Friends, This is a follow-up to remind you of an exciting special issue of the International Journal of Design on "Cultural Aspects of Interaction Design" edited by Keiichi Sato and Kuohsiang Chen. IJD has been growing with excellent contributions and a robust, international perspective. Whether or not you wish to propose an article for this issue, the journal is worth a visit at URL: http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index.php/IJDesign/ While all contents are open access, I'd like to suggest that you register. This will bring you an automatic Table of Contents with new issues, calls, and it will give access to new web-site features that will become available to registered users. Registration is free -- the main purpose is that the register allows the editors to communicate more effectively with the journal community, both to provide information and to develop improved services on the web site. If this call interests you, I hope you'll consider proposing an article. Kuohsiang Cheng and Keiichi Sato are developing a terrific issue, and they hope for a rich survey of the field. Yours, Ken Friedman -- CALL FOR PAPERS A Special Issue on "Cultural Aspects of Interaction Design" The notion of interaction design has become an indispensable aspect of product design and development, especially for those products with embedded information technologies. While traditional industrial design focuses on a product's functionality and its physical features, interaction design focuses on the interactive experience of users. Since products are becoming more pervasively and more tightly interwoven with our daily activities, design calls for a deeper understanding of the diverse perspectives of product use. Culture has been considered to play a critical role for users in their understanding, acceptance, positioning, and use of an artifact. The quality of an interactive experience is produced in a particular cultural context and is determined or evaluated in that context. Yet, when it comes to incorporating cultural factors effectively in design practice, knowledge is insufficient at all levels -- conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and practical. Cultural factors need to be integrated in the design process in order to achieve the high quality of product interaction that enables our experience with a product to be effective and enjoyable. For this special issue of the International Journal of Design, we are seeking papers that present breakthroughs in conceptual, theoretical, methodological and practical research that enhance the formalization of design knowledge with regard to the "cultural aspects of interaction design." In particular, these contributions should focus on representing cultural factors in describable, operable, and usable forms of design knowledge with relevance to interaction design. The following topics are of particular interest, covering fundamental and contemporary issues in this domain: - Conceptual framework of cultural factors in interaction design - Acquisition and representation methods for cultural factors in design - Formal models of cultural factors in interaction design - Planning, design, and evaluation methods that involve cultural perspectives - Cultural aspects of interaction methods and languages - Assessment of the cultural effects of new interactive products - Cultural factors in Kansei/emotional/affective aspects of interaction - Cultural contexts of interaction design for ambient intelligence environments - Cultural factors related to usability Schedule: Full Paper Due: 28 February 2008 Notification of Acceptance: 30 April 2008 Final Version of Paper Due: 31 May 2008 Special Issue Publication Date: 1 August 2008 Submission of Papers: Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the guidelines found at www.ijdesign.org/authorGuidelines Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. A double-blind review process will be employed for this special issue. Manuscripts should be sent through the on-line system at www.ijdesign.org/submissions Authors should choose "Special Issue on Cultural Aspects of Interaction Design" as the Journal Section when submitting papers. Special Issue Editors: Keiichi Sato Institute of Design Illinois Institute of Technology, USA Tel: 312-595-4912 E-mail: sato@id.iit.edu Kuohsiang Chen Department and Institute of Industrial Design National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan Tel: +886 6-2757575, ext. 54335 E-mail: kchen@mail.ncku.edu.tw