Editorial

Dear Reader,

it’s time to celebrate! With the present issue, i-com is completing its 20^th volume. When the journal was officially launched in 2002, we would have struggled to predict whether it would still be alive after two decades. Sixty-one published issues later – including the very first issue (“Nullnummer”) of 2001, I am pleased to say that i-com is alive and kicking. The same is certainly true for the HCI community in Germany which has provided continuous support for our project. It is quite satisfying for a long-time HCI protagonist to see this research field still grow, broadening the range of topics and disciplines involved, also gaining high international visibility over the years. For i-com, the turn to publishing papers in English in 2015 has also contributed to its visibility, both in Germany and internationally. A few figures may illustrate this: the number of paper downloads from the website has increased from 6879 in 2019 to 14582 in 2020, and Scopus CiteScore (the number of citations divided by the number of papers published over four years) is up from 0.3 in 2018 to 1.7 in 2020. These figures and others show that we seem to be on a good track, but there is, as always, room for improvement.

For this anniversary issue, the editors have chosen a very special format: We invited authors who published an article in the two first numbers of the journal (0/2001 and 1/2002) to again write a paper for i-com, reflecting on how their field of research has developed over the two decades. We are very grateful that several authors who are still active researchers in the field presented at the time, agreed to share with us their views on developments that took place during the two decades and on ongoing trends in their fields. In addition, we invited several MuC 2020 workshop organizers to highlight current discussions and trends in selected areas.

The issue opens with a contribution by Marc Hassenzahl, Michael Burmester, and Franz Koller, setting the scene with the pointed statement “User Experience is all there is”, aptly turning around the logic of their 2002 claim “Usability is not everything”. Their early i-com paper was one of the first highlighting the need for a broader understanding of the user-centric quality of IT systems, and they now discuss in an anecdotal form the evidence that indeed such a comprehensive concept is required to make sense of the complex interplay between humans and technology.

The second paper is also a re-staging of a topic addressed in the first issue. Angelika Bullinger-Hoffmann, Michael Koch, Kathrin Möslein, and Alexander Richter describe the origins and the development of CSCW and take a fresh look at current requirements, also in connection with the current pandemic which has brought about a wealth of new experiences with the various forms of remote collaboration and learning. Mateusz Dolata, Simon Schubiger, Doris Agotai, and Gerhard Schwabe investigate the intricacies of deploying mixed reality systems in professional settings, particularly for supporting financial advisory services, a theme reminiscent of a 2002 article by one of the authors, Gerhard Schwabe, who discussed rooms of cooperation.

Virtual agents or, more generally, artificial entities have come a long way since 2001 both in terms of the degree of realism by which they appear and with respect to their communicative capabilities, involving advanced techniques of natural interaction such as speech interaction, gestures, or facial expressions. Still, many of the psychological questions remain. Nicole Krämer and Gary Bente (the authors of a 2001 paper) review the extensive research that has taken place in the past 20 years and summarize the findings from a psychological perspective. They also point out that despite the many results obtained so far, there is still a need for overarching research frameworks or comprehensive theories as a subject for future research. The last paper in this round of reflexive continuations of earlier i-com contributions is authored by Michael Herczeg, discussing promises, achievements and failures concerning education in the digital age. The author stresses the relevance of a post-constructivist teaching and learning approaches and illustrates some of the concepts in the context of ambient learning spaces.

In addition to this series of retro-reflexive contributions, the issue comprises two articles describing themes and discussions in workshops that took place at Mensch und Computer in recent years. Athanasios Mazarakis summarizes and reflects on current and future trends in gamification that were discussed in a series of four MuC workshops from 2018 to 2021. The role of Augmented Reality in future mobility is addressed in a contribution by Andreas Riegler, Andreas Riener, and Clemens Holzmann, merging findings from a literature review of the field and the discussions of a 2021 MuC workshop on this topic. The final paper in this issue by Benjamin Müller, Sarah Diefenbach, Leonhard Dobusch, and Katharina Baer reports on a virtual round-table discussion on the theme of post-digital, addressing the question how our world will look like when the ongoing process of digitization will have finally achieved the vision associated with it.

With this anniversary issue, my role as editor-in-chief of this journal is coming to an end. Having served for i-com in this function for 20 years has been a pleasure and an honour, though a few times also a burden, and I strongly feel that the baton should now be passed on. Fortunately, it will be passed on in very able hands, Michael Koch will take over as EIC starting with the first issue next year. The journal will also undergo some innovations in the future, and I am convinced it will continue to develop successfully in the coming years.

There are many people who have contributed to the journal’s success during the past two decades, unfortunately too many to name them all her. First, and foremost, I would like to thank all authors and reviewers who made it possible to publish a journal with high-quality content. Sincere thanks also go to my co-editors, especially to Sarah Diefenbach, who has been keeping the practitioner section alive for many years now, as well as to the entire editorial board. Many people at our publisher De Gruyter, formerly at Oldenbourg, who believed in the journal and supported us over the years deserve our thanks. Representative for many, I would just like to mention Angelika Sperlich, Wolfgang Böttner, Ulrike Kitzing, and Diana Kostovic. Finally, my job would have been so much more difficult without the support of two very competent editorial assistants: Zoulfa el Jerroudi and, for many years now, Anne-Marie Hussein. Thank you all so much!

I hope you will enjoy reading this special issue, raise a glass of your favourite beverage to our anniversary!

Yours,

Jürgen Ziegler