored conference, not just attend. (More details)

Papers

Papers Deadline April 5th, 2018 5pm PDT
Reviews sent out June 1st, 2018
Rebuttals due June 8th, 2018
Conditional acceptance notification June 24th, 2018
Revised versions due July 16th, 2018
Final decision July 23th, 2018
Camera-ready papers due Aug 6th, 2018
Video preview due Aug 24th, 2018

Papers are the main medium for conveying new research results at UIST. Submissions are sought that describe original, unpublished work on user interface interaction techniques, systems, tools, services, devices or applications. Please consult the UIST 2018 Author's Guide for information on submission format and policies for previous and simultaneous publications. Note that paper submissions must be anonymous! Authors must remove their names and affiliations from the masthead and refer to their own previous work in third person when possible. See the anonymization policy in the Author’s Guide for more information.

Paper Length and Presentation Time

Papers can be of any page length, though should be commensurate with the size of the contribution. A new idea presented in a compact format is more likely to be accepted than the same idea in a long format. Exceptionally long papers (over 10 pages) need to include very strong contributions to warrant acceptance. Shorter, focused papers (called "notes" in years prior to 2011) are still an appropriate submission length for UIST and encouraged. References do not count towards the page length.

In rare cases, authors may be requested to shorten papers in a camera-ready, for example by removing sections that detracts from a paper’s main contribution. Papers that are 6 or fewer pages will have shorter presentation times than longer papers at the conference. However, there will be no distinction made between papers based on length in the program, proceedings or digital library. Exact talk durations will be determined when the program is finalized.

Submission Requirements

When you submit your work, you will be asked to agree to the terms and conditions of the SIGCHI Submitter Agreement. In addition, the author list must be complete by the submission deadline. Late author changes require approval from Program Chairs and may be declined or require paper withdrawal because of reviewing conflicts.

Reviewing and Rebuttal Process

Rigorous reviewing is a hallmark of UIST. Each paper will be reviewed by 3 external reviewers (experts in the area who are not on the Program Committee). Additionally, every paper will receive a review from a member of the Program Committee. On June 1st, 2018 , authors will be notified of their initial reviews. If reviews fall below a rebuttal threshold, the paper will be rejected at this stage; otherwise, the authors will have the opportunity to submit a rebuttal. One additional review from the Program Committee will be entered post-rebuttal for papers requiring additional discussion. On July 23rd, 2018, authors will be notified if their papers have been conditionally accepted or rejected.

Conditional Acceptance

All acceptances will be conditional pending changes that the Program Committee may suggest or require for the final camera-ready paper. This means that a paper will not be accepted to UIST until authors revise and submit the final camera-ready paper for approval by the Program Committee. The length of the camera-ready paper must be less than or equal to the length of the original submission unless there is a strong justification for increasing the paper length, which would require approval by the authors’ primary reviewer.

Video Previews

Video previews are 30-second clips that describe and showcase a publication before, during, and after the conference. Video previews are mandatory accompanying material for Papers, and optinal for Posters and Demos, see the video previews page for details. Video previews are 30-second clips that describe and showcase a publication before, during, and after the conference. Video previews will be released no sooner than two weeks before the start of the conference. The Deadline for video previews is August 24, 2018 (all venues)

Format

All paper submissions must be made in the SIGCHI papers format (Note that this format utilizes the newer “Firstname M. Lastname” convention.). Note that references do not count towards the paper length.

Authors are requested to make the pdf of their papers accessible after acceptance. The ASSETS guide on how to make your pdf accessible is very comprehensive in its explanation of how to do this. For authors writing about disability / accessibility issues, the ASSETS writing guide may also be helpful

Public Dissemination Date

The title and abstract of all accepted papers are typically announced shortly after the final camera-ready paper deadline August 6th, 2018. Note, however, that this is not the official publication date. The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to one month prior to the first day of the conference. Therefore, the official publication date, also known as the official public dissemination date, may be as early as September 2018.

Program Committee Chair

program2018@uist.org

Posters

Posters Due July 11th, 2018 12:00 PDT
Acceptance notification August 1st, 2018
Camera-Ready versions due August 10th, 2018
Video preview due (optional) August 24th, 2018

Posters provide an interactive forum in which authors can present their work to conference attendees during special poster sessions. Posters are an opportunity to describe new work or work that is still in progress, and will be more lightly reviewed than papers. The posters track welcomes innovative research, as well as innovative ways of doing research.

