Design generally involves teams of designers collaborating on a design project. Although individual participants in a design team may make independent contributions to the project, collaborative design assumes that contributions are based on the interactions among different participants. This interaction occurs through various modalities (semiotic systems): verbal interaction has thus far received the most attention, both in research and in development, but graphical, gestural interaction and other modalities (gaze, posture, prosody) also play important roles. This Special Issue of AI EDAM focuses on the role of gesture in designing.

Compared with verbal and graphical interaction, gestural expression has been barely analyzed in studies on collaborative design. Nevertheless, gesture has been shown to be used frequently by designers in their interactions and with varying functions (e.g., specification of design objects, as well as management of interactions).

The analysis of gesture's function in collaborative design has implications for environments that support remote collaborative design. Until now, they mainly supported pen-based pointing or command gestures, but if such environments are to effectively support designers collaborating from remote locations, representational and other types of gestures must also be visible and transmitted to the design partners.

To advance this important topic, we seek papers that provide theoretical or empirical contributions to the role of gesture in designing, either in the context of computer supported collaborative design or as a precursor to designing effective collaborative design environments.

The aim of this Special Issue on the role of gesture in designing is to further discussion at the intersection of theory and practice. Contributions are sought from artificial intelligence (AI), human–computer interaction (HCI), and computer supported collaborative work (CSCW) perspectives as well as cognitive science disciplines, such as psychology and pragmatics. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• • theoretical aspects of gesture in design interaction;

• • the role of gestures in design thinking;

• • gesture and multimodal interaction in design interaction: gesture with speech, writing, drawing, and other modalities;

• • AI and cognitive models of gesture in design interaction;

• • the role of gesture and multimodal interaction in remote design collaboration;

• • HCI and studies of gesture in collaborative design environments;

• • new HCI technologies that enable gesture in design environments;

• • gesture and multimodal interaction in CSCW design environments; and

• • the role of gestures in defining an external representation of the design model (either to the computer or to a person).

All submissions will be anonymously reviewed by at least three expert reviewers. The selection for publication will be made on the basis of these reviews.

Information about the format and style required for AIEDAM papers can be found at www.cs.wpi.edu/~aiedam/Instructions/ However, note that all submissions for Special Issues go to the Guest Editors, not to the Editor in Chief.

Important Dates

Intent to submit (Title and Abstract):

As soon as possible

Submission deadline for full papers:

1 May 2010

Reviews due:

30 August 2010

Notification and reviews to authors:

30 September 2010

Revised version submission deadline:

15 January 2011

Guest Editors

Please direct all inquiries and submissions to the Guest Editors. For e-mails regarding this Special Issue, please include “AIEDAM Special Issue” in the subject line.

Willemien Visser

Mary Lou Maher

Telecom ParisTech

University of Sydney

46 Rue Barrault

Room 282, Wilkinson Building (G04)

Paris 75013, France

148 City Road

E-mail: willemein.visser@telecom-paristech.fr

Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia E-mail: mary@arch.usyd.edu.au