[Related] BIT Special Issue

by Andreas Metzger — last modified Aug 10, 2009 09:13

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When	Feb 28, 2010 from 12:00 AM to 12:00 PM
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Special Issue of Behaviour and Information Technology

WORKING TITLE

Services and Human-Computer Interaction: New Opportunities

GUEST EDITORS

Peter Wild, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge

Geke van Dijk, STBY London/Amsterdam

Neil Maiden, Centre for HCI Design, School of Informatics, City University London

BACKGROUND

As well as becoming an ever more important part of local and global economies Services and Service Design are emerging, crossing, and in some cases redefining disciplinary boundaries. Papers have emerged in HCI venues that have explicitly examined services. Service has emerged as a frequent metaphor for a range of computing applications, both web based, pervasive and ubiquitous. Here researchers and practitioners often talk of Services instead of applications. In addition, Service-oriented architectures receive continued attention in Computing, but research is often divorced from HCI issues. In turn the user, value, and worth centred ethos of HCI of existing and emerging approaches, is making its way into Service design approaches with the usual range of complements and challenges that occur when disciplines interact.

Service definitions and Service design have often stressed the intangible, activity-based, and participatory nature of service acts. Vargo and Lusch define Services as “the application of specialized competences (knowledge and skills), through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself.” This definition stresses the activity-based nature of Services. HCI has much to offer in this area, from the foundation principles espoused by Gould and Lewis, through to approaches that provide sophisticated analysis of tasks / activities. In addition, characterisation of Service such as Service as experience, Service as journey, overlap with experience oriented approaches that have emerged for analysing and designing computing. In turn, many approaches to Service design either borrow, overlap or complement HCI’s design focus and academic rigour. For example Parker and Heapy’s use of prototypes, personas, and measurement of the Service experience. Another of HCI’s strengths is its strong emphasis on original creative and systematic conceptual design. This can inform new ways of approaching Service design, that can enhance the focus that Service Marketing and Operations communities have taken to date. In addition, HCI is in prime position to take advantage of emerging technologies in Service-Oriented Architectures in support of long standing Design goals such as personalization and adaptivity, and aid us in understanding human issues in adaptive software systems.

This special issue will bring together papers that explore the Intersection between Services and Human-Computer Interactions. Possible areas include:

:- Reports of experiences applying HCI approaches (e.g. Personas, Scenarios) to the design of services

:- Reports of experiences using Services Marketing (e.g. Blueprinting) approaches in HCI contexts

:- Service Quality (e.g. SERVQUAL) in relation to Usability / User Experience measures

:- Conflicts and complements between Service as Experience and ‘harder’ measures of Service quality.

:- Adaptation of existing perspectives to the analysis and design of Services (e.g., Task Analysis, Activity Theory, Distributed Cognition)

:- Human Centred perspectives on Service Oriented Architectures

:- The User Centred Service System Requirements Generation

:- How SOA technologies enable long standing HCI goals such as personalization and adaptivity

:- From Service to e-Service and back again

:- Relationship between SOA metrics and HCI measures

:- Novel representations of Services

:- Participatory approaches throughout the HCI lifecycle

:- The intersection between theoretical accounts of Participatory approaches and Value Co-Creation and Co-Production

:- The application of Conceptual Design processes (e.g., Metaphors, Patterns) to services

:- Educational perspectives.

We will welcome a broad range of papers that are practical, empirical, or theoretical in orientation, in addition to tightly argued polemics and theoretically informed review papers.

SUBMISSIONS

BIT provides extensive instructions for authors, which can be found at:

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/printview/?issn=0144-929X&linktype=44

Submission is through the standard BIT website, all submissions should be submitted as being for the Special Issue.

All papers will be double blind reviewed.

KEY DATES

Paper Submission: 28^th February 2010

Return of reviews: 23^rd April 2010

Final decisions: 30^th April 2010

Submission of Revised Papers: 30^th September 2010

Final submission to BIT: 29^th October 2010

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

The Guest editors appreciate expressions of interest as they help to plan the review cycle and allocation. EoIs can range from a one paragraph through to a two-page position statement like submission. These can be sent to peter.j.wild@gmail.com at any time before the paper submission deadline.