Call for Papers for Special Issue of Interacting with Computers on "Inclusive Design in the Context of Social Media and Emerging Technologies"

Guest Editors:
Jim Ang and Ania Bobrowicz, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent
Panayotis Zaphiris, Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology
Ben Schneiderman, Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland

Call Description:
Recently we have witnessed an increasing proliferation of new digital technologies such as online social networking sites, micro-blogging and virtual worlds which has changed the way we communicate and interact with each other. Studies are being conducted in order to investigate these interesting socio-technological phenomena.

To date, little research has been published on inclusive design in the context of social networking and emerging technologies. These technologies have the potential to impact positively on the lives of a wide range of people including older people, disabled people, and people from different social and cultural backgrounds. For example, it is claimed that the fastest growing demographic of the social networking sites is women over 55 years old (Facebook Global Monitor, 2009).

With this special issue, we aim to analyse existing and novel ways in which these audiences use social networks and emerging technologies. We ask questions such as: How can these technologies be designed to be more inclusive? What motivates people to engage with these new technologies? What are the effects on people’s behaviour, attitudes and social interactions? What methods can be used to analyse these interactions?

This special issue of Interacting with Computers invites contributions from the academic community, industry and design practitioners. We welcome research papers that trigger discussions based on investigations, case studies and overviews in this area.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

• Inclusive design issues related to social media and emerging technologies
• Concepts, methods and frameworks aimed at motivating people to participate
• Case studies of various social and cultural contexts
• The impact of participation on society and culture
• Different user groups’ engagement with social media
• New technologies such as virtual worlds and augmented humans
• The application of these technologies in a variety of settings (e-democracy, communities, sustainability and environment, etc.)

Submission Details:
Please submit a 300-500 word abstract to Dr Jim Ang (c.s.ang@kent.ac.uk) no later than 28th January 2011. Please include full contact information and a biographical note (up to 75 words) on each of the authors.

Important Dates:
28 January 2011: Deadline for abstract submission
25 February 2011: Announcement of results and full paper invitations
29 April 2011: Submission of full papers
24 June 2011: Response to authors
2 September 2011: Final submission