Participatory Design Conference July 2004

Doug Schuler has posted the first call for papers of the conference to be held in Toronto, Canada, July 27-31 2004

The overall theme of the 2004 conference, "Artful Integration: Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices" describes a central reality of participatory design. It recognizes that an essential ingredient in design practice is the working together of multiple, heterogeneous elements.

Preliminary Call For Participation
the eighth biennial Participatory Design Conference

Artful Integration
Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices

July 27-31, 2004 - Toronto, Canada

Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) In cooperation with the ACM and IFIP (pending)

Academic sponsors: Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI), University of Toronto
Faculty of Information Studies (FIS), University of Toronto

Participatory Design (PD) is a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies and social institutions more responsive to human needs. A central tenet of PD is the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the systems they use.

The Participatory Design Conferences, held every two years since 1990, have brought together a multidisciplinary and international group of software developers, researchers, designers, activists, practitioners, users, citizens and managers who adopt distinctively participatory approaches in the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) or other relevant fields.

The overall theme of the 2004 conference, "Artful Integration: Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices" describes a central reality of participatory design. It recognizes that an essential ingredient in design practice is the working together of multiple, heterogeneous elements. Whereas conventional design approaches emphasize the role of the designer and the creation of singular products, artful integration calls attention to the collective interweaving of people, artifacts and processes to achieve practical, aesthetic or emancipatory syntheses. The conference will include the inauguration of an award for participatory design, named the Artful Integrators Award.

TYPES OF SESSIONS

We invite submissions for the following types of sessions:

* Research papers

* Work-in-progress presentations
* Workshops about methods, practices, and other areas of interest
* Artifacts, posters, tools, interactive demonstrations,
* and other session types to be determined

We are particularly interested in submissions that address the participatory design of computer applications and services (e.g. community networks, WiFi, ICT infrastructure) but we are also interested in other relevant areas, such as citizenship, community development, e-democracy, open source, architecture, media, or art in which people are strongly involved in the development of the social / technological systems they use.

Submission requirements will be available in late September 2003 at the conference website

IMPORTANT DATES

2003

* Sept. Full Call for Participation announced

2004

* Jan 9 Due date for Paper and Workshop submissions
* Mar Acceptance notification to authors
* May Due date for Poster/Artifact/Work in Progress submissions
* May Acceptance notification for Poster/Artifact and Work in Progress presenters
* May Due date for Final Proceedings versions of Papers, Workshops and other submissions

ALSO OF INTEREST

The ACM SIGCHI conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS2004) takes place August 1-4, immediately following PDC2004 in Cambridge, MA, 1 1/2 hrs by air from Toronto. More information is available at: http://sigchi.org/dis2004/

CONFERENCE COMMITTEES

Conference Co-Chairs:
Andrew Clement, University of Toronto, Canada
Peter van den Besselaar, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Netherlands
Program Co-chairs:
Fiorella de Cindio, University of Milano, Italy
Doug Schuler, The Evergreen State College, USA
Other Chairs To be announced

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Thomas Binder, Debra Cash, Andrew Clement, Fiorella De Cindio, Yvonne Dittrich, Joan Greenbaum, Davydd Greenwood, Judith Gregory, Bo Helgeson, Finn Kensing, Peter Mambrey, Michael Muller, Rob Procter, Toni Robertson, Doug Schuler, Randy Trigg, Peter van den Besselaar, and Volker Wulf. (others pending)