[AISWorld] CFP: Services for All @HICSS’57

[Lobna Hassan]

Kind reminder! Deadline in 15 days!

Call For Papers

Dear colleagues,

For the first time part of the HICSS conference, we invite you to submit your work to the minitrack on Services for all: inclusion, accessibility, & diversity @HICSS’57 - part of the Decision Analytics and Service Science track   <https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-57/decision-analytics-and-service-science/#services-for-all-inclusion-accessibility-and-diversity-minitrack>https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-57/decision-analytics-and-service-science/#services-for-all-inclusion-accessibility-and-diversity-minitrack

Submission deadline: 16 June 2023

Conference dates: 3-6 January 2024, Waikiki, Hawaii, USA

Guide for authors:  <https://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/>https://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/

Description 

The concepts of design for all, universal design, accessibility, inclusion, diversity, and many other related terms, all share a similar core notion. They signify the importance of designing communities, experiences, services, and artefacts that are usable by everyone, regardless of their (dis)ability, age, skills, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, income, or any other such factors. Design for all is essential to ensure justice, equity, and human rights. Given the importance services have in our society, they would especially benefit from design for all practices that ensures equity and equal access. Services, in this context, are defined malleably as: processes, actions, application of competence, or activities, performed by an entity to fulfil a need for another.

The importance of services and their target groups varies. It has been argued that public services are of higher significance to society, and hence, should be accessible to and usable by everyone in society. Different governmental agencies have issued numerous directives to ensure equal access to public services, yet, in practice, many services still remain largely inaccessible. On the other hand, in the private sector, there have long been debates on whether private services should comply with accessibility and inclusion standards, or if the market should regulate the matter. With privatization and the increasing significance of private services, the stakes have been raised for these sectors. Private sector services have become akin to essential services that arguably need to be accessible to ensure equitable society. Financial accessibility is similarly a subject of contention between services providers needing to maintain their viability and unfolding international economic crises that significantly impede access to even the most basic services. Regionally, there are divides between countries and populations in access to services based on location and geopolitics, the latest of which is around AI-based services, such as ChatGPT, which have been blocked in several regions, leaving their populations behind in technological capabilities.

When it comes to services deemed by some as non-essential, the debate on inclusion becomes even more complex. Disagreements exist over whether games, VR, AR, serious games, gamification, and such services that combine utility and entertainment are required to be accessible and inclusive. Nonetheless, we see streaming services not only ensuring the accessibility of their services, but becoming pioneers in it. Similarly, we see arguments that services are not meant to be accessible or inclusive to everyone, e.g., for example games require high utilization of different abilities and senses and are not compatible with disabilities. Yet, we also see the release of critically acclaimed games, playable by a wide range of individual and inclusive of many diversity aspects.

Overall, we see disagreements on what inclusion and design for all mean, how to design, implement, and evaluate it and what benefits can be drawn from it and for whom. We encourage a wide range of submissions from any disciplinary backgrounds: empirical and conceptual research papers, case studies, and reviews that investigate design for all in the services context and push it forwards. Relevant topics include (but are not limited to:

Designing, implementing, or evaluating accessible, inclusive, and socially sustainable services
Understanding the needs of new and diverse user groups
Understanding developer, designer, and decision-maker attitudes toward design for all in services
Investigating the barrier to and facilitators of design for all approaches
Investigating regional and financial barriers in service access and the consequences of inequities
Examinations of the inclusivity and accessibility of public, private, essential, non-essential, and hedonic services
Examinations of accessibility and inclusivity of entertainment-based services, such games, gamification, gamefulness, playfulness, simulations, serious games, games with a purpose, gamebased learning, VR, AR, and the metaverse
The use of design for all as PR moves or CSR initiatives
Quantifying the return from design for all and inclusion
Impact of AI, automated decision tools, and similar service analytics, on access to services
Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Lobna Hassan LUT University

Kat Schrier Marist College

Dominik Siemon LUT University

Sami Hyrynsalmi LUT University



We look forward to your submission!





Lobna Hassan
Associate Professor of Sociotechnical Transitions in Services (tenure-track)
Department of industrial Engineering & Management
School of Engineering Science
LUT University, Lahti campus
+358 (0) 504377294
Lobna.hassan at lut.fi <mailto:Lobna.hassan at lut.fi>  
https://lobnahassan.com <https://lobnahassan.com/> 
https://sia-lab.com/

Recent publications: 
- Baltzar, P., Hassan, L., & Turunen, M. (2023). “It’s Easier to Play Alone”: A Survey Study of Gaming With Disabilities. Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports, 1(1), jege.2022-0029. 
https://doi.org/10.1123/jege.2022-0029

- Bhattari, R., Hassan, L., & Vesa, M. (2023). Participatory budgeting case studies throughout the ages: a longitudinal, thematic, systematic literature study. Proceedings of 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS’56), 1900-1909, Hawaii, January 5-8, 2023.
https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/8b71a2a8-30da-4b11-9545-90156e37d4de/content 

- Hassan, L., & Baltzar, P. (2022). Social aspects in game accessibility research: A literature review. Proceedings of the 2022 DiGRA International Conference: Bringing Worlds Together. 
http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2022_paper_111.pdf