JUS Call for Articles: Special Issue

New Frontiers in Usability for Users' Complex Knowledge Work and Collaborations

Call for Papers for a Peer-Reviewed Special Issue of JUS

At the "Workshop on HCI & Information Design to Communicate Complex Information" in Memphis in February 2007, a group of practitioners and academics presented and discussed their new studies related to making systems usable and useful for knowledge work. Focusing on various information, communication, and decision support systems, they examined usability and usefulness in terms of design, development processes, evaluation, cognition, domain expertise, and workplace ecologies. JUS would like to publish one or more special issues on important themes that surfaced at the workshop and that strongly affect how usability specialists approach their work and research when designing for and evaluating complex products for complex work.

Useful and usable systems for complex work involve supporting domain experts in solving open-ended, unstructured, complex problems involving extensive and recursive decision-making. Complex work occurs in numerous fields from evaluating inventory to allocating resources to making medical judgments to gathering intelligence to conducting research in academia to building online communities. A few examples of possible themes for this special JUS issue include:

Understanding how domain experts retrieve and use information on the web and, therefore, how to design for this audience and these tasks
New methods required for evaluating complex products for complex work
Rethinking usability for visual analytics and complex knowledge work
Community websites as complex work with distinct usability approaches
Understanding how domain experts perceive complexity and simplicity in medical environments

Articles on these and other themes related to complex works will introduce JUS readers to this important and growing area of practice and research.

Submission Schedule

Response to JUS Special Issue editors of your intent to submit: September 1, 2007
Invitation to submit issued: September 15, 2007
Paper submitted: November 1, 2007
Peer review completed and comments to authors: February 1, 2008
Final paper submitted: May 15, 2008
Publications: Summer or Fall 2008

Special Issue Editors

Barbara Mirel (bmirel@umich.edu)
Mike Albers

JUS Associate Editors for the Special Issue

Whitney Quesenbery (whitneyq@wqusability.com)
Ginny Redish (ginny@redish.net)

The Online International Journal of Usability Studies (JUS) is a peer-reviewed, international, online publication dedicated to promote and enhance the practice, research, and education of usability engineering.