Summer 2018

Table of contents  –   Authors index

Human-Work Interaction Design Meets International Development
(https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-037-002fsi)
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Today, it is a true challenge to design applications that support users of technology in complex and emergent organizational and work contexts. To meet this challenge, the Working Group 13.6 (WG13.6) on Human Work Interaction Design (HWID) was established in September 2005 as the sixth working group under the International Federation for Information Processing specifically the Technical Committee 13 on Human Computer Interaction (HCI). A main objective of the WG13.6 as defined in 2012 is the analysis of this complexity and its relationships between extensive empirical work domains studies and HCI designs. The group is particularly interested in observing technology-mediated innovative work practices in informal settings, in a social development context. This is why WG 13.6 has decided to promote research jointly with WG. 13.8 on Interaction Design in International Development, whose main interest since its creation in 2006 is to promote the application of interaction design to address the needs, desires and aspirations of people across the developing world.
Today’s technologies change the way we work with pervasive interfaces and smart places, often shifting our physical boundaries and our operational modes. From health care, to traffic control, interaction with new technologies, researchers have raised challenging issues for HCI researchers and experts. This is even more challenging when one is away from the mainstream industrial sites of the global north.
In line with recent suggestions that HCI should “turn to practice” and do practice based research, the utility and merit of defining a field from its published works stems from providing a conceptual frame to organize a variety of issues emerging in recent HCI research. Stephanidis states that interactive technologies are entering all aspects of everyday life, in communication, work and collaboration, health and well-being, home control and automation, public services, learning and education, culture, travel, tourism and leisure, and many others. An extensive variety of technologies are already available, and new ones tend to appear frequently, and on a regular basis. Because of this we have to be attentive towards the development of studies that will help the growth of new technologies itself.
This focus section stems from the experience developed at the Workshop ‘Human Work Interaction Design meets International Development’, held in conjunction with the conference INTERACT 2017 in Mumbai, India.

by Pedro Campos, Barbara Rita Barricelli, Jose Abdelnour-Nocera