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Voices from the Fringe Workshop
IHM-HCI 2001, Lille, France. Monday 10th September
Call for contributions

Introduction
We live in an era of proliferating, increasingly complex and
increasingly interconnected designed things. Whilst the 'making' of
things (in the traditional view the 'designer') is becoming
increasingly sophisticated so too is the 'making sense' of things (in
the traditional view the 'user').
This spiralling complexity has lead to such phenomena as the
move towards 'smart design' (e.g. smart information systems,
smart houses, etc.), The aim of this workshop is to allow those
looking for guiding voices to help with the theorising of 'the project
of design' in this era to find each other, exchange ideas and build
community.

Theme
Voices from the Fringe aims to act as a meeting place for
researchers interested in applying less 'mainstream' ideas from
cultural psychology/cultural-historical activity theory/socio-cultural
studies/feminism to theorising the project of 'design' itself, e.g.
those motivated by the works of Evald Ilyenkov, Mikhail Bahktin,
Guy Debord, Ivan Illich,  and others. We are motivated by the
widely recognised failure of the current project of design to
successfully resolve the problem of designer ­ user dialogue. We
view the problem of design from a broad perspective, and propose
two key starting points:
That both makers and sense-makers are designers and the
privileging of makers as 'designers' is likely part of the current
problem of design.
That it is no longer useful to distinguish between hardware and
software design or between systems design and product design.

Submissions
We invite submissions in the form of 1-3 page position papers, or
full papers, which address themes such as (although not limited to):
Attempts to theorise why participative design has not worked i.e.
why, despite user involvement, is the design of artefacts so
unsatisfactory for many user groups?
Those addressing the paucity of feminist voices in design, HCI and
CSCW studies (either by theorising the reasons for this, or by
working on feminist analyses of design).
Work which examines the history of design and which illuminates
the relationship between makers and sense-makers (designers and
users).
Work which examines our objectification of each other. How does
this occur and what are its consequences? (It may be that such
work would allow us to understand the problem with conflict in user
centred design.)
Work which addresses the question ­ "Is design possible?" (i.e.
given the impasse of designer-user dialogue that so many in the
field of HCI/CSCW and wider design studies have recognised is a
resolution achievable to the problem of design achievable without a
radical rethink of the very project of design)?

Form of the Workshop
This is a full day workshop, the structure of the day will be
motivated by the range of submissions accepted, on the basis that
the aim of the day is to stimulate a community of fringe voices.

It is likely to take the form of an opening plenary session to identify
themes people wish to pursue, followed by a small number of break
out groups, and finishing with a final report back/concluding
session at which plans for future meetings/collaborations/etc will
be discussed.

Outputs from the Workshop
The principle outcome of the workshop will be the formation of a
community of researchers interested in theorising the project of
design/bringing in 'voices from the fringe'. On a more pragmatic
note, after the workshop participants will be invited to submit full
papers for either a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal or, given
sufficient numbers of contributions, we will seek publication as an
edited book.

Important Dates

Submissions: email (in .rtf or .doc format) to
[log in to unmask] by:

July 13th ­ first deadline (for those wanting to avail of the early
registration details for the conference)
August 25th ­ second deadline
September 10th ­ day of the workshop

Notification of results will be made two working days after each
deadline.

Contact/Organisers
Catriona Macaulay, Napier University, Edinburgh:
[log in to unmask]
Phil Turner, Napier University, Edinburgh: [log in to unmask]

A workshop website will be available shortly at
www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~catriona/margins

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