HUMAN’18 is the first workshop of a new series for the ACM Hypertext conferences. It has a strong focus on the user and thus is complementary to the strong machine analytics research direction that could be experienced in previous conferences.

The user-centric view on hypertext not only includes user interfaces and interaction, but also discussions about hypertext application domains. Furthermore, the workshop raises the question of how original hypertext ideas (e.g. Doug Engelbart’s “augmenting human intellect” or Frank Halasz’ “hypertext as a medium for thinking and communication”) can improve today’s hypertext systems.

Recent hypertext research is strongly focused on machine analytics. We would like to broaden the scope again to include more research on human factors. Historically, hypertext research is strongly connected with human factors. Hypertext pioneers, such as Doug Engelbart or Ted Nelson, focused on human factors in hypertext, e.g. Doug Engelbart’s “augmenting human intellect” or Ted Nelson’s information structure “ZigZag”. This workshop combines original hypertext research ideas with recent hypertext research trends. In addition, the motivation is to consolidate different hypertext research areas from the viewpoint of human factors.

RELEVANCE TO THE ACM HYPERTEXT 2018 THEMES

HUMAN’18 will be held in conjunction with the the 29th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, Baltimore, USA and shows many connections to it. It fosters the discussion about different hypertext domains and, more important, it explicitly combines original hypertext research ideas with recent hypertext research trends. Human factors are present in all tracks of Hypertext 2018. Thus, this workshop fosters cross-cutting discussions and the development of new ideas.