To be specific, I have one full paper and two notes that were accepted. The paper and one of the notes came out of work that I had done while at UCI, and the other note is from a project at Cornell on which I helped with the evaluation and write-up. I’m quite excited for each of these to be presented in Vancouver. For now, I’ll just list the citation and abstract. Once I have camera-ready versions, I’ll post those, too.

The full paper:
Baumer, E.P.S. and Tomlinson, B. (to appear 2011). Comparing Activity Theory with Distributed Cognition for Video Analysis: Beyond “Kicking the Tires.” in ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). (Vancouver, BC). [26% acceptance rate]

The field of HCI is growing, not only in the variety of application areas or the volume of research conducted, but also in the number of analytical approaches for use in the evaluation and design of interactive systems. However, despite the abundance of theoretical frameworks available, relatively little work has directly compared the application of these frameworks. This paper compares video analysis methods based on two analytic frameworks—activity theory (AT) and distributed cognition (DCog)—by performing an analysis of the same system from each of the two different theoretical perspectives. The results presented here provide a better understanding of how such theoretically informed methods in practice both resemble and differ from one another. Furthermore, this comparison enables specific insights about each of the theories themselves, as well as more general discussion about the role of theory in HCI.

The first note:
Baumer, E.P.S. and Silberman, S. (to appear 2011). When the Implication Is Not to Design (Technology). in ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). (Vancouver, BC). [26% acceptance rate]

As HCI is applied in increasingly diverse contexts, it is important to consider situations in which computational or information technologies may be less appropriate. This paper presents a series of questions that can help researchers, designers, and practitioners articulate a technology’s appropriateness or inappropriateness. Use of these questions is demonstrated via examples from the literature. The paper concludes with specific arguments for improving the conduct of HCI. This paper provides a means for understanding and articulating the limits of HCI technologies, an important but heretofore under-explored contribution to the field.

The second note:
Halpern, M., Evjen, M., Tholander, J., Ehrlich, J.A., Baumer, E.P.S., and Gay, G. (to appear 2011). MoBoogie: Creative Expression Through Whole Body Musical Interaction. in ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). (Vancouver, BC). [26% acceptance rate]

In this paper we describe MoBoogie, an application that allows users to manipulate and arrange music through movement.  MoBoogie is designed to foster experiences of creative expression for both children and adults. The application responds to users’ movements by changing variables in a continuous stream of music loops. Our study results suggest that the creative expressions arose in the joint space of movement and music, and did not primarily have to be in one form or the other. This allowed users with limited experience in dance and music making to be creative in such forms of expression.

**Update 2011-1-19**: Final versions of each paper have now been posted.