Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques

Welcome to DIS2004, the ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems. We have a fantastic program of papers, posters, panels, lab tours, exhibits and design competition packed into three days. A veritable feast of the best examples of interactive systems design with some challenging and provocative views on the processes and theories of the design of interactive media.One of the key locations in the development of interactive media is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT and we are very pleased to have William J Mitchell, Dean of Architecture providing the opening plenary talk. Many people trace the origin of interaction design to 1989 when Gillian Crampton Smith initiated the first masters degree program at the Royal College of Art in London. Gillian moved to start another design centre at Ivrea in Italy in 1999 and we are very pleased to have Gillian as our closing speaker. We are also very pleased to have her successor at the RCA, Irene McAra-McWilliam as one of our program co-chairs and Dan Gruen from IBM as the other.The DIS series of conferences started in 1995 just about the same time that a very influential book came out. Terry Winograd collected together an excellent set of pioneers in this field in his book 'Bringing Design to Software'. Since then there has been DIS97, DIS2000, DIS2002 and now DIS2004. Each of these conferences has helped to develop and shape the field by bringing designers and software developers together.In developing the themes and concepts that we felt were important to DIS2004, we have tried to achieve a balance. We have a balance between Europe and America, between male and female and between interaction design and human-computer interaction (HCI), between design and engineering. DIS2004 seeks to cross the spectrum of contributions to this rich and fascinating area. The subject of Designing Interactive Systems concerns people from right across the spectrum of professions and subject areas. When we originally brainstormed who DIS2004 was aimed at we came up with: User Experience designers seeking to go beyond usability; Interaction designers both in the large involved with community building and in the small developing interactive objects and installations; Usability people who want to make experience for the 'users' better; Web designers who want to build better web sites; Information architects; User interface designers across the board - desk top systems, mobile devices, interactive products; Cognitive scientists; Social scientists; Human Factors people; Games designers involved with characters, narrative and game play; Artist designers challenging concepts and creating new art forms; Product designers; Functional designers concerned with market needs and platform constraints; Visual designers concerned with information design and what their system will look like; Ethnographers; Customer service people; Documentation people; Software engineers; Technical engineers; Physical form engineers; and last (but not least) academics in HCI, from design schools, from art schools, from cultural studies, from business.It was this breadth that gave us the idea for the theme of 'across the spectrum' The design of interactive media involves so many different types of people and so many different issues. In DIS2004 we embrace the diversity of interests in this new community, crossing the spectrum of contributing disciplines including business, technology and engineering, psychology, interaction, design, expressive media and cultural anthropology. We see DIS2004 as a step towards achieving a fusion of art and science. The role of design is spread across a spectrum of disciplines, each providing their own knowledge and techniques. Designers of interactive systems work with and through a medium of technical arts blending and exploring synergies from diverse areas.