Important dates, full papers

Friday, September 29th: Papers due
Friday, November 3rd: Reviews Due
Monday, November 6th: Review Notification, Rebuttal Period Begins
Friday, November 10th: Rebuttal Period Ends
Friday, December 1st: Decision Notification
Sunday, January 7th, 2024: Camera-ready versions due

HRI 2024 Submission Themes

The ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction is a premier, highly-selective venue presenting the latest advances in Human-Robot Interaction. The 19th Annual HRI conference theme is “HRI in the real world.” The conference seeks contributions from a broad set of perspectives, including technical, design, behavioral, theoretical, and methodological, that advance fundamental and applied research in human-robot interaction. Full papers will be archived in the ACM Digital Library.

Submissions are open, submissions can be made here: new.precisionconference.com/submissions

The HRI 2024 conference has five themes: Theory and Methods, Design, Technical, Systems, and User Studies. Each of these themes is aligned with a specific type of knowledge contribution. Authors are strongly encouraged to read through the track descriptions, as the assignment of topics to tracks, and the philosophy of how work will be evaluated within each track (especially the technical track) has changed substantially from prior years.

Theory and Methods
The primary contribution for the theory and methods track is to further the conceptual foundations of HRI. This work helps us to expand upon the ways we think about human-robot interaction (theory) and upon the ways we engage in doing human-robot interaction research (methods). A key benefit of theory and methods work is not only in articulating what we know but there is also generating new ways of seeing the field and posing new questions.
Unlike in previous years, this track will not include reproducibility. Reproducibility studies should be directed to the User Studies track. Theory papers focus on elucidating or connecting fundamental HRI principles beyond individual interfaces or projects, new theoretical concepts in HRI, literature reviews, etc. Such contributions may include meta-analyses of previous findings, narrative or philosophical arguments introducing theoretical or philosophical concepts, detailing underlying interaction paradigms, or providing new interpretations of previously known results.
Methods papers may include new ways of studying HRI, with focus on developing novel evaluation methodologies (e.g. new questionnaires), or in the analysis of existing research and methods derived from original or surveyed empirical research.
Successful papers in this track will clearly detail how they transform our current fundamental understanding of human-robot interaction and why the work is significant and has potential for impact. As appropriate, work must be defended by clear and sound arguments and a thorough reflective analysis of the contribution with respect to the existing state of the art.

We provide the following guidelines to authors about expectations for papers submitted to the theory and methods track:
1. To the extent that methods papers might pertain to new metrics or methods of evaluation, they might include studies; however, the focus of the paper would be on evaluating the novelty and contribution of the concepts and methods, rather than in generalizable knowledge, which is typical of “user studies” contributions.
2. Theory papers are not expected to have user studies.
3. Methods for generating design belong in the Design Track; methods for measuring or studying HRI belong in the Theory and Methods track.
4. If the contribution is an clarification or improvement of an existing theory or method, the paper likely belongs in the Short Contributions track.

Design
The Design track brings together design-centric research contributions to human-robot interaction. This includes novel design approaches, the design of new robot morphologies and appearances, behavior paradigms, interaction techniques or understanding new contexts for interaction which yield unique or improved interaction experiences with or abilities for robots. This year, the design track explicitly also includespapers focusing on design solutions, which describe an outcome in rigorous detail, as well as papers focusing on design-driven methodologies such as participatory design, sustainable design, design for manufacturability, which affect the manner in which designers approach HRI design. Research on the design process itself or proposing new design products, strategies, frameworks, or models as relevant to human-robot interaction belong in the Design Track. Submissions must fully describe their design outcomes or process to enable detailed review and replication of the design process. Further, successful papers will have evaluation appropriate to the work, for example end-user evaluation or a critical reflection on the design process or methodology.

Technical
The primary knowledge contribution of papers submitted to the technical track is expected to be a novel algorithm (formalized through pseudocode), mathematical model (formalized through a set of equations), hardware element, or human-robot interface, and should provide enough detail to allow reproducibility. Evaluations for technical papers should be suitable to the type of contribution and do not need to include user studies unless appropriate.

