This special issue presents four papers featuring extended versions of full papers originally published at the Conference INTERACT 2023, which was held August 28th to September 1st, 2023, at the University of York, York, UK. We will first present the INTERACT Conference and then the selection process of papers that ultimately led to publication of this special issue in Interacting with Computers. The INTERACT Conference is held every 2 years. It started in 1984, making it one of the longest running conferences on human–computer interaction. INTERACT 2023 was the 19th International Conference of Technical Committee 13 (Human–Computer Interaction) of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). IFIP was created in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO. The IFIP Technical Committee 13 (TC13)1 aims to develop the science and technology of human–computer interaction (HCI). The INTERACT Conference series is an important showcase for researchers and practitioners in the field of HCI. Coming under the open, inclusive umbrella of the IFIP, INTERACT is truly international in its spirit and attracts researchers from many countries and cultures. The venues of the INTERACT conferences over the years bear a testimony to this inclusiveness.

Abstract There are major geopolitical challenges for human-computer interaction (HCI): there may be little or no global HCI knowledge with a shared approach and identity; Western HCI theory and methods may not be adequate for regional or local models of education and practice; and the global organization of HCI research communities may be biased. This article explores geopolitical tensions in HCI research and practice fields. In particular, it offers an action-oriented framework to support systematic analysis and comparison of what HCI, as a field of knowledge and practice, is in different geopolitical contexts. We use activity theory combined with the knowledge mobilization framework to develop an actionable comparative analysis framework of geopolitical HCI challenges. The proposed framework is demonstrated by using it to analyse geopolitical HCI tensions in three case studies: the first one is focused on cultural and ideological issues surrounding the introduction of global HCI curricula in South Africa; the second one documents how local design practices in China are undermined by foreign narratives of the value of global HCI knowledge; and the third one offers an account of how global HCI could stimulate subversive local action in Colombia. The discussion takes up HCI tensions within and across countries, proposes a research agenda for geopolitical HCI research and presents theoretical contributions to activity theory and knowledge mobilization approaches. The conclusion answers research questions derived from the above challenges and summarizes how our framework and research agenda can be used to identify and assess geopolitical tensions in HCI ensuring diversity and pluralism in the field.

We investigate professional greenhouse growers’ user experience (UX) when using climate-management systems in their daily work. We build on the literature on UX, in particular UX at work, and extend it to ordinary UX at work . In a 10-day diary study, we collected data with a general UX instrument (AttrakDiff), a domain-specific instrument, and interviews. We find that AttrakDiff is valid at work; its three-factor structure of pragmatic quality (PQ), hedonic identification quality, and hedonic stimulation quality is recognizable in the growers’ responses. In this article, UX at work is understood as interactions among technology, tasks, structure, and actors. Our data support the recent proposal for the ordinariness of UX at work. We find that during continued use, UX at work is middle-of-the-scale, remains largely constant over time, and varies little across use situations. For example, the largest slope of the four AttrakDiff constructs when regressed over the 10 days was as small as 0.04. The findings contrast existing assumptions and findings in UX research, which is mainly about extraordinary and positive experiences. In this way, the present study contributes to UX research by calling attention to the mundane, unremarkable, and ordinary UXs at work.

The mission of the International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction (IJHCI) special issue on reframing human–computer interaction (HCI) through local and indigenous perspectives is to further ou...

This research proposes a participatory sociotechnical design approach to making explicit issues in collaborative information system design in a multidisciplinary context. The approach proposes the Socio-Technical Evaluation (STE) Matrix as a conceptual tool to address the lack of a technical and methodological instrument to expose cultural differences, boundaries, and conflicts in multidisciplinary research. STE Matrix was born within the context of the Village eScience for Life (VeSeL) project and adopts an empirical sociotechnical experimentation to initially explore the context of the stakeholders, including that of the end-users. These contexts are then revisited through information system design theories to rationalize the STE Matrix paradigm. Subsequent experiments and exposure to communities of practice provide validity to the approach by revealing the different frames of interpretation within the VeSeL project. Furthermore, STE Matrix provided a platform to truly observe participatory design by equally involving end-users and design partners in the subsequent phases of the VeSeL project.

It is always hard to write a eulogy for a colleague in just a few lines since one is always left with a sense of not doing justice to his legacy. This is the case here for Andy Smith, who suddenly and unexpectedly passed away last year, in May 2011. Andy was a pioneer in cross-cultural usability research. He had a passion for human–computer interaction and for the possibilities that technology could bring to people around the world as a consequence of the development of the Internet in the 1990s. However, he knew that while cross-national access to users was becoming a reality, users are not all the same: they have different values, knowledge and expectations. For instance, understanding how global websites should be designed to be an effective means of communication between a global website owner and a local user was an important problem to be solved (Smith et al., 2004). As a consequence of this, Andy founded the Centre for Internationalisation and Usability at The University of West London. The Centre now has a team of researchers working in this field, with partners in Europe, Africa, Latin-America and Asia. One of the first members was Lynne Dunckley who worked closely with Andy until her untimely death in 2008. Andy used to say that all he knew was because of her! It would be fair to say Lynne and Andy shared a passion for the topic and a good sample of this collaboration is the IwC paper cited here.

The mobile technology field is rapidly expanding and the focus on how it can be incorporated to support learning is also growing. However, the barriers to inclusion of information communication technologies in the public schools of Nepal are still significant and the widespread access to digital content remains a key obstacle. Nepal has a poor communication infrastructure and where available, telecommunication and electricity are poorly maintained or too costly to use. The aim of this exploratory research study is to highlight how an offline mobile learning solution may address some of the technical challenges to support one of the current and most urgent requirements to provide an access to digital content. It will investigate the deployment of previously unexplored low-spec sub US $100 open-source mobile devices to facilitate English language learning and address the knowledge requirements of teachers in government funded public schools of Nepal.

In developing countries, mobile devices can play an important role in delivering learning. But, poor information infrastructure and higher costs of mobile devices and connectivity restrict possibilities of providing successful mobile learning services. In the field of Information Communication for Development (ICT4D), this research aims to highlight the possible role of previously unexplored open hardware platforms for delivering affordable and sustainable mobile learning offline. This paper points out the technical challenge of using open hardware and need for a broader study to investigate its potential role in developing countries as supporting mobile learners in their own socio-cultural contexts is a significant challenge.

This article describes an investigation of the way usefulness of an information system is shaped by sociocultural factors in a work context. It presents technological frames as a conceptual tool that helps to understand usefulness from this point of view. It suggests that developers and users shape their experience of the usefulness of a system through these technological frames. This is illustrated with a qualitative study, in which developers' expectations of the usefulness of an enterprise resource planning system differed from those of users, who experienced the usefulness of the same system in diverse ways. Technological frames are proposed as an analysis framework for assessing how context and local culture shape the utility and usability of systems in situ, that is, once they are deployed to their actual contexts of use.