One day workshop at NordiCHI 2004
Sunday October 24, 2004, Tampere, Finland
[Proceedings] from the workshop.
[A short report] in Usability News.
[Stuff] for participants.
Various aesthetic approaches are getting increasing attention in the field of HCI. This development seems to have several independent drivers. Firstly, the never-ending paradigmatic crisis of the field leads HCI researchers to explore new theoretical foundations beyond information processing. Secondly, the relevant fields of inquiry for HCI is expanding beyond work arrangements to include a broader range of cultural settings and art forms - a cultural interface can be identified. Thirdly, a whole new set of interface problems, that cannot easily be solved within the current paradigms, evolve as everyday appliances, from kitchen equipment, over TV-sets, to clothes, imbed computers that we have to interact with directly or indirectly. HCI today is about art, entertainment, education, process control, coordination, and much more. Successful IT-support in most of these domains seem to rely on an understanding of use in aesthetic terms in order to account for experience dimensions of interaction. We have already seen a substantial corpus of contributions to HCI journals and conferences that address these new dimensions in aesthetic terms.
The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for people exploring and working with aesthetic approaches to HCI, addressing questions and issues like the following:
Based on the submitted position papers, the day will be composed of thematic discussions and creativity stimulating games.
The primary outcome is to stimulate development, debate and cooperation between researchers addressing aesthetic approaches to HCI.
Preliminary results will be presented in a poster format during the conference (we expect that is obligatory for all workshops).
Depending on the quality of submissions we will aim to publish the results, in e.g. a special issue of a journal, a book, or a joint paper.
Between 8 and 25 participants from academia and industry, selected among submitters of position papers.
To participate in the workshop it is necessary to have a position paper accepted by the organizers. Position papers should address the workshop theme, e.g. through one or more of the questions above. Position papers should be between 2 and 4 pages long following the conference publication format (the ACM sigchi publication format, available at http://sigchi.org/chi2004/res/CHI04PubsFormat.doc).
Submit the position paper in DPF (or MS-Word) format by email to , no later than August 28.
Deadline for submissions: August 28.
Notification to authors: August 25 (who meet the original deadline).
Workshop: Sunday 24 October.
Olav W. Bertelsen. Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus. Has worked with foundational issues in HCI since the early nineties. Ph.D. thesis concerned with design artefacts, e.g. how theories can be understood as design artefacts. Current work includes practical and theoretical approaches to interface aesthetics.
Olav can be reached by e-mail at
Marianne Graves Petersen.
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus. Research in human-computer interaction and augmented reality. Has worked in joint industrial and academic research projects addressing in particular how the domain of the home challenges existing approaches to HCI. Current work on a theoretical and methodological approach to aesthetic interaction.
Marianne can be reached by e-mail at
Søren Pold. Associate Professor in digital aesthetics at the Institute of Aesthetic Disciplines, University of Aarhus. Ph.D. thesis about relations between literature and media from the 19. century until today's digital literature, computer games and net art. Continued research in digital aesthetics. Leader of the research project The Aesthetics of the Interface Culture and co-initiator of the Digital Aesthetics Research Center.
Søren can be reached by e-mail at