Papers Introduction
As an interdisciplinary conference, CHI accepts the following types of contributions:

• Case Studies of the development and use of interactive systems that provide new insights for HCI research.
• Interaction Technologies - a new technique, device, or other component of the user interface.
• Interactive Systems - descriptions of the architecture, interface, and evaluation of a new interactive system.
• Methodologies and Tools - new methods, processes, techniques, and tools for use in interactive system design, development, and deployment.
• Metrics by which the performance of interactive technologies can be measured and compared more meaningfully.
• Reflective Analyses - thought-provoking well substantiated analyses of HCI issues.
• Results from Fieldwork and Ethnography - findings, guidelines, and so on, from studies of real world settings, or of technology use in such settings, with clear relevance to the design and deployment of interactive systems.
• Results from Laboratory Studies - findings, techniques, methods, and so on, from controlled studies of systems, techniques, and other phenomena relevant to HCI.
• Theories and Models - descriptions and evaluation of HCI theories, models, and other formal approaches.

In all cases, a Research Paper must break new ground and provide complete and substantial support for its results and conclusions. Successful submissions typically represent a major advance for the field of HCI. Research Papers undergo a rigorous review process. We recommend that potential submitters consider carefully whether their work in its current state is more appropriate for the CHI Notes (4 page submission) or the Work-in-Progress venues.

Preparing Your Submission
Before you start writing please download and read the Conference Proceedings Publication Format that contains information about how your paper should be structured and the appropriate use of language.

Example Papers
Authors planning to submit a Research Paper to CHI 2006 may wish find it useful to read some of the papers that were nominated for the Best Paper award at CHI 2005. These papers represent a good sample of best practice in papers drawn across the CHI community. The full list of Best Papers nominees is here.

Blind Reviewing and Paper Anonymity
The CHI 2006 review process will continue with blind reviewing. However, the intent is, as in previous years, to support a relaxed model, rather than attempt to conceal all traces of identity from the body of the paper. Papers should be anonymized so that the identity of the authors is not immediately obvious, but not so much that aspects of an author's personal or institutional identity that are integral to the work are suppressed. Thus, authors are expected to remove author and institutional identities from the title and header areas of the paper, as noted in the submission instructions. Further suppression of identity in the body of the paper is left to the authors' discretion. We do expect that authors leave citations to their previous work unanonymized, so that those responsible for reviewing the paper can ensure that all previous research has been taken into account by the authors.

Contribution and Benefits Statement
CHI authors are expected to develop a 30-word contribution and benefits statement for their paper. This statement will be entered when the paper is submitted, and will be seen and assessed by reviewers along with the paper. A contribution/benefit statement describes the contribution made by the paper to HCI and the benefit that readers can gain from it. Examples can be found in A Guide to Successful Submissions: Papers and CHI Notes: (Note: Examples of Contribution and Benefit Statements).

Submissions
A complete paper submission, which includes descriptive information (meta-data) you provide during the PCS upload process, as well as the abstract, your paper, and contribution and benefits statement, is due 23 September 2005, 5:00PM (1700) PDT.

Your submission must be original work. It cannot have been published elsewhere, nor can it be under concurrent review for publication by another conference or journal.

• Your submission must conform to the Conference Proceedings Publication Format and in its final PDF form must be no longer than ten (10) pages, including references, appendices, and figures.
• All references must be complete, accurate, accessible to the HCI public, and conform to the Conference Proceedings Publication Format. Do not cite publications that are proprietary or confidential at the time of publication.
• Your submission must be in the PDF file format, and be no larger than 4 megabytes in size.
• Your submission must be in English.
• Submissions should contain no information or materials that will be proprietary or confidential at the time of publication.
• Submissions arriving after the deadline or with improper formatting or anonymization will not be considered.

Please download the Conference Proceedings Publication Format for details on how to prepare your submission including anonymizing your paper, language usage guidelines, and how to produce and test your PDF document. The paper and abstract, as submitted for review, will be regarded as the final publication-ready version of your submission.

Failure to meet any of these requirements is grounds for the rejection of your submission without further review.

How to Submit Your Paper
Your complete paper must be submitted as a PDF no later than 23 September 2005, 5:00 PM (1700) PDT at the CHI 2006 Submission web site.

Requests for Mentoring
CHI 2006 will try to provide mentors for individuals who have not been published at CHI before and would like assistance in preparing their submissions. Please see Mentoring for more information. The deadline to request a mentor is 23 June 2005.

Please DO NOT request mentoring if your only question is the most appropriate venue to which to submit. Questions about the Papers venue should be directed at the chairs chi2006-papers@acm.org. Less specific questions should be directed at the technical program chair chi2006-tp@acm.org.

