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Call for Papers
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Workshop EDTPD 2017 - Embracing Diversity with Help of Technology and Participatory Design
http://mips.di.unimi.it/pages/view/embracing-diversity
June 27th, 2017 - Troyes, France
In conjunction with C&T 2017 (http://comtech.community/)

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Overview
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The use of technology, both new and well established, combined with a participatory approach to design might represent an important way to embrace diversity. This workshop is aimed at establishing a discussion forum on assessing the challenges in design for disability, neurodiversity, and more in general for people with special needs by applying participatory design. Designing for usability, accessibility and inclusion not only means focusing on user interfaces and ergonomic aspects but also consider factors such as acceptability and appropriation. Bodily, cognitive, and emotional appropriation should be regarded as fundamental to the success of a design process that is truly open to the diversity of users. To identify the right stakeholders is of primary importance for correctly informing the design process and to support the culture of participation in everyday life. However, this can be quite hard especially in cases where multiple individuals and organizations are involved. In most cases the end users, their family members, homecare caregivers, healthcare professionals, nursing homes, and organizations have to collaborate towards a common goal. In such perspective, a participatory approach to design may be of great help to implement usable, accessible, and inclusive technological solutions that put the end users and their needs at the center. Still it is complicated to decide under which circumstances a design process can be considered participative and/or has participatory results (for example when users participate in the design but don’t recognize in the results their contribution). Moreover, new technologies, recent evolution of virtual and augmented reality, and Internet of Things allow to design more flexible and advanced interaction tools and systems while at the same time may raise new challenges related to the difficulties of use that impairments can imply.

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Submissions
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Prospective participants are invited to submit a 2-4 pages position paper formatted according to the ACM Recommended Templates (http://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template).
The papers can be submitted at: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=edtpd2017 All papers will be peer-reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee.

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Important dates
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Submission deadline: 18 April 2017
Notification of acceptance: 30 April 2017
Early-bird registration deadline: 5 May 2017
Camera ready deadline: 20 May 2017
Workshop: 27 June 2017

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Organizers
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Barbara Rita Barricelli, Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy)
Ines Di Loreto, Université de Technologie de Troyes (France)

For any questions please contact: edtpd2017@easychair.org