We provide the following guidelines to authors about expectations for papers submitted to the technical track:
    1. If a submitted paper contains a user study to empirically evaluate or demonstrate the primary knowledge contribution, authors should be clear in the paper why this paper is indeed a “technical” contribution rather than a “studies” contribution.
    2. If the novelty or main contribution of a paper lies in the integration of disparate hardware or software capabilities (e.g., a virtual/augmented/mixed-reality HRI system or a cognitive architecture), the paper likely belongs in the Systems track.
    3. If the novelty or main contribution of a paper lies in the development of a code-based implementation of an existing technical contribution, rather than the algorithm or model itself, the paper likely belongs in the Short Contributions track.
Technical work may be evaluated in a variety of ways, non-exhaustively including proofs of correctness, proof-of-concept demonstration, evaluation in simulation (for example with an Wizard-of-Oz approach), or user study. It is critical to ensure that the claims made by the paper are backed up by the evaluation. This means that while a well designed and appropriate user study with a deployed robot may be advantageous, it is not necessary. Further, a poorly designed and inappropriate user study presented in a technical paper may be worse than including no user study at all. However:
  • Authors of submitted papers whose evaluation does not support the paper’s claims (e.g., strong claims of an algorithm’s effect backed up only by a proof-of-concept demonstration or an underpowered user study) might be asked to revise their claims.
  • Authors whose paper does not contain a demonstration or study of a physical robot interacting with humans should provide a “pathway to deployment” describing what would need to be done to reach successful deployment onto a physical platform. Such papers would still need either an analytical or computational/empirical evaluation.

Systems
Because HRI is by its nature an integrative discipline, the Systems track focuses on contributions which consist of a synthesis of underlying techniques to achieve system-level HRI behavior. Generally speaking, a Systems paper is one whose contribution is best observed and measured through performance of an integrated system, usually including a robot, rather than through component-level testing. This could involve novel system design or integration of novel techniques or components to enable new system-level functionality. The contribution of a Systems track paper could include demonstration of the usefulness of a component or technique in the larger system, achievement of new system-level capabilities, or enhanced system performance. Authors should emphasize the novelty and significance of their contribution. In particular, authors should highlight what wider systems knowledge, best practices, lessons learned, etc. can be derived from their work. Papers’ evaluations should be appropriate to the systems contribution being presented, potentially including demonstrations based on scenarios or case-studies, user studies, or technical performance evaluations. Similar to the Technical track, a well-designed user study can help support a paper’s claims, but is not strictly necessary for acceptance. Please note that:

    1. If the primary contribution of a paper is an algorithm or a mathematical model, or is best measured via component-level testing rather than a systems-level evaluation, then the paper likely belongs to the Technical track;
    2. If the paper’s contribution is about better understanding human behavior or preferences, the paper may belong to the User Studies track;
    3. If the contribution is limited to a description of a system design or dataset, the paper likely belongs in the Short Contributions track.
User Studies
The primary knowledge contribution of papers submitted to the studies track is expected to be new knowledge about human-robot interactions, based on a study conducted with people. These studies may take a variety of forms, including needfinding studies and other ethnographic and qualitative studies; exploratory, theory-building, or replicative laboratory or field studies; industry case studies, and so forth. These studies may use autonomous robots, wizard of oz, or may not involve a physical robot at all in some cases. What is most important is the size of the knowledge contribution produced through this study for the human-robot interaction community. Because the primary knowledge contribution in this track is expected to be knowledge from a study with humans:
    1. If a submitted paper contains evaluation of an implemented system, it should be clear why the insights from the study with humans are the primary knowledge contribution rather than the system itself, and thus why the paper belongs in the Studies rather than Technical or Systems track.
    2. If the paper’s main contribution is the creation of a new survey measure or other scientific tool, the paper likely belongs in the Theory and Methods track.
    3. If the paper’s main contribution is a design process, or the description of a series of design steps used to design a robotic system, then the paper likely belongs in the Design track. For example, if an author performs a series of co-design workshops, the resulting paper would belong in the Studies track if the contribution of the paper focused on the scientific insights gleaned from the analysis of those workshops, but would belong in the Design track if the contribution of the paper focused on the quality of the design process itself.
    4. If the paper’s main contribution is the dataset rather than the experimental results themselves, the paper likely belongs in the Short Contributions track.

