HCI Outdoors Book

August 2020 update:

The book is complete, off to Springer for publication and will appear in print in December 2020. Details about the book can be found at Springer’s website. The editors would like to thank each of the authors for their contributed chapters. The book is a good sample of some of the current work on human-computer interaction in the outdoors.

Historical context:

At the 2018 ACM SIGCHI Workshop on HCI Outdoors, the organizers and participants decided it was time for an academic book that captured key advances in this area.  Scott McCrickard, Michael Jones, and Timothy Stelter were selected to edit the book, to be published as part of Springer’s HCI series in 2020.

Authors from the HCI Outdoors community are invited to write chapters in their area of expertise. If you are interested in contributing a chapter, please email any of the book editors to express interest and describe your background and contribution ideas within the HCI Outdoors domain. We welcome interest from researchers, designers, and practitioners. Detailed information for invited authors is also available.

Working Title

HCI Outdoors: Community, Group, and Personal Experiences with Interactive Computing in the Outdoors 

Editors

D. Scott McCrickard, mccricks@cs.vt.edu; Michael Jones, jones@cs.byu.edu; Timothy Stelter, tstelter@vt.edu

Summary

This book will describe human-computer interaction (HCI) challenges and opportunities in outdoor settings for communities, groups, and individuals. Interactive computing, which includes technologies like mobile phones, wearables, and interactive computing installations, is increasingly used for extended periods of time outdoors outside of traditional controlled and managed indoor environments. Domains of interest include recreation, education, citizen science, wellness, and games. Scales of impact include individuals with personal devices, small groups using technology to support common goals, and large communities of people whose ways of doing and being are affected by outdoor technologies.

This book brings together recent work and insights of leading researchers involved in HCI Outdoors, providing researchers a thorough review of work in this emerging discipline and preparation to make new contributions on this important topic.  Our focus extends these ideas to look at the design and integration of technologies into outdoor settings, including hiking trips, park visits, outdoor recreation, formal and informal education, and tech support for outdoor science and engineering.

Preliminary Chapter Authors and Titles

Zann Anderson and Michael Jones. “Interactive Computing and Outdoor Recreation.” 

Mara Balestrini, Sarah Gallacher, and Yvonne Rogers. “Moving HCI Outdoors: Lessons Learned from Conducting Research in the Wild.”

Abigail Bartolome. “Tweeting on the Trail.”

Keith Cheverst, Mads Bodker, and Florian Daiber. “Technology and Mastery: Exploring Design Sensitivities for Technology in Mountaineering.”

Alan Dix. “The Walk: exploring the technical and social margins.”

Jonna Hakkila and Ashley Colley. “Designing for Interaction in Outdoor Winter Sports.”

Ellie Harmon. “My Maps, My Music My Everything: Mobile computing on the PCT.”

Peter Kiefer, Benjamin Adams, Tiffany C.K. Kwok, and Martin Raubal. “Modeling Gaze-Guided Narratives for Outdoor Tourism.”

Lindah Kotut, Michael Horning, and D. Scott McCrickard. “Opportunities in Conflict on the Trail.”

Carman Neustaedter, Yasamin Heshmat, Brennan Jones, Azadeh Forghani, and Xiaoxuan Xiong. “Shared Family Experience over Distance in the Outdoors.”

Nicholas Polys, Peter Sforza, and John Munsell. “PlantShoe: Botanical Detectives.”

Andrew Quitmeyer. “Inventing Behavioral Media in Biological Field Sites.”

Norman Su. “Threats of the Rural: Writing and Designing with Affect.”

Related efforts

Additional inspiration can be found from related efforts at initiatives and workshops within this topic area, including:

  • The HCI Outdoors workshop, held as part of the ACM SIGCHI conference, which resulted in a list of relevant papers (and the genesis of this book).
  • The Technology on the Trail initiative and workshops (including the Virginia Tech workshop and the ACM GROUP workshop) have investigated ways that technology can be used on trail settings, particularly for long-term activities like extended hikes, scientific investigations, and health and wellness situations.
  • A pair of NatureCHI workshops, held in 2016 and 2017 in conjunction with the MobileHCI conferences, investigated unobtrusive user experiences with technology in nature.  A journal paper highlights many of the organizers’ reflections about the workshops.
  • A pair of UbiMount workshops, held as part of the ACM UbiComp conference, explored ubiquitous computing in the mountains in support of activities like rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking, paragliding, and skiing.

Page updated: July 15th, 2019