Below is the preliminary schedule for the workshop and instructions for authors. For simplicity only the primary authors have been included as panelists. If additional or alternative authors are attending then please let us know when you send the camera ready paper. If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to ask.

Looking forward to meeting in Rio!

Best regards from the Workshop Chairs

Overview

Ice-breaker: Each workshop attendee will introduce themselves, their
interest in the workshop (1 minute per person) and their one
greatest challenge that they face when evaluating the usability of systems
'in the wild'.

Workshop: Everyone who submitted a paper will participate in a panel
during the workshop listed below. There will be four panels covering
the following domains: social software, distance evaluation, everyday
life and games. A fifth session will address the issues raised by ethical
committees/review boards that are particularly challenging to
researchers in these domains.

Presentations: Authors from each paper will be asked to present a
short 10 minute talk. The talk should cover a brief overview of their
project and what challenges they encountered while working in their domain
area.

 

Schedule

9.00 Ice Breaker
Moderator: Gisele Bennett (Georgia Tech Research Institute)

9.30 Social Software Panel

Chair: Effie Law (ETH Zurich)

Panelists: Kori Inkpen (Microsoft Research), Sebasitian Kelle (Vienna University of Economics & BA Institute of Information Systems and New Media)

To understand the scoping of established and alternative usability evaluation methods (UEMs) for evaluating online interactive experiences enabled by social software, and to identify the challenges arisen as well as plausible solutions from the practical and theoretical perspectives.

10.30 Coffee

10.45 Distance Evaluation Panel

Chair: Paul Rohwer (Indiana University)

Panelists: Leah Findlater (University of British Columbia ), Valerie Lafond-Favieres (Georgia Tech Research Institute)

Surely the best method of evaluation is to deploy a system to the masses and let them use it 'in the wild', with as little interference from the evaluators as possible? This panel will discuss the strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities that arise from evaluating usability from a distance.

11.45 Coffee

12.00 Everyday Life Panel

Chair: Julie Maitland (University of Glasgow)

Panelists: Georgios Papatzani (Queen Mary University of London), Tim Jay (University of Bath), Leanne West (Georgia Tech Research Institute)

This panel hopes to discuss the challenges faced when evaluating systems that need to seamlessly interweave into the many domains of everyday life. Challenges such as long-term engagement of users, safety and the cost/benefits of expert and in-situ evaluations will be considered, with a focus on the issue of generalisability of solutions for the evaluation of systems within such a generic domain.

13.00 Lunch

14.00 Games Panel

Chair: Svetlena Tavena (ETH Zurich)

Panelists: Valerie Henderson-Summet (Georgia Institute of Technology), Julie Maitland (University of Glasgow)

Alternative approaches to evaluating usability will be considered and compared during this panel: bringing controlled conditions to 'real world' evaluations, introducing 'real world' conditions to the lab, and reconstructing 'real world' usage. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? And how is the evaluation of usability in games complicated by the need to create an enjoyable experience?

15.00 Coffee

15.15 Ethics Session

Moderator: Kay Connelly (Indiana University)

Presenting: Marcela Musgrove (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Approval for non-traditional user studies can be a challenge, as the institutional review board may not be familiar with the requirements or constraints of these domains. This session will allow participants to share their experiences, exploring strategies for both getting studies approved ( e.g., how to justify the use of deception, or ensure safety of participants when playing a mobile game?) , as well as for altering study designs to compensate for limitations imposed by the ethics review process (e.g., how to make do without video in a hospital environment?). Participants are encouraged to think about the sticking points they've encountered with the review process before the workshop, so as to foster a lively discussion.

16.00 Coffee

16.15 Summary

Moderator: Katie Siek (University of Colorado at Boulder)

This session will involve a group discussion centered on the common and divergent themes that emerge from the day's proceedings; the goal of this session being to identify areas in which common guidelines can be developed or be avoided. We will end the workshop by looking forward towards future research and collaborations that will help us as a research community work towards developing a theoretical framework for evaluating usability in non-traditional environments.

17.00 Finish

Instructions for Authors:

Please confirm with the workshop organizers which author(s) will be attending the workshop.

Register for the workshop through the Interact registration system:
http://tuim.inf.puc-rio.br/interact2007/registration0.php

Please submit a camera-ready version of your paper to usability.in.the.wild@gmail.com no later than 10th August, with consent for the organisers to make your paper available on the workshop website.

Before the Workshop:

We hope to make this workshop as interactive and dynamic as possible. To help us do this we kindly ask: