Editorial

Dear Reader,

kicking off the 20^th year of i-com, this first issue in 2021 presents a fairly wide range of topics most of which, however, can be conveniently grouped into two special topic sections. The first group of papers is a follow-up of last year’s special issue on user-centered artificial intelligence, with one more paper originating from the UCAI workshop held at MuC 2020. The second group consists of three papers addressing AR and VR-related research questions. In both sections we feature extended versions of papers presented at last year’s MuC (three papers) and DelFi (two best papers) conferences. And, as always, we have the practitioners’ section, this time presenting two contributions. Special thanks to our co-editor Sarah Diefenbach whose tireless commitment has made this important i-com section possible for so many years now!

The first paper in the group addressing human-AI interaction (emanating from the UCAI workshop) by Alizadeh, Stevens, and Esau lets a fictitious person ask whether “AI is also used in airbags”. The authors discuss folk concepts people have in mind about AI and present an interview-based study with 50 participants, showing that peoples’ perception and expectations of AI are very diverse, with a largely varying understanding of the concept. “Paper2Wire” by Buschek, Anlauff, and Lachner presents a machine learning approach to transforming paper-based user interface sketches into digital wireframes. The third paper in the AI-related group addresses the question how gamification can ease the tedious chore of annotating training data for machine learning. Alaghbari, Mitschick, Blichmann, Voigt, and Dachselt discuss relevant psychological factors involved in annotation tasks and present an extension of a commercially used annotation system with a range of different gamification elements.

The three subsequent papers focus on AR and VR-related research. In the first paper, Knierim, Hein, Schmidt, and Kosch combine a smartphone with a head-mounted AR device to provide a new interaction method for controlling AR presentations. They find that the smartphone-based AR controller results in significantly faster and more accurate object manipulation as well as reduced task load. Augmented reality instruction for a complex assembly task is investigated in an article by Funk and Schmidt, one of two best papers from last year’s DeLFI. Also investigating virtual presentations for professional training, although for a very different domain and with different technology, Plotzky, Lindwedel, Bejan, König, and Kunze (also a DeLFI best paper) present a study on applying VR in healthcare skills training. They describe a VR simulation of tasks to performed with patients who need to be ventilated at home, and report general acceptance measures and the effect of presence, indicating that the latter had a positive influence on the intention to use such system.

A cross-cutting topic of general relevance is addressed in Burtscher and Spiel’s paper (a MuC extension) on gender sensitivity in HCI research and practice. Based on an in-depth literature review, the authors developed recommendations with the aim of providing guidance to researchers in developing sensitivity as to how to explore the relevance of equity within their work. The recommendations cover the entire process of conducting research from study design to results presentation and were materialized in the form of a card deck.

The final section is devoted to practitioner contributions and comprises two papers. The first paper by Gilbert, Fischer, and Röder presents a UX maturity model for projects. In contrast to establishing UX maturity models at the organizational level, which may be hard in practice, the authors argue for defining the appropriate level of required maturity for individual projects. The paper provides a systematic categorization of UX capabilities and, based on these capabilities, describes six different maturity levels which were evaluated in the context of projects carried out in a large German corporation. Finally, a paper by Speicher concludes this issue by taking a critical look at the concept of growth marketing in e-commerce. The author points out that in current e-commerce conversion rate optimization is often (wrongly) equated with optimizing the user experience and discusses the limitations of this view.

I wish you an informative and enjoyable read, and, as always in these difficult times: stay healthy!

Jürgen Ziegler

(Editor-in-Chief)