Sally Fincher Boeken

The eighteenth annual British HCI Conference chose as its theme Design for Life. 'Life' has many facets, from work (of course, or should we say inevitably!) to travel, fun and other forms of leisure. We selected 23 full papers out of 63 submitted, which covered our interaction with computer systems in a variety of types of life situation ― including games, tourism and certain types of work ― and also covered a variety of stages in our lives, from the young to the elderly. These papers were complemented by others that described more traditional aspects of research in the field of human-computer interaction. In putting together the programme we followed a three-stage process. First each paper was reviewed by at least three reviewers. Then a member of the committee conducted a meta-review. Finally, all sets of reviews were considered by the technical chairs who assembled a programme that was submitted to, and approved by, the full committee. This process was greatly assisted by the use of the Precision Conference Solutions web-based submission system. Even more important, of course, were the volunteer reviewers themselves. In recognition, this year we have made an award for the best reviewer as well as one for the best paper.

Ninety percent of any Computing Science academic staff are involved with project work at some stage of their working life. Often they have no previous experience of how to handle it, and there are no written guidelines or reference books at the moment. Knowledge and practical experiences are often only disseminated from one institution to another when staff change jobs. This book is the first reference work to fill that gap in the market. It will be of use to lecturers and course designers who want to improve their handling of project work in specific courses, and to department heads and deans who want to learn about overall strategic issues and experiences from other institutions.

Focusing on the learning processes of programming, this book serves as a supportive resource for students rather than a standalone language guide. It complements programming courses and textbooks by mirroring the developmental journey from initial challenges to tackling complex group projects. The structured approach emphasizes the experiences students encounter, fostering a deeper understanding of programming concepts as they progress.