A Guide to Publishing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Design Research\u00a0Papers<\/h3>\nTurn \u2018publish or perish\u2019 into \u2018learn, write, and\u00a0share\u2019<\/em><\/h4>\nWhen I first started my PhD three years ago, I was very new to the world of academia and the process of publishing in journals and conferences. Coming from Computer Engineering, my PhD involved design research, and I felt that the publishing process for human-computer interaction, design, design engineering, design research, and other related spaces was more ambigious than computer science or other purely STEM subjects.<\/p>\n
While I didn\u2019t know much yet, one thing that became instantly clear was that many people associated publishing with success as a researcher. Publishing seemed important, even critical, not only for the PhD, but for my career as an academic or researcher (even for some places in industry).<\/p>\n
Now, three years later and seven first author publications<\/a> under my belt, I\u2019m here to share everything I wish I knew during that first\u00a0year.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1024\/1%2AVLY_YuCbMG2f57kWPoNnPQ.jpeg?ssl=1\")
Presenting my work at the ACM Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) Conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands in\u00a02022.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhat even is publishing?<\/h3>\n
I\u2019m referring to publishing as having a paper accepted at a journal or conference. This typically involves a peer-review<\/strong> process, which means that two or more reviewers<\/strong> read and approve your paper. These reviewers are usually \u2018experts<\/strong>\u2019 on the topic you\u2019ve written the paper on, which could mean they\u2019re academics, researchers, industry experts, etc. This process is usually blind, <\/strong>meaning that your name and institution are hidden from reviewers to avoid any\u00a0biases.<\/p>\nA paper can only be submitted to one venue at a time<\/strong> and can only be resubmitted to a second place if rejected or withdrawn from the first place. Sometimes a journal paper describing a study can be repurposed as a conference paper, and vice versa. That\u2019s only if there\u2019s a significantly different angle or extension presented for the same study\/data, but otherwise it\u2019s usually one study = one\u00a0paper.<\/p>\nWhat can I\u00a0publish?<\/h3>\n
Typically, in the spaces of human-computer interaction and design research, papers will be one of two\u00a0types:<\/p>\n
A Review Paper: <\/strong>This is usually a systematic literature review where you\u2019re just analysing the literature that already exists on a topic. This involves being systematic<\/strong> (i.e., following a known process such as PRISMA<\/a> to make sure you\u2019ve collected all the papers that exist on a topic) and doing some analysis <\/strong>(i.e., not just saying \u2018these are the papers that exist\u2019, but also looking for trends or patterns that can be learned from looking at the combination of these papers as a\u00a0whole).<\/p>\nYou can see an example here<\/a> where I look at all the papers that have collaboratively designed conversational AI with different stakeholders. Not only do I collect and present the papers, but I also analyse different factors like which stakeholders were invovled and which collaborative design activities they\u00a0used.<\/p>\nThis type of paper is usually only accepted in journals and less likely to be accepted at conferences, which tend to focus more on the second type\u00a0below.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1024\/0*AB99j0-u0Z6Tfblv\")
Photo by Kelly Sikkema<\/a> on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAn Empirical Paper: <\/strong>This is a paper where you\u2019ve done new research and you\u2019re presenting it. In the fields I mentioned this will normally involve human participants and include methods like surveys, interviews, workshops, ethnography, and so on. You\u2019ll give the introduction and a short literature review to give background and context to your study, then you\u2019ll summarise the methods you used and present your results before discussing them.<\/p>\nAn example of this kind of paper is this one<\/a>. I interview professionals who build conversational AI to understand their experiences and struggles and then summarise and analyse those in relation to similar papers that have also interviewed other AI professionals. For more quantitative work, you can check out my guide for doing statistical analysis on design research<\/a>.<\/p>\nThis type of paper is normally accepted at both conferences and journals.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1024\/0*C54RABpSYbHtVGSz\")
Photo by Vanilla Bear Films<\/a> on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHow Can I\u00a0Publish?<\/h3>\n1. Do the Research Study\u00a0Well!<\/h4>\n