All poster submissions must include a two-page "abstract" and a full size poster design. Note that poster submissions, unlike paper submissions, are not anonymous. The abstract describes the research problem, contribution, and value to UIST attendees. The abstract must be formatted using the SIGCHI Papers Format (use the Word Template or Latex Template) and submitted as a PDF. The poster design must be less than 30 x 40 inches (76 × 101 cm), either portrait or landscape orientation, and submitted as a PDF. The UIST Poster Example Gallery has ideas and guidelines for poster designs. Authors are also encouraged to submit an optional video no more than three minutes long, see the video guide for acceptable formats.

The poster abstract, poster design, and optional video must be submitted electronically to the new Precision Conference System before the submission date below. The total size for all files must be less than 50 MB. See the video guide, the author guide, and general submission information for more details about preparing your submission.

References do not count towards the page length.

Selection process

The selection process for UIST posters is juried. As stated in the CHI selection process: “Juried content is reviewed by a committee but in a less rigorous process than refereed and does not include an author’s response or conditional acceptance. Juried content is generally not required to make the same level of lasting and significant contribution to our knowledge and understanding as refereed content. Authors who submit to juried tracks may expect to receive light feedback of up to a few paragraphs in length.“

Incomplete or incorrect submission content or formats will be desk rejected. Late submissions are not permitted, and the deadline below is final. Do not submit the same work to both the demo and poster tracks. Double submissions will only be considered as a demo submission and will be automatically rejected from the poster track.

Posters are non-archival

UIST posters are non-archival and UIST allows resubmission of posters previously shown at other venues. Authors should state previous poster venues in the appropriate box in the upload form and point out differences to previous posters.

At the conference

All accepted posters will be displayed during a portion of the conference. At least one author is requested to stand by their poster during poster sessions to speak with conference attendees.

After the conference

Accepted poster abstracts will be published as adjunct proceedings in the ACM Digital Library and distributed in digital form to conference attendees. Authors can make accepted poster designs and videos available at their discretion.

Posters Chairs

posters@uist.org

Demos

Demos Due July 11th, 2018 12:00 PDT
Acceptance notification August 1st, 2018
Camera-Ready versions due August 10th, 2018
Video preview due (optional) August 24th, 2018

Demonstrations show early implementations of novel and compelling interaction concepts, techniques, devices and systems. They can also serve to showcase commercial products not previously described in the research literature. Demonstrations should be brief, so that they can be shown repeatedly. We particularly encourage demos with which attendees can interact.

Accepted demonstration abstracts will be published together with posters and doctoral symposium abstracts and made available digitally to conference attendees. UIST will showcase accepted demos at an evening reception. We will also invite authors of accepted papers to present their work at the demo reception.

A demo submission should follow the official SIGCHI conference publication paper format (use the Word Template or Latex Template), and should be no more than two pages in length, not including references. Note that demo submissions, unlike paper submissions, are not anonymous.

All papers should be submitted electronically to: new Precision Conference.

References do not count towards the page length.

Demos of already accepted UIST papers:

Demos of already accepted UIST papers have two choices:

  1. Authors can do a full demo submission including the two page write up. The abstract will be published together with posters and doctoral symposium abstracts and made available digitally to conference attendees.
  2. Authors can decide to only submit the (mock-up) photo of the demonstration as described above (fully envisioned setup and labeled). As a result, no extended abstract will be included in the proceedings.

Selection process

The selection process for UIST demos is curated, that is, selected by an esteemed committee, but not sent out to external reviewers. The curated demo content will be selected from demonstration submissions, accepted papers, as well as projects invited by the demo chairs. Authors will not receive formal feedback on their submission other than the selection decision.

Note

The demo submission should include a (mock-up) photo of the demonstration showing the envisioned setup (demo hardware components, tables, chairs, lights and other equipment), as well as the demonstrators alongside conference attendees interacting with the demo. Please label and annotate all parts of the image(s) so that organizers get a good understanding of your setup. This will also allow the organizers to better consider your requirements when organizing the demonstration space at the conference. Submitting an accompanying video is optional, but highly encouraged. Any submitted video should be no longer than three minutes and at most 50MB in size.

Demos are non-archival

UIST demos are non-archival and UIST allows resubmission of demos previously shown at other venues. Authors should state previous demo venues in the appropriate box in the upload form and point out differences to previous demos.

See the video guide and the general submission information for more details about preparing your submission. Both the demo abstract and the optional digital video should be submitted electronically to Precision Conference.