Review Criteria
The form and content of submitted papers must be acceptable as received. All papers are assessed according to the following criteria:

• Clarity. The paper must be clearly and concisely written in international English, with appropriate use of tables and figures.
• Contribution and Benefit. The ultimate criterion of acceptance of a paper lies in its contribution and benefit. A paper must make a clear contribution to an identified area of HCI and offer significant benefit or benefits to its target readers. It should be evident how general the contribution is, and how the audience to which the paper is addressed will benefit. Papers making one clear, significant contribution are more likely to be accepted than papers making several lesser contributions.
• Originality. The paper must cite previously published work. It should show both how it builds on previous contributions, and how, where, and why it goes beyond what is currently known.
• Validity. To benefit from its contribution, a paper's readers must be able to make use of its results with confidence. Thus, the paper must provide evidence of the validity of its results. Methods for establishing validity vary depending on the nature of the contribution. They may involve empirical work in the laboratory or the field, the description of rationales for design decisions and approaches, applications of analytical techniques, or "proof of concept" system implementations.
  

Review Process
Paper submissions are reviewed by HCI researchers and practitioners who have been selected for their expertise. An associate chair manages each paper's review.

• First, papers are reviewed by a minimum of three expert reviewers.
• Second, the authors view the reviews and have the opportunity during a one week period (14-18 November 2005) to write a response to correct factual review errors.
• Third, the associate chair completes a meta-review that typically recommends acceptance or rejection based on the reviews received and any author comments.
• Fourth, recommendations are reviewed at a two-day program committee meeting. In cases where a paper has received widely divergent reviews, it is read and discussed by associate chairs with appropriate expertise before the final decision is made.
• Fifth, an AC will work with authors to finalise camera ready versions of accepted papers.

Video Figures
Your paper may be accompanied by a short digital video figure up to five minutes in length, or an interactive illustration, no more than 30 MB final data size (please see the Guide to Successful Submissions: Video). Your paper must stand on its own without the video figure, as the video figure may not be available to everyone who reads the paper (video figures will be archived on the Conference CD and the Digital Library).

CHI 2006 does not accept digital video clips requiring a specific computing platform or additional software to play. If you compress your video with unusual software or codecs you risk the distinct possibility that reviewers will not be able to watch your clip, or it will need to be reencoded for the conference disc. We highly recommend QuickTime (.mov) and QuickTime-compatible file formats for your digital video submission. Any video file that can be played with the latest version of QuickTime Player (available from the QuickTime web page) is acceptable.

CHI 2006 requires that a video figure accompanying a paper be submitted as an additional file attached to your submission through the PCS system by the Research Papers submission deadline, 23 September 2005, 5:00 PM (1700) PDT.

Upon Acceptance
Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection on 16 December 2005 or shortly after.

The primary author of an accepted paper will receive instructions on how to submit publication-ready copy.

Please note that submissions will not be published without a signed copyright release form. Responsibility for permissions to use video, audio, or pictures of identifiable people rests with the author, not CHI 2006.

Confidentiality of Submissions
Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference. Submissions should contain no information or materials that are proprietary at publication time.

At the Conference
Authors will present their work in a scheduled session with other papers and CHI notes. Presenters of papers will be allowed 25 minutes (plus questions) to present their work. Presenters are encouraged to bring their own laptops for their presentation. See Standard Technical Support for information about the computing and A/V equipment that will be provided by the conference

After the Conference
Your paper will become and remain accessible to thousands of computing researchers and practitioners world-wide as part of the ACM Digital Library.

Paper Submission Checklist
Well in advance of the deadline (23 September 2005, 5:00 PM (1700) PDT):

• If you wish to request a mentor, please contact the mentoring program no later than 23 June 2005.
• Read all the above material and the Conference Proceedings Publication Format.
• If your paper submission contains a video figure, read the Guide to Successful Submissions: Video.
• Generate a test PDF file of your submission and check it prints out correctly in no more than 10 pages. Papers do not need to use 10 pages; they should be the minimum length needed to communicate the work.
• Prepare and submit your paper and your Contribution and Benefits statement
  • Prepare an anonymized version of your paper in the Conference Proceedings Publication Format; note that author names and affiliations must be removed from the title page and the body of the paper must contain an abstract as per the CHI Paper format guidelines.
  • Double check that the paper has been anonymized, and conforms to the other submission requirements, as described above. Papers that fail to meet the submission requirements by the submission deadline WILL NOT BE REVIEWED. Please direct any questions or problems to chi2006-papers@acm.org.
  • Create a PDF file of your paper that is no more than 4 megabytes in size (see instructions above).
  • Test that your PDF file is correct and prints out in no more than 10 pages.
  • Prepare a 30 word Contribution and Benefits statement. This should be included as the last page of your PDF file.
  • Prepare a 150 word abstract clearly stating the paper's contribution to HCI. This will be entered into the PCS system when you upload the PDF of your paper, and is also part of your paper.
  • Go to the CHI 2006 Submission web site and follow the instructions to submit the PDF file by 23 September 2005, 5:00 PM (1700) PDT (in the interest of fairness to all authors NO EXTENSIONS will be granted). You may also make final changes to your title at this time.
• Prepare and submit a video figure (optional)
  • If your submission includes a digital video or interactive illustration, prepare up to 5 minutes of video suitable for publication, and see the Guide to Successful Submissions: Video.
  • Note that the video figure or interactive illustration has a 30 MB data size limit and must require no special software to be viewed.
  • Your video figure is submitted to the PCS system as an additional file for your paper, with the same deadline.