Remember that you\u2019re not doing a PhD or doing research just to publish. Your goal is to do good quality research that is impactful, and then publishing is just a consequence of that and a way of sharing your work with the wider community.<\/strong> Take the time to identify what you want to research and develop an air-tight methodology.<\/p>\nIn terms of a PhD, I recommend breaking it up into a series of studies that answer mini-questions, which then work towards your main research question. In that sense, every study is publish-able as its own paper (which is what I did). It is also incredibly helpful to write up the paper for each study as you do it or as soon as you finish it, because then everything is written up and clear, and this will save you massive time when you write your thesis at the\u00a0end.<\/p>\n
Another way of getting publications is collaborating with other researchers on their projects and studies. This might not get you a first author<\/strong> publication, where the first author is usually the person who did the majority of the work, but it can contribute towards your overall publication count and show that you collaborate well with others. In my experience, your first author publications are the most impactful ones, where other authors are usually ordered by the size of their contributions and then the last author(s) are the supervisors of the work or the most senior\u00a0people.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1024\/0*HpAHx4vL51lHYswu\")
Photo by Jo Szczepanska<\/a> on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n2. Identify the\u00a0Venue<\/h4>\n
The next step is to pick out the place you want to publish your work in. I\u2019m going to list some impactful design journals and conferences below, but a good rule of thumb is to check where the papers you have cited in your paper come from. If you find you\u2019ve referenced a specific journal or conference many times, that\u2019s a good indicator that your research might fit in well there. Otherwise, it\u2019s important to check the impact factor<\/strong> of different venues. This number indicates how impactful the papers published at this venue have been (this is a mix of number of times they\u2019re cited and other metrics). Generally, design and human-computer interaction will have lower impact scores than a field like medicine, where papers will be much more impactful overall. 3 is quite a good impact factor for design research in my experience.<\/p>\nAt the same time, if you\u2019re targeting conferences, you have to check their deadlines. While journals generally accept papers all year round, conferences will have submission deadlines that might be too far away for your\u00a0plan.<\/p>\n
It is also worth remembering that the better the impact score or the more prestegious a venue is, the more competitive it\u2019s going to be to get accepted\u00a0there!<\/em><\/p>\nGood Design\/HCI Journals<\/strong><\/p>\nDesign Studies, ACM Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, Co-Design, The International Journal of\u00a0Design.<\/p>\n
Good Design\/HCI Conferences<\/strong><\/p>\nThe ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Conference, Design Research Society (DRS) Conference, DESIGN, International Conference on Human Computer Interaction Theory and Applications (HUCAPP), ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social\u00a0Good.<\/p>\n
Also check more domain-specific journals and conferences, depending on your research. For example, AI Ethics and AI & Society are good AI-focused journals, while there are other great journals for medicine\/medical research.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1024\/0*v9E2QFcSjuVECDYI\")
Photo by Antenna<\/a> on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n3. Write the\u00a0Paper<\/h4>\n
The next step is to write the paper itself. Generally, as I mentioned earlier, this will include an introduction, literature review or background section, methodology section, results, discussion and conclusion. It\u2019s important to check papers from your chosen journal or conference and follow the format they use as\u00a0well.<\/p>\n
Get feedback from colleagues and supervisors whenever possible and don\u2019t be afraid to scratch some parts and start over! It takes time to write a good paper and you shouldn\u2019t rush the\u00a0process.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1024\/0*3u2lymCvU5TtTpng\")
Photo by Annie Spratt<\/a> on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n4. Submit and\u00a0Wait<\/h4>\n
Follow the venue\u2019s guidelines to submit your work and wait for a decision. Remember that writing a paper and submitting it is in itself a milestone that you should celebrate! The review process is long and can take several months. It\u2019s important to keep that in mind when you\u2019re planning publications, especially if you want them published before finishing your PhD. The different decisions that reviewers could make on your paper will vary from venue to venue, but they generally will\u00a0be:<\/p>\n
