Original ACM PDF: 3720533.3756895.pdf

Abstract

HUMAN 2025 is the 8th workshop of a series for the ACM Hypertext conferences. The HUMAN workshop has a strong focus on the user and brings together user‑centered hypertext with artificial intelligence to build intelligent hypertext systems. The user-centric view on hypertext not only includes user interfaces and interaction, but also discussions about hypertext application domains as well as human-centered AI. Furthermore, the workshop raises the question of how original hypertext ideas (e.g., Doug Engelbart’s “augmenting human intellect” [7] or Jeff Conklin’s “hypertext as a computer-based medium for thinking and communication” [6]) can improve today’s hypertext systems.

1 Description of the workshop

1.1 Background and topics

Historically, hypertext is strongly connected to human factors. This can be experienced by the early work provided by hypertext pioneers, such as Doug Engelbart or Ted Nelson. Today, emerging directions in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) are expanding the scope of hypertext research. The HUMAN workshop aims to bring these developments together by ensuring that contemporary approaches continue to reflect and integrate the foundational focus on human-centered design. Therefore, this workshop combines original hypertext ideas with recent hypertext research trends. Furthermore, it tries to consolidate different hypertext areas by looking at those from a human factors viewpoint.

HUMAN also encourages to submit work that has an interdisciplinary perspective. It targets both scientists and developers from various research and business areas who consider a critical and open-minded discussion of original hypertext ideas and aim at identifying and solving today’s hypertext challenges.

Relevant topics include (but are not limited to):

Systems for augmenting human intellect

User-centric hypertext systems

User interfaces and interactions

Cognitive aspects and hypertext

Collaborative hypertext and social media

Information structuring

Hypertext used for human communication

Hypertext and decision-making

Spatial hypertext

Annotation services

Organizing information

Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence

Human-Centered Information Systems

eXplainable AI in hypertext

VR or AR environments for hypertext

Information structuring in digital humanities

User perspectives in adaptive hypertext

Social aspects of humans using hypertext

Intercultural aspects in hypertext

HUMAN has many connections to the 2025 Hypertext Conference. It fosters discussions about different hypertext domains and, more importantly, it explicitly combines original hypertext research ideas with recent hypertext research trends. Human factors are present in all tracks of Hypertext 2025. Thus, this workshop fosters cross-cutting discussions and the development of new ideas.

1.2 Previous editions of the workshop series

The previous HUMAN workshops took place at the following locations or virtually, always in conjunction with or affiliated with the ACM Hypertext and Social Media conference. In addition, their proceedings are available in the ACM Digital Library:

HUMAN’18: at the 2018 ACM Hypertext in Baltimore, MD, USA; https://human.iisys.de/human18/ [1]

HUMAN’19: at the 2019 ACM Hypertext in Hof, Germany; https://human.iisys.de/human19/ [2]

HUMAN’20: virtual; affiliated with the virtual 2020 ACM Hypertext in Orlando, FL, USA; https://human.iisys.de/human20/ [3]

HUMAN’21: at the virtual 2021 ACM Hypertext in Dublin, Ireland; https://human.iisys.de/human21/ [8]

HUMAN’22: at the 2022 ACM Hypertext in Barcelona, Spain; https://human.iisys.de/human22/ [4]

HUMAN’23: at the 2023 ACM Hypertext in Rome, Italy; https://human.iisys.de/human23/ [9]

HUMAN’24: at the 2024 ACM Hypertext in Poznań, Poland; https://human.iisys.de/human24/ [5]

The proceedings of HUMAN 2025 will be published in the ACM Digital Library as well.

1.3 Peer Review and Program Committee

As in the past years, submissions to the HUMAN workshop undergo peer review. This year the following researchers serve on the program committee:

Jamie Blustein, Dalhousie University, Canada

Siegfried Reich, Salzburg Research, Austria

Manolis Tzagarakis, University of Patras, Greece

Martin Vesely, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

Yeliz Yeşilada, Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus (METU NCC)

1.4 Invited Talks

To stimulate reflection and foster discussion, HUMAN workshops feature invited talks.

This year’s keynote speaker is Cathy Marshall, a prominent researcher in hypertext and digital information and an author of electronic literature. Dr. Marshall is a senior research scientist at Texas A&M University and a former principal researcher at Microsoft Research and Xerox PARC. Cathy Marshall is well-known for her work on how people interact with digital information, particularly in informal and personal contexts. Her research has combined insights from human-computer interaction (HCI), hypertext theory, and information behavior. She contributed significantly to early hypertext systems, such as Aquanet and VIKI. Her ethnographic studies of real-world use have been influential in both academia and industry.

2 Workshop organizers

Both workshop organizers have a strong hypertext background and are long-term contributing members of the hypertext research community. Furthermore, they are actively involved in SIGWEB and jointly served as general co-chairs for the 30th ACM Hypertext Conference in Hof, Germany.

Dr. Jessica Rubart is professor for business information systems at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Germany. She has a strong industry background as software architect, project manager, system analyst, and software developer. Her main research areas are human-centered intelligent information systems, hypertext, groupware and knowledge management as well as software engineering. She is an active member of the Hypertext community for years. She has been program co-chair of Hypertext and Hypermedia 2006 as well as Hypertext and Social Media 2016. Together with Dr. Claus Atzenbeck she was general co-chair of the 30th anniversary ACM Hypertext Conference in Hof, Germany. – http://jessicarubart.de Dr. Claus Atzenbeck is a professor at Hof University, Germany, and heads the Visual Analytics research group at the university’s Institute for Information Systems. His research interests in hypermedia include spatial and navigational structures, spatial and temporal parsing for spatial hypertexts, and component-based hypertext systems. A special focus of his work is on intelligent user interfaces. Together with Dr. Jessica Rubart he was general co-chair of the 30th anniversary ACM Hypertext Conference in Hof, Germany. – https://iisys.de/ca

References

[1] Claus Atzenbeck and Jessica Rubart (Eds.). 2018. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Human Factors in Hypertext (HUMAN’18). ACM, New York, NY, USA. 10.1145/3215611

[2] Claus Atzenbeck and Jessica Rubart (Eds.). 2019. Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Human Factors in Hypertext (HUMAN’19). ACM, New York, NY, USA. 10.1145/3345509

[3] Claus Atzenbeck and Jessica Rubart (Eds.). 2020. Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Human Factors in Hypertext (HUMAN’20). ACM, New York, NY, USA. 10.1145/3406853

[4] Claus Atzenbeck and Jessica Rubart (Eds.). 2022. Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Human Factors in Hypertext (HUMAN’22). ACM, New York, NY, USA. 10.1145/3538882

[5] Claus Atzenbeck and Jessica Rubart (Eds.). 2024. Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Human Factors in Hypertext (HUMAN’24). ACM, New York, NY, USA. 10.1145/3679058

[6] Jeff Conklin. 1987. Hypertext: an introduction and survey. Computer 20, 9 (1987), 17–41. 10.1109/MC.1987.1663693

[7] Douglas C. Engelbart. 1962. Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. Summary Report AFOSR-3233. Standford Research Institute. http://dougengelbart.org/content/view/138

[8] Jessica Rubart and Claus Atzenbeck (Eds.). 2021. Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Human Factors in Hypertext (HUMAN’21). ACM, New York, NY, USA. 10.1145/3468143

[9] Jessica Rubart and Claus Atzenbeck (Eds.). 2023. Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Human Factors in Hypertext (HUMAN’23). ACM, New York, NY, USA. 10.1145/3603607