Demo Chairs

demos@uist.org

Doctoral Symposium

Submissions due July 11th, 2018 12:00 PDT
Acceptance notification August 1st, 2018
Camera ready versions due August 10th, 2018
Welcome dinner October 13th, 2018
Doctoral Symposium date October 14th, 2018 9am-6pm

The UIST Doctoral Symposium is a forum in which Ph.D. students can meet and discuss their work with each other and a panel of experienced UIST researchers in an informal and interactive setting. We welcome applications from current Ph.D. students studying within the full range of disciplines and approaches that contribute to the UIST community. We will give preference to applicants beyond the proposal stage and well into their dissertation research.

Each applicant should provide a short written paper (no more than four pages (including references) in the official SIGCHI conference publication format (use the Word Template or Latex Template), as described in the author's guide). Note that doctoral symposium submission, unlike paper submission, is not anonymous; doctoral symposium submissions should be single-authored, where the student applying is the sole author. This paper should describe ongoing work and might summarize your full dissertation work, or highlight a particular part in depth.

The Doctoral Symposium committee will select approximately eight students to participate. Participants will be selected based on their anticipated contributions to the breadth and depth of the intellectual discussions of the symposium.

Each student will be expected to give a short presentation of their work, which will be followed by extensive discussion with the panel and the other student participants. The symposium will be held at theHasso Plattner Institute from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Sunday, October 14th, 2018 (and will begin with a welcome dinner the evening of Saturday, October 13th, at 6:30 pm). In addition, each student is encouraged to present a poster describing his or her work to the full conference; posters will be on display for two days during the conference.

Doctoral Symposium abstracts will be published together with poster and demonstration abstracts and made available digitally to conference attendees (though they are considered a “non-archival” publication). Posters may also be published at the participant's discretion.

Accepted students will receive complimentary registration to the UIST 2018 conference, and a complimentary hotel room at the conference venue (on a shared basis; same-gendered members of the symposium will be paired together for room sharing). Travel subsidies will also be available to participants (the exact value of the travel subsidies has not yet been determined).

Doctoral Symposium papers should be submitted electronically to the new Precision Conference System.

The faculty panelists will be:

Doctoral Symposium Chair

doctoralsymposium@uist.org

Student Volunteers

Applications due July 22nd
Notification July 27th

Application Instructions:

To apply to be a student volunteer, please sign up at the UIST SV portal .

Questions?

If you have any questions/problems, please contact the chairs at sv@uist.org.

Benefits and Duties

If you are a UIST Student Volunteer, you get:

  • Free conference registration
  • Free T-shirt
  • A great SV party with free dinner
  • A chance to attend the premier forum for innovations in human-computer interfaces

Student volunteers will be required to help set up and perform needed work during the conference. Duties include: bag stuffing, registration desk, AV assistance, poster and demo setup, badge checking, break monitoring, etc. Volunteers will also need to be available during the conference if tasks come up. SVs usually get to attend most of the sessions, even when working. There will be approximately 14 scheduled hours per SV.

Arriving and Leaving

SVs need to be available to help throughout the conference. You will need to arrive on or before Saturday afternoon (Oct. 13) for the SV orientation and should not leave the conference venue until sessions end on Wednesday (Oct. 17). Also, we strongly encourage you to put off leaving until as late as you possibly can, because it's traditional to have a small party for student volunteers on Wednesday evening. The time and place for this party will be announced when we know all the student volunteers' travel plans.

Work Schedules

To give you an idea of what to expect, you can see the UIST 2006 Student Volunteer Schedule.

Accommodation

We will not be able to provide free accommodation, but we will help you team up with other student volunteers for sharing rooms and we will provide a list of hotels with affordable room rates.

Student Volunteer Chair

sv@uist.org

Student Innovation Contest

Application due (submit here) July 27th
Acceptance Notification August 3rd
Hardware Kits Shipped to Accepted Teams August 3rd - August 15th
Development Period Starts August 3rd
Development Period Ends October 12th
Teams Demo at UIST Reception October 16th (Tuesday)

Introduction

In the UIST Student Innovation Contest (aka the "SIC"), we explore how novel input, interaction, actuation, and output technologies can augment interactive experiences! This year, in partnership with Makeblock, we are seeking students who will push the boundaries of input and output techniques with our unusual human-robot interaction challenge! Join the UIST SIC and turn your ideas into reality! Win fabulous prizes!

