Dear colleagues,
I’d like to announce the CFP for the 2025 Symposium on Communicating Complex Information (SCCI) to be held March 3-4, 2025, at Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, MN, U.S.A.
Please see the attached flyer and the information as follows. Proposals should be sent to conference chair Quan Zhou at quan.zhou.
Call for Proposals 14thAnnualSymposium on Communicating Complex Information
Proposals due November 15, 2024. Poster proposals due January 15, 2025
Website: www.scci-annual.com
KEYNOTE: Sungduck Lee Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota Dr. Sungduck Lee is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Lee holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning from Arizona State University (2013) and a Master of Architecture from University of Texas at Austin (2007) with an emphasis on urban design and urbanism. Her research examines various factors of the built environment in relation to social equity and explores methods that effectively measure social needs.
Symposium Objective The organizers of the Symposium on Communicating Complex Information (SCCI) invite proposals for the 14th Annual Symposium to be held at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota from March 3rd to 4th, 2025. SCCI examines the relationships between humans, technologies, and information by exploring how design and content choices influence our behavior when we interact with complex information in different contexts. The goal of the Symposium is to exchange ideas and share information on how to address the communication, design, and usability challenges associated with using complex information. The purpose of SCCI is to bring together individuals from a range of academic and industry backgrounds to share research findings and discuss approaches for sharing complex information in a variety of contexts. The Symposium strives to build upon what we already know about communicating complex information in order to clarify our understanding of what issues urgently need further research in this area.
General Focus SCCI seeks to examine how an understanding of the settings in which people access and use complex information can improve the design of complex information systems for different audiences. The need to understand the issues affecting how we communicate/share complex information affects many areas. As such, it is of interest to fields as diverse as user experience, information design, technical communication, information architecture, data visualization, computer science, communication studies, and library sciences.
Health and Medical Communication Track SCCI includes a half-day program track focusing on sharing research results, theoretical models, and best practices for conveying complex information associated with health and medical contexts. Individuals interested in submitting a proposal for this track should include the words “Health and Medical Communication Track” in their proposal.
Symposium Structure This two–day symposium is designed to maximize the exchange of information and ideas among the participants. To do so, the symposium consists of short (15-minute) presentations followed by 15-minute group discussion. The objective is to share ideas and seek opportunities to collaborate on or expand research that examines communicating complex information in different contexts. In essence, the Symposium brings together teachers, practitioners, and scholars to address the over-arching questions of: (1) How can individuals collaborate to devise new approaches to the design and evaluation of complex information systems? and (2) How can individuals work together to define what is meant by usability/user experience and what constitutes usable information in complex systems? In addition to the presentation and discussion sessions that take place on Monday and Tuesday of the Symposium, social events on Sunday and Monday evenings allow participants to network as well as to continue discussions started during Symposium sessions.
Types of Presentations Individuals can submit proposals for individual/panel presentations or poster presentations. Proposals should be sent to Conference Chair, Quan Zhou (quan.zhou). Proposals should be submitted as a Word file attached to an email message with the subject line of the email reading “SCCI 2025 Proposal.” Those submitting proposals to the Health and Medical Communication Track should email their proposals directly to Lisa DeTora (lisa.m.detora).
Presentation sessions are structured as follows:
Paper Presentation (proposals are due by November 15, 2024) Paper presentations have a 30 minute time block, including a 15-minute presentation and 15 minutes of discussion. Submit a 250-300 word position paper about your ongoing work, new interaction designs, opinions or approaches to the problem, or conceptual frameworks or theories. Papers will be peer-reviewed and selected by relevance and likelihood of stimulating and contributing to this discussion.
Panel Presentation (proposals are due by November 15, 2024) Panel presentations consist of a group of 3-6 individuals who will jointly share a 20-minute block for position statements on a focused topic, followed by an open discussion on that topic.The panel organizer should submit a 200-300 word summary of the panel topic, a list of the panelists, and a 100-200 word position statement from each panelist on how they will address the topic. Panel proposals will be peer-reviewed and selected by relevance and likelihood of stimulating and contributing to this discussion.
Poster Presentation (proposals are due by January 15, 2025) Poster sessions accommodate the presentation of late-breaking scientific research or preliminary research results. Posters will be on display throughout the conference, and poster creators will present their posters at a dedicated session during the conference. Submit a 200-300 word statement describing the topic of the poster.
Possible Topics
Possible examples for topics could include but are not limited to the following:
• Methods of communicating the complexities of healthcare information to a non-medical audience.
• Methods to better visualize complex information to support decision making or better understanding by non-professionals.
• Examinations of how user experience can address improving the interactions within complex information spaces.
• Discussions of how can the results of big data analysis be displayed to both capture the subtleties and complexities but still remain usable.
• Reviews of what is common and what is different based on domain demands that should inform our analysis of needs, generation of requirements, designs and testing. How do we design information shared among interdisciplinary groups of experts?
• Methods required for testing and evaluating complex systems (e.g., health care situations, resources allocated among many projects, intelligence analysis of multiple sources of data, customer service working across multiple technologies and/or cultures).
• Methods of designing to maximize the user experience and enhance user interaction within complex information.
• Methods of designing to improve decision-making within complex environments.
• Methods of measuring users’ comprehension of complex material and ensuring maximal comprehension.
• Methods of developing usability tests appropriate for a specific domain and that account for users’ extensive domain knowledge or lack of domain knowledge.
• Examinations of domain experts’ retrieval and use of information on the web and best practices for designing and testing for this audience.
• Reevaluations of usability in light of visual analytics (i.e., using interactive visual interfaces to conduct analytical reasoning and complex knowledge work).
• Discussions of new usability approaches for examining the design of complex web sites.
• Descriptions and analyses of the ways experts in an area perceive complexity and simplicity in unique production environments, such as health care.
Registration Registration costs are as follows:
Full-Time Faculty/Professional: $150.00 USD
Part-Time Faculty/Graduate Student: $100.00 USD
Metro State Student: $50.00
Non-Presenting Attendee: $75.00 USD
Registration payments can be made on the conference website beginning November 2024 (www.scci-annual.com).
Schedule
Key dates for the Symposium are as follows:
Paper and panel proposals due: November 15, 2024
Notice of acceptance: November 29, 2024
Slides for symposium website due: March 1, 2025
Symposium dates: March 3—4, 2025
Poster proposals due: January 15, 2025
Notice of acceptance: January 22, 2025
Poster proposals will be reviewed when they are received.
Additional Details For more details, visit the Symposium website at quan.zhou.
Best regards,
Quan Zhou
Conference chair, SCCI 2025
Professor and Chair
Department of Technical Communication and Interaction Design
Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, MN