The Design Research Society’s next biennial conference will be 16-19 July 2008, Sheffield, England. DRS is open to the whole range of designing disciplines and any scholar interested in the matter of designing.

One aspect of the conference will be new and hybrid disciplines. Many people have placed themselves outside the traditional concept of designers producing useful or engaging “things”, focusing instead on what people experience and the systems and actions that create those experiences. Designing seems to be moving into a new era, the disciplines that have framed our work are reshaping themselves, new kinds of designing are emerging and we are not yet able to define these new and hybrid professions, some created by people not previously thought of as designers.

The conference is an opportunity for researchers to discuss new inquiries and interesting contributions that inform designing and any knowledge about the wider world that flows from the work of designers.

See the DRS 2008 conference site for more information.

“Culture, Creativity, Interaction” is the conference theme for BCS-HCI’s 2008 annual conference, HCI 2008. Liverpool is the European Capital of Culture and throughout the year there will be cultural events ranging from community arts to headline events such as the Turner Prize. In the week before the conference there will be the Annual Beatles Week and immediately afterwards Liverpool will host the British Academy Festival of Science.

The cultural theme reflects not just events in Liverpool but also recent developments in HCI where the arts and humanities offer new insights and new challenges. Culture will be a unifying theme for the various strands that form the user experience family of disciplines.