Papers
(due Wednesday, April 7, 2004 see top of page)

Full-length papers (up to 10 pages) are the main medium for conveying new research results at UIST. Submissions are sought that describe original, unpublished work on user interface devices, techniques, applications, or metaphors.

Appropriate topics include but are not limited to:

• Novel, enabling technologies such as augmented reality, perceptual user interfaces, tactile user interfaces, tangible user interfaces, multimedia user interfaces, CSCW user interfaces and unconventional input devices;
• Innovative user interfaces for difficult or challenging applications, such as the management of large, complex information sets, or domains, such as ubiquitous computing;
• Innovative software architectures and development environments that support the development and use of the above technologies and user interfaces.

The submission of supplementary videos is encouraged. However, videos should be no more than five minutes in length. Rigorous reviewing is a UIST hallmark: each paper will be reviewed by at least two members of the program committee and three external reviewers. Authors of accepted papers will also be invited to participate in the demo session.

Accepted papers will be published together with accepted technotes in the UIST 2004 Proceedings, which are part of the CHI Letters series, and in the ACM Digital Library.

All papers should be submitted electronically to http://www.precisionconference.com/~uist. (See General Information below for information on the author guide, guidelines for submitting supplementary videos, and links to the electronic submission site.) Authors will be notified of paper results on or before June 9.

Program Chair:
James Landay (james.a.landay[at]intel.com), University of Washington & Intel Research

Tech Notes
(due Wednesday, April 7, 2004 see top of page)

TechNotes provide a forum for disseminating new interaction techniques. UIST TechNotes are rigorously peer-reviewed, shorter, and more focused submissions that bring new techniques to the research and practice community. The combination of text, pictures, videos, and live presentation help these techniques get rapid feedback and early adoption.

Typically, a TechNote is a succinct description, possibly including screen dumps and accompanying video, of a novel user interface technique with sufficient detail to assist an expert reader in replicating the technique. TechNotes generally should not include exhaustive implementation details or summaries of user studies.

A TechNote submission should be no more than four ACM conference pages in length, and any accompanying digital video file should be at most three minutes long. TechNotes undergo the same rigorous review process as regular papers.

Accepted TechNotes will be published together with accepted papers in the UIST 2004 Proceedings, which are part of the CHI Letters series, and in the ACM Digital Library. All TechNotes should be submitted electronically to http://www.precisionconference.com/~uist. (See General Information below for information on the author guide, guidelines for submitting supplementary videos, and links to the electronic submission site.) Authors will be notified of TechNote results on or before June 9.

Program Chair:
James Landay (james.a.landay [at] intel.com), University of Washington & Intel Research

Posters
(due Wednesday, July 14, 2004)

Posters provide an interactive forum in which authors can present work to conference attendees during a special poster session. Posters provide an opportunity to describe new work or work that is still in progress, and will be more lightly reviewed than papers or TechNotes.

Poster submissions should be in the form of a two-page paper in UIST format, describing the contents of the poster and its value to UIST attendees. Poster submissions also require submitting a preview version of the poster itself (PDF format).

Accepted poster abstracts will be published together with demos in both a booklet and a DVD distributed to the conference attendees. Full posters may also be published in the DVD, at the authors' discretion. Poster abstracts and previews should be submitted electronically to http://www.precisionconference.com/~uist.

Posters will be displayed on corkboards during conference break periods. We expect to be able to accommodate posters of up to 3 feet by 4 feet (either vertical or horizontal), so we suggest using that size or smaller for your prototype. (Many authors have found it easiest to create a slide in Powerpoint and have a copy shop print it at 400% magnification. There are copy shops in Santa Fe that can produce the print for you if you'd prefer to avoid taking/shipping the poster.)

For some design ideas, see the UIST 2004 Poster Example Gallery.

Posters chairs:
Patrick Baudisch (patrick.baudisch[at]acm.org), Microsoft Research
Joanna McGrenere (joanna[at]cs.ubc.ca), Univ. of British Columbia

Demonstrations
(due Wednesday, July 14, 2004)

Peer-reviewed demonstrations show early implementations of novel, interesting, and important interaction concepts or user interface 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 demos will be published, together with posters, in a booklet distributed to UIST attendees. UIST will showcase accepted demos at a demo reception on Monday evening, October 25. We will also invite authors of accepted papers and TechNotes to present their work at the demo reception.

A demo submission consists of an extended abstract that should be no more than two ACM conference pages in length. Any accompanying video should be at most four minutes long. Both the demo abstract and the optional digital video should be submitted electronically to http://www.precisionconference.com/~uist. Authors who need to submit a physical videotape should contact Jeff Pierce directly.

Demos chairs:
Jeff Pierce (jpierce[at]cc.gatech.edu), Georgia Tech
Pierre Wellner (wellner[at]idiap.ch), IDIAP

Doctoral Symposium
(due Wednesday, July 14, 2004)

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 in normal UIST format). This paper should describe ongoing work and might summarize the student's full dissertation work, or highlight a particular part in depth.