\u2705 Accept<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aAccepted as is with no further changes\u00a0needed.<\/p>\n\u23f3 Accept with Minor Revisions<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aConditional acceptance if you implement some feedback reviewers have left you. Usually this is minor stuff around the writing itself and you\u2019ll be given around a month to do\u00a0them.<\/p>\n\u26a0\ufe0f Accept with Major Revisions \/ Revise and Resubmit<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aThis means the reviewers think there is promise and value in your paper, but there are major changes that need to be made. This might mean having to redo a part of the study or collect more data, or it might mean a major re-write of the paper itself. On average you\u2019ll get around 3 months to do these. In my experience, this decision is a good thing. It means there\u2019s no fatal flaw where the paper must be rejected. With some hard work and a good response letter <\/strong>where you explain how you\u2019ve addressed reviewers\u2019 feedback, you\u2019ll be bumped up to accept or accept with minor revisions.<\/p>\n\ud83d\uded1 Reject<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aThat means there\u2019s either a fatal flaw in the paper or it is completely irrelevant to the venue you\u2019ve selected. I\u2019ve had outright rejections before and they can be discouraging. A good place to start is the reviewers\u2019 detailed feedback to understand how you can improve the study or the paper. I\u2019ve had rejections that ended up being accepted in the end, so don\u2019t throw work out just because of a rejection!<\/p>\n5. Don\u2019t\u00a0Panic!<\/h4>\n
Rejections are normal, iterations are normal, it\u2019s all part of the process! The majority of my papers came at the end of my second year and during my third year of the PhD. If you\u2019re just starting out, simply put publishing as a long term goal and focus first on structuring the degree in terms of studies and carrying those out well. Submitting papers on different studies is also a great way to get feedback and catch any issues early on, instead of getting a nasty surprise later on in your defense\/viva, or when it\u2019s too late to repeat a study. By taking it as a chance to learn and get feedback, you\u2019ll realise that you always benefit from submitting a paper, even if the outcome is a rejection for\u00a0now.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/516\/1%2AdYn-Z4xCZy8gSEZgxFjqOQ.png?ssl=1\")
It takes a lot of drafts and iterations to reach an accepted\u00a0paper!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhere I Fit\u00a0In<\/h3>\n
I\u2019m a final-year PhD student at Imperial College London. My PhD project saw me develop a framework and toolkit for collaboratively designing conversational AI that is better aligned with human\u00a0values.<\/p>\n
You can check out the official page for my project on the Imperial College London website<\/a>. You can also check out this other article I wrote explaining the details of my PhD\u00a0project<\/a>.<\/p>\nI\u2019ve set up this Medium account to publish interesting lessons I\u2019ve learnt and snippets of my research as I work on my PhD project. My goal is to spread news and information about my work in a way that makes it understandable to anyone and everyone.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/medium.com\/_\/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=151b0b70d80d\")
<\/p>\n
\nA Design Researcher\u2019s Guide to Publishing<\/a> was originally published in Towards Data Science<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
When I first started my PhD three years ago, I was very new to the world of academia and the process of publishing in journals and conferences. Coming from Computer Engineering, my PhD involved design research, and I felt that the publishing process for human-computer interaction, design, design engineering, design research, and other related spaces was more ambigious than computer science or other purely STEM subjects.<\/p>\n
While I didn\u2019t know much yet, one thing that became instantly clear was that many people associated publishing with success as a researcher. Publishing seemed important, even critical, not only for the PhD, but for my career as an academic or researcher (even for some places in industry).<\/p>\n
Now, three years later and seven first author publications<\/a> under my belt, I\u2019m here to share everything I wish I knew during that first\u00a0year.<\/p>\n I\u2019m referring to publishing as having a paper accepted at a journal or conference. This typically involves a peer-review<\/strong> process, which means that two or more reviewers<\/strong> read and approve your paper. These reviewers are usually \u2018experts<\/strong>\u2019 on the topic you\u2019ve written the paper on, which could mean they\u2019re academics, researchers, industry experts, etc. This process is usually blind, <\/strong>meaning that your name and institution are hidden from reviewers to avoid any\u00a0biases.<\/p>\n A paper can only be submitted to one venue at a time<\/strong> and can only be resubmitted to a second place if rejected or withdrawn from the first place. Sometimes a journal paper describing a study can be repurposed as a conference paper, and vice versa. That\u2019s only if there\u2019s a significantly different angle or extension presented for the same study\/data, but otherwise it\u2019s usually one study = one\u00a0paper.