Short Contributions (Datasets and Code)
To foster Open Science best practices, the HRI conference is accepting Short Contributions (4 pages, excluding references), focused on Code and Dataset sharing. Similarly to the HRI Full papers, HRI Short Contributions will be fully and rigorously reviewed, and will be archived in the ACM Digital Library and      IEEE Xplore.
These submissions will be centered around a software/dataset of significance for the HRI community. The software/dataset has to be open-source or open-access at time of review, and will be assessed for documentation and accessibility as part of the review process. In specific cases (e.g. dataset with privacy-sensitive data), the code or dataset might not be directly downloadable. In this case, the authors must outline in their submission reasonable steps for other researchers to access the data (e.g. ask for specific ethical approval). Note that software or dataset which cannot be shared due to intellectual property issues, including using proprietary licensing, cannot be submitted.

Additional information

Studies with Human Participants

As a published ACM author, you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects (Note: ACM has instituted a new policy on research involving human participants and subjects as of August 15, 2021. Please check the above links if your studies involved human participants and subjects)

To support building a strong evidence base in HRI, and encourage future reproducibility of published work, all submissions involving studies with human participants should clearly outline their methodology regardless of the theme they are submitted to, including:

  • Ethical aspects considered and clearance obtained where appropriate (c.f., Geiskkovitch et al. 2016, Sections 5.2, 5.4)
  • Participant demographics and sampling approach, e.g. gender, ethnicity, etc. (c.f., de Graaf 2017, Section 2.3, recommendations in Schlesinger et al., 2017)
  • Data collection and analysis methods (c.f., Paepcke and Takayama 2010, Section V)
  • Study environment and context (c.f., Short et al. 2018, Section 3.5)
  • If a Wizard-of-Oz paradigm was used, a detailed description of the robot, wizard, user, etc. (c.f., Riek 2012, Table 2)
  • If a robot was used, a detailed description of the platform, its level of autonomy, capabilities, etc. (c.f., Beer et al. 2014, Figure 5)

Format and Submission

Full papers are up to eight camera-ready pages, including figures, but excluding references. Submissions longer than eight pages of content excluding references will be desk rejected and not reviewed. Accepted full papers will be published in the conference proceedings and presented in an oral session. The HRI conference is highly selective with a rigorous, two-stage review model that includes an expert program committee meeting where papers are extensively discussed. As such, all submissions are expected to be mature, polished, and detailed accounts of cutting-edge research described and presented in camera-ready style. In cases of equally qualified papers, positive consideration will be given to submissions that address this year’s theme, “HRI in the Real World.”

All papers for the conference must be submitted in PDF format and conform to ACM Proceedings specifications. Please note that we are following the general ACM SIG format (“sigconf”, double column format), not the SIGCHI format. Templates are available at this link (US letter). In addition, ACM has partnered with Overleaf, where you can start writing using this link directly (note that this Overleaf document uses the new ACM workflow by default, which is not what HRI is using; to fix this, make sure the document uses the “sigconf” document class, rather than the “manuscript,screen,review” document class that is enabled in the Overleaf document by default).

Submission Accessibility

The PDF format can have major accessibility problems, especially for screen reader users. In order to support those among us who need accessible PDFs, HRI is working to improve the accessibility of our PDF proceedings and review process. We are asking all authors to make an effort to make their submissions more accessible at every point in the submission process.

If you are submitting a paper on accessibility or assistive technology, please refer to the SIGACCESS guidelines on writing about disability.