The UIST SIC is your opportunity to shine and impress the world with your creative ideas! Participants will demo their work during the demo reception at the conference in Berlin, Germany, and contest winners will be announced at the conference. A jury of UIST judges will select two winners for the Most Creative and Best Implementation categories. On top of that, conference attendees will get a chance to vote for their favorite teams in the People's Choice category. All categories receive prizes!

We will give away the hardware to all selected teams! You can bring it home with you! This is made possible through our generous sponsors!

Hardware Platform

We sought to find a platform that captured the inventive spirit of UIST. This year, we bring you the Makeblock mBot Ultimate 2.0 (10-in-1 Robot Kit), an extremely flexible robotic platform, with more than 240 modularized parts. Endless possibilities! The kit allows you to build a robot that includes input sensors (e.g., ultrasonic, line follower, shutter, IMU) and output components (e.g., gripper, motors). In addition to this platform, you will get a hardware budget of up to €200 to include sensors of your choice. These can include EMG sensors, EKG, eye tracking, acoustic sensors, head movement, foot control, and many more

UIST 2018 SIC Challenge: Unusual Human-Robot Interactions

MOTIVATION

We envision a future where humans and robots work together in a multitude of dynamic scenarios and challenging settings. For example, imagine a person working on a primary task, often with hands pre-occupied, while expecting assistance from a nearby robot. In these scenarios, precise and immediate control is critical

CHALLENGE: INTERACTION WITHOUT HANDS!

Your goal is to implement one or more robots that can be controlled by users without using their hands. One path to attacking this challenge is to figure out 1) what task(s) you want the robot(s) to support, and 2) how to control the robot(s) hands-free. Your system should motivate the use-case and articulate a clear set of assumptions on how the user’s hands are preoccupied (e.g., are they holding/grasping objects, or performing other tasks?). Your system should clearly illustrate how your hands-free interaction can be achieved. Finally, your system doesn’t have to be limited to one user— ideas that involve well executed, multi-user, simultaneous interactions are often crowd-favorites at UIST!

DESIGN SPACE

You can build and design your system in a multitude of configurations, which affords the exploration of numerous design primitives. But the main constraint is hands-free interaction. Again, by hands-free, we mean scenarios where the user’s hands are occupied with other tasks, and interaction is driven primarily by other modalities. With this constraint in mind, you can design and implement your system, taking various parameters into account:

  1. Physical Design Space:
    • Degrees of freedom: Can the robot move on a table? Rotate? Wheeled?
    • Static vs. Dynamic: Are robot(s) moving or fixed?
    • Attachments: Cameras? 3D Scanners? Grippers?
    • Others?
  2. Sensing Space:
    • Interface: Brain-control? Foot-control? Gaze? Speech? Whistling?
    • Classic sensors: IR, acoustics, depth/camera, IMU?
    • Advanced sensors: EMG, frequency analysis, EEG?
  3. Output Space:
    • Computationally-Driven Actions: move to a target, squirt water, draw on surface?
    • Self-Expression: react to stimuli in unconventional ways?
    • Proxy: perform tasks on behalf of the user? Together with user?
    • Combined Output: actuation + display / LEDs / sound, etc.?

Note that just by mixing and matching among these three example primitives, you can already imagine a multitude of exciting ideas! Feel free to add custom hardware, sensors and components. The hardware we provide serves as minimal starting kit, and expanding them will give you even greater possibilities.

Logistics

Each team will receive a mBot Ultimate 2.0 Kit, complete with servo motors, power supply, motor controllers, wiring, and all necessary tools. We will also provide you with example code to get you started. Teams are encouraged to open source their efforts, and even build on each other’s work. You can program the robots using mBlock, which allows you to use the Scratch programming language and dig into the Arduino source.

When submitting to the contest, you should also specify for which sensors you plan to use the €200. It will be your responsibility to purchase the sensor, we will pay for it.

To get you moving fast, we will also provide, on top of all the hardware, video tutorials and mentoring sessions to ensure you have everything you need to make your vision a reality!

Registration

To participate, follow the instructions on this form. The submission deadline is July 27th, 2018 12:00 PDT.

To complete your submission, you’ll need:

  • A description of your idea, in about 100-words
  • Supporting document (SIGCHI extended abstract format, 2-page max)
  • Link to supporting materials (images, video, etc.)
  • Complete other items in the registration page (contact info, etc.)

Decisions will be emailed to each team by August 3rd, 2018.