The Doctoral Symposium committee will select approximately eight participants who will be expected to give a short presentation of their work, which will be followed by an extensive discussion. In addition, each student is encouraged to present a poster describing their work to the full conference. Participants will be selected based on their anticipated contribution to the breadth and depth of the intellectual discussions of the Symposium.

The symposium will start with an informal dinner Saturday evening, October 23rd, continue all day Sunday, and conclude with poster presentations at the UIST opening reception Sunday evening. Doctoral Symposium papers will be published in the UIST conference companion distributed at the conference. We anticipate that a travel stipend and free registration to the UIST conference will be provided to each participant.

Doctoral Symposium papers and poster sketches should be submitted electronically to http://www.precisionconference.com/~uist.

Doctoral Symposium Chair:
Scott Hudson (scott.hudson[at]cs.cmu.edu) Carnegie Mellon University

General Information

The UIST 2004 Symposium Submission Site is at http://www.precisionconference.com/~uist.

Accepted papers and TechNotes will be published in the UIST 2004 Conference Proceedings and the UIST 2004 DVD Proceedings. The primary author of each accepted paper or TechNote will receive an Author Kit with detailed instructions on how to submit a final, publication-ready version of the paper or TechNote. Accepted demos and posters will be published in a separate booklet that will be made available to the conference attendees and in the DVD proceedings.

We recommend that prospective authors consult the UIST 2004 Author's Guide. This document contains information on the reviewing process and a description of what constitutes an excellent UIST contribution. The Author's Guide also describes the page format for all submissions. Note that submissions are not anonymous.

This year, we are accepting only electronic submissions (if this creates a hardship, please contact the program chairs). To submit electronically, see the UIST Electronic Submission site (http://www.precisionconference.com/~uist). For details on the submission process, please consult the Author's Guide.

Videos of implementations should be submited through the UIST Electronic Submission Site. Authors of accepted papers and TechNotes will be invited to submit a video presentation for the DVD proceedings.

Although papers and TechNotes must stand on their own, submitted videos will be sent to reviewers as supporting material. We refer authors preparing a video file for UIST to the UIST 2004 Video Guide. This guide describes how to produce an ideal video for UIST. Please do not be intimidated by the guide. Videos are viewed only as supporting material, and authors of accepted papers and TechNotes will have the opportunity to prepare a more polished video presentation. A submitted video file must be in one of the following formats:

• Quicktime: with Sorenson or MPEG4 compression
• AVI: with Indeo 5.10, MPEG4, or DivX 5.x.x compression

The audio in the video can also be compressed or just left as a low bit-rate mono channel to save space (e.g., 22KHz, 16bit Mono, with IMA 4:1 compression). Videos should be at least 15fps and at least 320x240 resolution, with mono audio if needed. Note that videos for accepted submissions can be contributed to the DVD, in which case much higher quality encoding will be required later. Please note that the total aggregate size for a submission cannot exceed 60 MBytes (including all documents and additional material). If you cannot comply with this limit, please contact james.a.landay [at] intel.com.

Student Volunteers
(due Sunday, August 1, 2004)

The UIST 2004 Student Volunteer chairs are Joe Tullio (jtullio [at] cc.gatech.edu) and James Fogarty (jfogarty [at] cs.cmu.edu).

Timetable
To apply to be a student volunteer, please complete the student volunteer request form below.
The deadline for applying to be a UIST student volunteer is August 1, 2004. Student volunteers will be selected a few days later so that anyone traveling a long distance will have enough advance notice to purchase inexpensive plane tickets.

Student Volunteer Request Form
To apply to be a student volunteer, please email the information below (with subject "UIST SV") to James Fogarty at jfogarty[at]cs.cmu.edu.

Name and email:
Country:
University:
Degree Program:
Year in program:
Advisor:
Number of previous UISTs attended:
Have you been a UIST student volunteer before (when):
Have you been a student volunteer for other conferences (which ones):
Language(s) spoken:

If you have any questions/problems, please send email to the Student Volunteer chairs.

Benefits and Duties
If you are a UIST Student Volunteer, you get...

Free conference registration
Free T-shirt
A chance to attend the premier forum for innovations in developing human-computer interfaces
In the past, volunteers have also been given up to three nights of free housing. As soon as this year's housing benefit is confirmed, we will post information about it.

All you need to do is help us set up the conference and perform needed work during the conference. There will be at most 10 hours of work required of each volunteer.

Arriving and Leaving
When you arrive at the conference is somewhat flexible, but you should try to arrive at least a couple hours before the start of the conference on Sunday.

When you leave is also flexible, but you should try to plan it so you don't leave the hotel until sessions end on Wednesday. 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 after UIST (or occasionally during UIST). 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 2000 Student Volunteer Schedule.