As our lives become ever more digital, we face the difficult task of
navigating the complex information spaces we create. The fields of
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information Retrieval (IR) have
both developed innovative techniques to address this challenge, but
their insights have to date often failed to cross disciplinary
borders.

In this one-day workshop we will explore the advances each domain can
bring to the other. Following the success of the HCIR 2007 workshop,
co-hosted by MIT and Endeca, we are once again bringing together
academics, industrial researchers, and practitioners for a discussion
of this important topic.

This year the workshop is focused on the design, implementation, and
evaluation of search interfaces. We are particularly interested in
interfaces that support complex and exploratory search tasks.

Keynote speaker: Susan Dumais, Microsoft Research

Researchers and practitioners are invited to present interfaces
(including mockups, prototypes, and other early-stage designs),
research results from user studies of interfaces, and system
demonstrations related to the intersection of Human Computer
Interaction (HCI) and Information Retrieval (IR). The intent of the
workshop is not archival publication, but rather to provide a forum to
build community and to stimulate discussion, new insight, and
experimentation on search interface design. Demonstrations of systems
and prototypes are particularly welcome.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

* Novel interaction techniques for information retrieval.
* Modeling and evaluation of interactive information retrieval.
* Exploratory search and information discovery.
* Information visualization and visual analytics.
* Applications of HCI techniques to information retrieval
needs in specific domains.
* Ethnography and user studies relevant to information
retrieval and access.
* Scale and efficiency considerations for interactive
information retrieval systems.
* Relevance feedback and active learning approaches for
information retrieval.

Important Dates

* Aug 22 - Papers/abstracts due
* Sep 12 - Decisions to authors
* Oct 3 - Final copy due for printing
* Oct 23 - Workshop date

Contributions will be peer-reviewed by two members of the program
committee. For information on paper submission, see
http://research.microsoft.com/~ryenw/hcir2008/submit.html or contact
cua-hcir2008@cua.edu.

Workshop Organization

Workshop chairs:
* Daniel Tunkelang, Endeca
* Ryen White, Microsoft Research

Program chair:
* Bill Kules, Catholic University of America

Program Committee:
* James Allan, University of Massachusetts, USA
* Peter Anick, Yahoo!, USA
* Peter Bailey, Live Search, USA
* Peter Brusilovsky, University of Pittsburgh, USA
* Pia Borlund, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark
* Robert Capra, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
* Ed Chi, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), USA
* Ed Cutrell, Microsoft Research, USA
* Ed Fox, Virginia Tech, USA
* Gene Golovchinsky, FX Palo Alto Laboratory, USA
* Marti Hearst, University of California at Berkeley, USA
* Diane Kelly, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
* Jim Jansen, Pennsylvania State University, USA
* Gary Marchionini, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
* Merrie Morris, Microsoft Research, USA
* Jeremy Pickens, FX Palo Alto Laboratory, USA
* Yan Qu, University of Maryland at College Park, USA
* Amanda Spink, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
* Elaine Toms, Dalhousie University, Canada
* Martin Wattenberg, IBM Research, USA
* Ross Wilkinson, CSIRO, Australia

Supporters:
* Microsoft Research (http://research.microsoft.com)
* Endeca Technologies (http://endeca.com)