For accepted teams, one of your team members MUST register for the UIST conference and pay the registration fee. If you’ve been accepted as a student volunteer, you can let us know as well.

Once we've confirmed your UIST conference registration, we will ship your hardware!

Contest Rules, Details, and Suggestions

  • Pre-Selection Criteria: organizers will select a minimum of 15 teams, judged based on usefulness, creativity, complexity, feasibility, and time/resource constraints.
  • Team Size: minimum team size is 2, the maximum is 5.
  • Team Composition: you can’t be part of multiple teams!
  • Eligibility: you MUST be a student to participate in this contest. Students of all levels (high school, bachelor's, master's, PhD) are encouraged to participate. International students are welcome.
  • Registration Requirement: If your team is accepted, at least one of your team members MUST register for the conference (or be accepted as a student volunteer). This is for three reasons: 1) you have to demo your idea, 2) you have to claim your prizes, and 3) UIST is an awesome conference!
  • Demo Ideas: during the contest voting period, teams will be allowed to demo one idea. Different demos of the same idea are permitted.
  • Demo Code: We encourage you to open-source your code. The organizers will create a github organization where all teams will be expected to post their code (don’t worry, we will not judge you on your code!).
  • Demo Safety: Safety is our utmost priority. Make sure your demos follow reasonable safety guidelines (i.e., don’t light anything on fire!)
  • Extra Equipment: teams must bring supporting computers and hardware to run their demos, including the hardware shipped by the contest organizers. No extra equipment will be handed out at UIST.
  • Power Supply: a German power strip (CEE 7/3 or “Schuko”) will be provided for each team at their demo table. However, we recommend that you bring your own regional power strip with the appropriate adapter for connecting your hardware.
  • WiFi: Conference WiFi is available, but keep bandwidth traffic in mind. Teams are welcome to use WiFi as a part of their demos, but we recommend having a Plan B (e.g., a router, a switch, etc)!
  • Bluetooth: sure thing but test it beforehand (some bluetooth firmware are easily stressed when 300 attendees are around your demo with BT enabled devices). Make sure you have a plan B.

Awards

Innovation comes in many forms. At UIST, we provide Student Innovation Contest awards for the following categories:

  • Most Creative (Jury)
  • Best Implementation (Jury)
  • People's Choice (Attendee Votes)

All teams get to bring home the hardware kits. Winners will win cash prizes and a UIST SIC certificate. Note that we reserve the right to change the awards structure during the contest.

Questions ?

Contact the SIC Chairs!

Student Innovation Contest Chairs

sic@uist.org

UIST Visions

Submission Deadline July 10, 2018 5PM PDT
Reviews sent out July 20, 2018
Camera-ready papers due Aug 6th, 2018
Slide Submisison Oct 1st, 2018

UIST Visions is a new venue for forward thinking ideas to inspire the community. The goal is not to report research but to project and propose new research directions. We want to project the UIST community as thought leaders in HCI Technology. Appropriate issues might be:

  • Future Trends
  • Foundational technologies that we will need for progress
  • Significant compelling problems that the community might address
  • Something that is missing
  • An alternative perspective on what we do

Submission

1 Page, 1 Author, URL for author vita. Submitters must have published at least 5 papers at a SIGCHI venue. We are looking for research leaders with forward-thinking ideas. All submissions should be done electronically to: http://new.precisionconference.com/~sigchi

Review Process

A maximum of 3 speakers can be invited. Review will be based on how interesting and provocative the ideas are in the 1 page proposal. Accepted speakers will be required to sign the approval form to record and publish the talk. We want these talks to be widely shared.

Camera Ready

These should be papers, up to 8 pages that make the case for the position you presented in your submission. Papers are in SIGCHI format. See the UIST 2018 Author's Guide for format.

Slides Submission

Slides reviewed for pitch-worthiness rather than fact dumping. Review for too many slides and too many words. We want great presentations. All speaker slides will be assembled into a single deck for presentation.

Presentation - at the conference

15 minute presentation. No podium, lapel mic and slide button. This is a pitch presentation. 15 minute Q&A

Vision Chair

vision@uist.org

UIST School: Moving Interaction closer to the body — Physiology and beyond

Application Deadline (first round) July 11, 2018
Notification of Acceptance July 23, 2018
Application Deadline (second round) August 7, 2018
Notification of Acceptance August 10, 2018
Arrival and Get-Together October 10th, 2018
UIST School October 11th-14th, 2018
UIST welcome reception, featuring demos from UIST School October 14th, 2018
More informations on the dedicated webpage    

The 2018 UIST School invites young academics to get to know the UIST community and obtain new research skills. Participants of the UIST School will enjoy a week full of exciting lectures, workshops, and hands-on sessions in the vibrant city of Berlin.