As you prepare your document, please follow these steps from the SIGCHI Guide to an Accessible Submission, then refer to the guide for information on how to prepare the final accessible PDF:

  1. Mark up content such as headings and lists using the correct Word template style or LaTeX markup.
  2. In figures, legends, and the text that refers to the figures, ferent shapes and patterns to provide a means other than color to visually distinguish elements.
  3. Provide a text description for all figures (see the SIGACCESS Guide to Describing Figures).
  4. Create every table as a real table, not an image, and indicate which cells are headers.
  5. Create every equation as a marked-up equation, not an image.
  6. Set the metadata of your document.

If you are a LaTeX user, please be aware that you may run into challenges with generating an accessible PDF; we ask that you do your best but understand that it may not be possible to generate a fully accessible PDF from LaTeX. You can do a rudimentary check of your PDF’s accessibility using Adobe Reader’s Read Out Loud tool and Apple’s built-in reading tool, but be aware that these are not full-featured screen readers and will not check all key accessibility features.

Additionally, please ensure that all of the figures included in your paper are image files, not PDF or PS files. The accessibility processing software we use does not recognise these file types correctly.

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact the conference accessibility chairs at access2024@humanrobotinteraction.org.

Anonymization

The HRI 2024 review process is double-blind; every aspect of all submissions must be properly anonymized (see the anonymization guidelines). Any submission that contains any element (e.g., full paper document, artifact, or supplementary materials) that violates the anonymization guidelines will be desk rejected. If there are exceptional circumstances, please contact the program chairs as soon as possible.

Supplementary Materials

Authors have the opportunity to upload up to three supplemental files in conjunction with their full paper submission. These materials may be submitted via the “Supporting File 1,” “Supporting File 2,” and “Supporting File 3” sections within the full papers submission form in the precision conference submission system. While authors are encouraged to upload all supplementary materials directly, it may be infeasible to upload certain items directly (e.g., large data sets or code repositories). In this case, authors may upload a document with a link to where these anonymized supplemental materials are hosted.

Supplementary materials are not required for a submission. If authors do choose to submit supplementary materials, such materials may not be used to get around the page limit for full papers. It is important that any supplemental materials that are uploaded are also properly anonymized. Any submission that contains any element (full paper or supplementary materials) that violates the anonymization guidelines will be desk rejected.

In general, there are three main types of supplemental materials that may be submitted: videos, appendices, and artifacts (e.g., software, hardware, data sets, etc.):

Video Guidelines

Authors may submit a 1-minute video (up to 100 MB) as a supplement to their full paper. Videos are not mandatory but may be helpful to visibly showcase a working system, experimental conditions, environment context, results, etc. Only MPG, MPEG or MP4 video formats can be used. Ensure that videos are properly anonymized prior to submission.

Artifact Guidelines

Across all themes, we encourage submissions that introduce a novel “artifact” as an enabler to reproducibility, replicability, and recreation of HRI research, and/or to support new lines of HRI research. An artifact could be software, hardware, data sets, protocols, new evaluation measures, etc. Submissions should contain a detailed description of the artifact introduced, proposed, or implemented, as well as information about how it is novel and different from other existing artifacts, and, if possible, a link to an anonymized, live version of the artifact at time of submission for review.

Authors submitting artifacts must provide relevant details regarding any aspects related to artifact clearance and release (e.g., obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) clearance for releasing data collected by human participants, organizational clearances for the release of software/hardware, etc.). Ensure that artifacts are properly anonymized prior to submission. Any submission that includes any element (full paper, artifact, or supplementary materials) that does not follow the anonymization guidelines will be desk rejected.

Examples of papers with artifacts:

Appendix Guidelines

Authors may upload an appendix directly or provide a link to supporting appendix material hosted anonymously online. Appendices are only for supplementary materials that would interrupt the flow of the text if presented in the main document. Examples may be questionnaires used as measurements, tables of supplementary data, or figures of experimental apparatus. Additional experimental analysis, additional results, and lengthy text that further clarifies aspects of the full paper submission is not appropriate for an appendix (i.e., full paper submissions must stand on their own without requiring further explanation, analysis, or results provided through appendix information). Appendices may not be used to get around the 8-page limit for full paper submissions. Any submissions that attempt to use appendices or supplementary materials in general in a manner that violates the page limits will be desk rejected.