Positive Technology Journal

HCI researchers, students and practitioners are invited to HCI 2008 to be hosted by Liverpool John Moores University, UK, next September (1st - 5th). Submissions are now open for the remaining categories . HCI 2008 is the 22nd running of the British HCI conference; one of Europe's largest and longest running HCI conferences. Accepted papers will be archived in the ACM Digital Library and the BCS eWiCS Library.

The tag line for 2008 is “Culture, Creativity, Interaction” reflecting the fact that in 2008 Liverpool is the European Capital of Culture. Throughout the year there will be cultural events ranging from community arts to headline events such as the Turner Prize. In the week before the conference there will be the Annual Beatles Week and immediately afterwards Liverpool will host the British Academy Festival of Science. The Biennial Festival of Contemporary Art also takes place, starting September. Our cultural theme reflects not just events in Liverpool but also recent developments in HCI where the arts and humanities offer us both new insights and new challenges. Though “culture” is not the only theme for the conference we hope to reflect the cultural events happening in the rest of the city and on Merseyside. Our hope is that culture will be a unifying theme for the various strands that form the HCI family of disciplines.

Liverpool itself has undergone a renaissance in recent decades and many of the city's projects will have reached their culmination in 2008. So as Liverpool is being re-made it may also be time to reflect on how HCI might be re-made. What new challenges do we face?  How many of our current approaches and methods meet these challenges? What has to change in HCI if we are to continue making progress? We look forward to submissions addressing new challenges and overturning accepted convention, or confirming past practice.