In particular, participants will be introduced to topics evolving around physiological interaction. Apart from introductory lectures, participants will work on group projects, the outcomes of which will be presented at the UIST Opening Reception. The program is complemented by talks on novel topic in HCI, given by distinguished members of the UIST community.

The teaching will cover the following areas:

  • Body signals — sensing physiological information from the body (electrical / acoustic / optical / etc.)
  • Actuation of the Human Body with Electrical Signals
  • Understanding the physiology of gaze
  • Sensing eye gaze
  • Social signal processing and emotions in computing
  • Beauty technology and seamless wearable interfaces

The symposium will be held at the Hasso Plattner Institute.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Interested PhD students can apply until July 11th, 2018 via this web form by submitting a short bio together with a statement from an academic mentor (supervisor / professor), stating that they can benefit from participating in this school and that they have basic skills in computer science or related fields.

The UIST School organizers will select approximately 30 students for participation. Notifications on acceptance will be sent no later than July 23rd, 2018.

UIST School Organizer

uistschool@uist.org

HCI Ambassadors

The HCI Ambassador grant application period is now closed. We thank everyone who submitted an application. Notifications have been sent to the applicants already. If you would still like to paricipate in the Ambassdor meeting on Sunday prior to the conference, please get in touch with the conference chairs by sending an email to chair@uist.org with the subject “HCI ambassadors, UIST2018, SIGCHI”.

The ACM SIGCHI community is growing, but there are many regions around the world were colleagues have to work hard to establish human computer interaction as credible subject in research and teaching. There are many countries around the world from where very little work is visible in the SIGCHI community.

The SIGCHI community is committed to be international. Over the last 25 years, the number of participants outside North America has significantly grown. However, looking at the data from recent SIGCHI conferences, and in particular CHI and UIST, we see that authors for research papers are from a small number of countries. For example, for CHI2018 (in total 666 papers published), it is reported that 371 publications included an author from the US, 124 from the UK, 81 from Germany and 78 from Canada (source). Further “players” are countries from Western Europe, China, Korea, Australia and Japan. Eastern Europe, Russia, India and many further countries in Asia, and most counties in Africa are not visible as authors in the SIGCHI community. Nevertheless, several of these countries have strong high-tech communities (e.g. Russia, India, Poland, etc.)

We would like to build bridges to make SIGCHI more internationally inclusive and to extend the reach of SIGCHI in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.

At UIST 2018 in Berlin we will start an HCI ambassador program with a one-day meeting on Sunday prior to the conference. We offer up to 10 people from countries not yet very visible in SIGCHI to join us in Berlin and to discuss ideas how to extend their impact – at home and in the SIGCHI community.

We believe Berlin is well suited for this due to its geographical location and due to its international community. In addition, the SIGCHI community in Germany has grown massively in the last 20 years and hence many examples and experiences are available to share.

Eligible for application are:

  • Academics and researchers from countries that are strongly underrepresented in ACM SIGCHI venues (e.g. less than 5 authors from this country were publishing at CHI2018).
  • Applicants who have a track record in doing research in Human Computer Interaction (e.g. publication in this field, that may also be published outside the common SIGCHI venues, e.g. Interact or national conference).

To apply by email please send an email to chair@uist.org with the subject “HCI ambassadors, UIST2018, SIGCHI” including

  • Link to your page at your university or research intuition
  • A short CV (1 page) or link to a page with your CV
  • If available a link to DBLP or Google scholar
  • A short statement (up to 250 words) outlining how they you would like to make SIGCHI more relevant to your country or region (e.g. creating a local chapter, running a conference that is in collaboration with SIGCHI, running a summer school on HCI, being involved in curriculum development in their country or university).

If there are more eligible applications that spaces a selection of the UIST organizing committee will make a decision based on the applications.

Selected participants will receive travel support (economy air fare and accommodation) to join us at UIST2018 in Berlin.

The HCI ambassadors workshop will take place on Sunday, Oct 14th from 10am to 16pm. The main aim is to foster a community and to network participants with people in SIGCHI. Specific topics include:

  • Information on starting a local SIGCHI chapter
  • Organizing SIGCHI supported summer schools
  • Having conferences in collaboration with SIGCHI