<\/p>\n Typically, in the spaces of human-computer interaction and design research, papers will be one of two\u00a0types:<\/p>\n A Review Paper: <\/strong>This is usually a systematic literature review where you\u2019re just analysing the literature that already exists on a topic. This involves being systematic<\/strong> (i.e., following a known process such as PRISMA<\/a> to make sure you\u2019ve collected all the papers that exist on a topic) and doing some analysis <\/strong>(i.e., not just saying \u2018these are the papers that exist\u2019, but also looking for trends or patterns that can be learned from looking at the combination of these papers as a\u00a0whole).<\/p>\n You can see an example here<\/a> where I look at all the papers that have collaboratively designed conversational AI with different stakeholders. Not only do I collect and present the papers, but I also analyse different factors like which stakeholders were invovled and which collaborative design activities they\u00a0used.<\/p>\n This type of paper is usually only accepted in journals and less likely to be accepted at conferences, which tend to focus more on the second type\u00a0below.<\/em><\/p>\n An Empirical Paper: <\/strong>This is a paper where you\u2019ve done new research and you\u2019re presenting it. In the fields I mentioned this will normally involve human participants and include methods like surveys, interviews, workshops, ethnography, and so on. You\u2019ll give the introduction and a short literature review to give background and context to your study, then you\u2019ll summarise the methods you used and present your results before discussing them.<\/p>\n An example of this kind of paper is this one<\/a>. I interview professionals who build conversational AI to understand their experiences and struggles and then summarise and analyse those in relation to similar papers that have also interviewed other AI professionals. For more quantitative work, you can check out my guide for doing statistical analysis on design research<\/a>.<\/p>\n This type of paper is normally accepted at both conferences and journals.<\/em><\/p>\n Remember that you\u2019re not doing a PhD or doing research just to publish. Your goal is to do good quality research that is impactful, and then publishing is just a consequence of that and a way of sharing your work with the wider community.<\/strong> Take the time to identify what you want to research and develop an air-tight methodology.<\/p>\n In terms of a PhD, I recommend breaking it up into a series of studies that answer mini-questions, which then work towards your main research question. In that sense, every study is publish-able as its own paper (which is what I did). It is also incredibly helpful to write up the paper for each study as you do it or as soon as you finish it, because then everything is written up and clear, and this will save you massive time when you write your thesis at the\u00a0end.<\/p>\n Another way of getting publications is collaborating with other researchers on their projects and studies. This might not get you a first author<\/strong> publication, where the first author is usually the person who did the majority of the work, but it can contribute towards your overall publication count and show that you collaborate well with others. In my experience, your first author publications are the most impactful ones, where other authors are usually ordered by the size of their contributions and then the last author(s) are the supervisors of the work or the most senior\u00a0people.<\/p>\n The next step is to pick out the place you want to publish your work in. I\u2019m going to list some impactful design journals and conferences below, but a good rule of thumb is to check where the papers you have cited in your paper come from. If you find you\u2019ve referenced a specific journal or conference many times, that\u2019s a good indicator that your research might fit in well there. Otherwise, it\u2019s important to check the impact factor<\/strong> of different venues. This number indicates how impactful the papers published at this venue have been (this is a mix of number of times they\u2019re cited and other metrics). Generally, design and human-computer interaction will have lower impact scores than a field like medicine, where papers will be much more impactful overall. 3 is quite a good impact factor for design research in my experience.<\/p>\n At the same time, if you\u2019re targeting conferences, you have to check their deadlines. While journals generally accept papers all year round, conferences will have submission deadlines that might be too far away for your\u00a0plan.<\/p>\n It is also worth remembering that the better the impact score or the more prestegious a venue is, the more competitive it\u2019s going to be to get accepted\u00a0there!<\/em><\/p>\n Good Design\/HCI Journals<\/strong><\/p>\n Design Studies, ACM Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, Co-Design, The International Journal of\u00a0Design.