Call for Papers: The 7th International Conference on Interaction Design for Children (IDC 2008)

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

The 7th International Conference on Interaction Design for Children (IDC 2008): "Thinking Outside the Toybox"

Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois
June 11-13, 2008
http://www.idc08.org

We welcome:

• Pre-conference workshop proposals (due January 7th)
• Full papers (due January 21st)
• Posters (due March 3)
• Demos (due March 3)
• Workshop position papers (due March 3)
• Special pre-conference session papers on Designing for Children with
• Special Needs (due March 3)

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
The IDC 2008 conference will continue to present significant contributions to research, development, and practice in the field of interaction design for children. The goals of the 2008 conference are to better understand children's needs, and how to design for them, with a specific focus on creativity and innovation. We invite researchers to step outside the domains of learning and play, and to consider designing for civic involvement, for democracy, and for physical and emotional well-being, among other topics. We also invite researchers to stop thinking of "children" as a homogeneous group, and to reflect on interaction design for diverse groups of children (children from developing nations, very young children, issues of gender, race and ethnicity, children with special needs).

Submissions are invited on all topics from the domain of interaction design for children, including, but not limited to:

* Emerging or new technologies and their impact on children's health, education or play
* Methods and techniques for establishing children's requirements for interactive systems
* Guidelines for the design of interactive systems for children, with a specific focus this year on children as a diverse group
* Reports on the development of creative interactive systems for children (motivation, design, outcome, evaluation)
* Usability, enjoyability, accessibility, ethics, and safety issues, with particular reference to children
* Innovative evaluation methods for use with children
* Evaluations of interactive systems and technologies for children
* Novel theoretical models of interaction with special relevance to children
* Results of ethnographic and case studies in children's use of interactive systems
* Stimulating in-depth analyses of issues related to interaction design and children
* Effects of interactive technologies in children's lives (e.g. game violence and aggression, obesity, learning...)
* Design and evaluation of interactive systems for children with special needs
* Design for civic involvement, for democracy, and for physical and emotional well-being of children.
* For detailed and up-to-date information about IDC2008, please visit www.idc08.org .