In this paper, we explore non-traditional, serendipitous uses of an automatic speech recognition (ASR) application called Live Transcribe. Through these, we are able to identify interaction use cases for developing further technology to enhance the communication capabilities of deaf and hard of hearing people.

Aekaterini Mavri*a , Andri Ioannoua & Fernando Loizidesb a Cyprus Interaction Lab, Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprusb School of Computer Sciences & Informatics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UKAekaterini Mavri is a PhD candidate and a full-time member of the special teaching staff at the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology. Her research focusses on the role of cross-organizational Communities of Practice on learning in the Design and relevant fields in Higher Education.Andri Ioannou is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts and Head of the Cyprus Interaction Lab at the Cyprus University of Technology. She is also the Leader of the Interactive Media and Education/Edutainment research group at the Research Center on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies (RISE). In her work, she aims to understand the significant supportive and mediating role of technology in promoting learning, communication & collaboration, and social change in varied circumstances and contexts.Fernando Loizides is a Lecturer (Assistant Prof.) in Computer Science and Informatics at Cardiff University. Fernando’s main area of research lies in Information Interaction, HCI and Digital Libraries and Accessibility. He has a computer science background, which he combines with digital library research to investigate how systems can be enhanced by emerging technologies. He has extensive experience in user testing and project management, both within industry and academia.CONTACT Aekaterini Mavri [email protected] Cyprus Interaction Lab, Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology, 30 Archbishop Kyprianou Str. 3036, Limassol, Cyprus.Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/hihc.ABSTRACTThis work investigates Communities of Practice (CoPs) that support social learning in higher education. While most CoP research has taken place in single-stream contexts (e.g. in a university), this study reports on the ecology of a cross-organizational community (university and industry stakeholders) in the context of the formal curriculum. The work examines the role of technology configurations in supporting CoPs in Design and related studies. It also reports on the type and level of technology adoption, focusing on the learner perspective. This study’s CoP is made up of 21 third-year university students and ten external stakeholders (mentors, clients and industrial experts). The study concludes with a set of guidelines for the design and evaluation of similar CoP technology configurations. Key guidelines suggest a) supporting enhanced awareness of identity, space and time, b) enabling roles and permissions on-demand according to the requirements of the activities carried out in shared spaces and c) facilitating fluid interoperability between the domain-specific and mainstream/generic productivity tools used by the community. The outcomes of this work can assist instructors, researchers and practitioners in the design of similar technology configurations for CoPs in the formal curricula of their respective Design or relevant fields.

Creativity, a primary academic objective, is crucial in higher education, as economic, informational, societal and environmental advancements rely on people’s ability to innovate. Creativity is widely investigated in its individualistic form, yet there is a notable dearth in work that studies its collective dimension, from a learning perspective.This study focuses on validating the psychometric properties of an existing instrument (ASCC), by measuring creative collaboration in blended learning settings. Two hundred and thirty-six under and post-graduate students self-evaluated their creative collaboration experiences, using the ASCC instrument. The findings of exploratory factor analysis denote a three-factor (21-item) structure, measuring ‘Synergistic Social Collaboration’, ‘Distributed Creativity’, and ‘Time Regulation and Achievement’, with good internal consistency.An instrument with valid psychometric properties for the assessment of creative collaboration is much-needed in the growing research and practitioners’ community. This is critical in the fields of Design, HCI, and Engineering, which rely extensively on the creative collaboration (online and offline) of teams to develop innovative products that are suitable for real-world purposes.

Human–computer interaction (HCI) practice has emerged as a research domain in the HCI field and is growing. The need to transfer HCI practices to the industry began significantly with the works of Nielsen on usability engineering. To date, methods and techniques for designing, evaluating, and implementing interactive systems for human use have continued to emerge. It is, therefore, justified to conduct a systematic mapping study to determine the landscape of HCI practice research. A Systematic Mapping Study method was used to map 142 studies according to research type, topic, and contribution. These were then analyzed to determine an overview of HCI practice research. The objective was to analyze studies on HCI practice and present prominent issues that characterize the HCI practice research landscape. Second, to identify pressing challenges regarding HCI practices in software/systems development companies. The results show that HCI practice research has steadily increased since 2012. The majority of the studies explored focused on evaluation research that largely contributed to the evaluation methods or processes. Most of the studies were on design tools and techniques, design methods and contexts, design work and organizational culture, and collaboration and team communication. Interviews, case studies, and survey methods have been prominently used as research methods. HCI techniques are mostly used during the initial phase of development and during evaluation. HCI practice challenges in companies are mostly process-related and on performance of usability and user experience activities. The major challenge seems to be to find a way to collect and incorporate user feedback in a timely manner, especially in agile processes. There are areas identified in this study as needing more research.

This work seeks to identify key features and characteristics for the design of icons that can support the tasks of information seekers in academic document triage interfaces. Such icons are meant to act as visual links to the specific elements or sections in an academic document. We suggest that icons in triage interfaces are better able to communicate information, provide feedback and enable faster user interactions than text, particularly in mobile-based interfaces. Through investigation of visualisation and perception processes, we are able to propose five primary icon categories, the two most dominant being iconic and symbolic: iconic representations mostly apply to graphically and spatially distinct document elements (i.e. Title, Abstract, Tables and Figures), externalising the elements’ surface propositions. Symbolic representations are largely associated with elements of greater semantic value (Introduction, Conclusion, Full text and Author), drawing upon the elements’ deep propositions.

With almost four decades of existence as a community, human–computer interaction (HCI) practice has yet to diffuse into a large range of software industries globally. A review of existing literature suggests that the diffusion of HCI practices in software organizations lacks theoretical guidance. Although many studies have tried to facilitate HCI uptake by the software industry, there are scarce studies that consider HCI practices as innovations that software organizations could or should adopt. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of structure in the facilitation of HCI methodological development within the specialized emerging regions field such as Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to address this gap, an exploratory investigation regarding the state of uptake of HCI practices in Nigeria is conducted. The aim of this article is to improve our understanding regarding the state of HCI uptake in developing countries and the challenges prevailing. The findings show that HCI practice still remains within its infancy stage in most software companies. Universities are also lacking the required knowledge transfer of HCI to the students, and in effect themselves contributing to the lack of HCI skills in industry. Furthermore, government policies are in need of refinement and end-users’ involvement in software development is not prioritized.

This work is concerned with the exploration of ideas in the realm of technology for peace, produced by small groups of students working around an interactive tabletop. A collaboration-enforcing tabletop application was used to mediate dialog and collaborative construction of a taxonomy of ideas based on the participants' consensus. The scenarios for discussion concerned the promotion of global peace and the social integration of immigrants in the society. The participants' dialog and interactions were video-recorded and analyzed. The study contributes a systematically developed coding scheme capturing the cognitive and physical elements of problem-based group collaboration around the interactive tabletop. Also, the consistent themes and ideas contributed across the participating groups highlight a number of areas where research could focus in terms of using technology for peace.