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Supporting Collaboration Through Multimodal and Cross-modal Interfaces - BCS HCI 2011 Conference Workshop

Summary

With growing possibilities of using various modalities in human-computer interaction comes new opportunities for supporting richer, more effective and engaging collaborations. The use of multiple modalities to support collaboration also presents new challenges for the design, implementation and evaluation of collaborative systems. This workshop aims to bring together interested experts to examine and explore the issues associated with these areas of research.

The workshop is part of the 25th BCS HCI Conference. We invite two forms of submissions to the workshop:

  1. Position papers (maximum 2 pages) detailing participants work in this area, their perspectives on the challenges, and approaches to overcoming them.
  2. Posters and Demos (maximum 1 page) describing participants multimodal and cross-modal systems, techniques, user studies, etc.

Please use the BCS paper template to format your submission.

Important dates

1st May 2011 - Submission deadline
20th May 2011 - Notification of acceptance
2nd June 2011 - Deadline for final copy of accepted contributions
5th July 2011 - Workshop date

Submissions and all enquiries should be addressed to oussama [at] eecs [dot] qmul [dot] ac [dot] uk

Location

Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.

Workshop goals

The aim of this workshop is to stimulate exchange and discussion over the use of multimodal and cross-modal techniques to support collaborative interaction. We wish to gather researchers and practitioners interested in the design and implementation of multimodal and cross-modal collaborative systems in order to:

  • Promote networking between researchers and practitioners interested in the subject.
  • Identify and survey current practices and approaches to using multimodal and cross-modal techniques to support collaboration.
  • Identify issues associated with the design, implementation and evaluation of multimodal and cross-modal collaborative systems.
  • Share examples of multimodal and cross-modal systems.
  • Explore the potential of establishing a community of practice, including the identification of funding routes that contribute towards increasing networking and collaboration opportunities between the community.

Workshop topics

This is a non-exhaustive list of general topics for contributions to the workshop:

  • Design approaches and principles for multimodal and cross-modal collaborative systems
  • Applications for multimodal and cross-modal collaborative interaction
  • Novel multimodal devices and technologies
  • Perceptual issues in multimodal and cross-modal interaction design
  • Frameworks for evaluating multimodal and cross-modal collaborative systems

Publication of workshop proceedings

Workshop positions papers will be published in a third volume of the BCS HCI'11 Proceedings. This volume will contain the collected position papers / slides from the workshops, submitted by the final position paper deadline (TBA) and will be distributed to all conference and workshop participants.

Journal special issue
A further desired outcome of the workshop would be an invitation to participants to submit longer versions of their position papers for a special issue of a Journal on the topic of multimodal and cross-modal collaboration.

Initial program

09.30 - 10:00 Welcome and Introductions

10:00 - 12:30 Presentations

12:30 - 14:30 Lunch + Posters + Demos

14:30 - 17:00 Discussion

17:00 - 17:30 Summary and Closing

Workshop rationale

A wide range of devices nowadays allow for the incorporation of high fidelity input and output technologies. These include audio, graphics, touch screens, gesture, hand and body movement and speech recognition, in addition to force-feedback and vibro-tactile display. It is often argued, and indeed shown, that using multiple modalities to support interaction can improve the usability of single user applications, particularly when interaction occurs in contexts that favour the use of one modality over another.

Supporting collaboration through computer systems is a long standing goal of the fields of HCI and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). The above mentioned advancements therefore raise the fundamental question of how different modalities can best be combined to produce effective interfaces that support multiple users collaborate. Indeed, multimodal and cross-modal interfaces have the potential to improve both the accessibility and flexibility of collaborative interaction in various con- texts; such as distributed teamwork (e.g. where collaborators might have reduced access to computing and network bandwidth), or mixed group interaction involving individuals with differing perceptual abilities (e.g. collaboration between sighted and visually impaired coworkers).

But designing interaction through multiple modalities comes with issues; not least considerations for cross-modal effects that are associated with memory and perception when information needs to be coordinated across several modalities, the transformation of representations from one modality to another, and coherence of representation when different collaborators access the same shared resources through different sets of modalities. Thus, while there are technological developments that make it increasingly feasible to support multimodal and cross-modal collaboration, a number of questions are still open; how can we design effective and coherent multimodal and cross-modal collaborative interfaces? What application areas can these interfaces be most appropriately applied to? And what methods and techniques are most appropriate for gathering requirements, designing and evaluating these interfaces?

Organisers

Oussama Metatla, Nick-Bryan-Kinns, Tony Stockman and Fiore Martin
Queen Mary University of London.