This workshop follows the successful ‘Designing for Attention’ workshop at HCI 2004 which lead to a special issue ‘Attention aware systems' of the journal Computers in Human Behavior. Since then research in attention has moved forward considerably and the time is right to hold a second workshop to bring together current ideas on attention management, attentional interventions and modelling attentional states, using scenarios as a framework within which to describe attention related topics. Due to increased interest in attentional awareness in computer interaction this workshop will be run in conjunction with a sister workshop at Ubicomp 2007 which will focus primarily on scenarios for ubiquitous computing.
As computer system become more complex and computer based activities proliferate people find themselves alone at the computer carrying out a range of what were originally social activities, for example shopping, learning and collaborating. Group dynamics focus attention, and without them attention can be lost. A significant challenge of human computer interaction research is the design of systems capable of reasoning about users' attention and consequently deciding how to guide it, addressing in particular interruption management / notification optimization, individual versus group interaction, and just-in-time information selection. Adaptation to human cognitive abilities requires a better understanding of the reactive, deliberative, social, and aesthetic processes controlling attention allocation and of how they can be supported by technologies, in order to minimize cognitive load. The workshop is intended to bring together a multidisciplinary group of researchers and commercial providers who are interested in the many different ways in which users' attention can be enhanced at the interface. We take a wide view of attention, including perception and other emotions which increase the user’s involvement in their interaction or task.
The main focus of the workshop will be attentional functionality embedded in scenarios