<\/p>\n Good Design\/HCI Conferences<\/strong><\/p>\n The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Conference, Design Research Society (DRS) Conference, DESIGN, International Conference on Human Computer Interaction Theory and Applications (HUCAPP), ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social\u00a0Good.<\/p>\n Also check more domain-specific journals and conferences, depending on your research. For example, AI Ethics and AI & Society are good AI-focused journals, while there are other great journals for medicine\/medical research.<\/em><\/p>\n The next step is to write the paper itself. Generally, as I mentioned earlier, this will include an introduction, literature review or background section, methodology section, results, discussion and conclusion. It\u2019s important to check papers from your chosen journal or conference and follow the format they use as\u00a0well.<\/p>\n Get feedback from colleagues and supervisors whenever possible and don\u2019t be afraid to scratch some parts and start over! It takes time to write a good paper and you shouldn\u2019t rush the\u00a0process.<\/p>\n Follow the venue\u2019s guidelines to submit your work and wait for a decision. Remember that writing a paper and submitting it is in itself a milestone that you should celebrate! The review process is long and can take several months. It\u2019s important to keep that in mind when you\u2019re planning publications, especially if you want them published before finishing your PhD. The different decisions that reviewers could make on your paper will vary from venue to venue, but they generally will\u00a0be:<\/p>\n \u2705 Accept<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aAccepted as is with no further changes\u00a0needed.<\/p>\n \u23f3 Accept with Minor Revisions<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aConditional acceptance if you implement some feedback reviewers have left you. Usually this is minor stuff around the writing itself and you\u2019ll be given around a month to do\u00a0them.<\/p>\n \u26a0\ufe0f Accept with Major Revisions \/ Revise and Resubmit<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aThis means the reviewers think there is promise and value in your paper, but there are major changes that need to be made. This might mean having to redo a part of the study or collect more data, or it might mean a major re-write of the paper itself. On average you\u2019ll get around 3 months to do these. In my experience, this decision is a good thing. It means there\u2019s no fatal flaw where the paper must be rejected. With some hard work and a good response letter <\/strong>where you explain how you\u2019ve addressed reviewers\u2019 feedback, you\u2019ll be bumped up to accept or accept with minor revisions.<\/p>\n \ud83d\uded1 Reject<\/strong>\u200a\u2014\u200aThat means there\u2019s either a fatal flaw in the paper or it is completely irrelevant to the venue you\u2019ve selected. I\u2019ve had outright rejections before and they can be discouraging. A good place to start is the reviewers\u2019 detailed feedback to understand how you can improve the study or the paper. I\u2019ve had rejections that ended up being accepted in the end, so don\u2019t throw work out just because of a rejection!<\/p>\n Rejections are normal, iterations are normal, it\u2019s all part of the process! The majority of my papers came at the end of my second year and during my third year of the PhD. If you\u2019re just starting out, simply put publishing as a long term goal and focus first on structuring the degree in terms of studies and carrying those out well. Submitting papers on different studies is also a great way to get feedback and catch any issues early on, instead of getting a nasty surprise later on in your defense\/viva, or when it\u2019s too late to repeat a study. By taking it as a chance to learn and get feedback, you\u2019ll realise that you always benefit from submitting a paper, even if the outcome is a rejection for\u00a0now.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m a final-year PhD student at Imperial College London. My PhD project saw me develop a framework and toolkit for collaboratively designing conversational AI that is better aligned with human\u00a0values.<\/p>\n You can check out the official page for my project on the Imperial College London website<\/a>. You can also check out this other article I wrote explaining the details of my PhD\u00a0project<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve set up this Medium account to publish interesting lessons I\u2019ve learnt and snippets of my research as I work on my PhD project. My goal is to spread news and information about my work in a way that makes it understandable to anyone and everyone.<\/p>\n A Design Researcher\u2019s Guide to Publishing<\/a> was originally published in Towards Data Science<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nWhat even is publishing?<\/h3>\n
What can I\u00a0publish?<\/h3>\n
How Can I\u00a0Publish?<\/h3>\n
1. Do the Research Study\u00a0Well!<\/h4>\n
2. Identify the\u00a0Venue<\/h4>\n
3. Write the\u00a0Paper<\/h4>\n
4. Submit and\u00a0Wait<\/h4>\n
5. Don\u2019t\u00a0Panic!<\/h4>\n
Where I Fit\u00a0In<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n
\n