Notes (short papers) are concise research papers that allow authors to share their ongoing work or latest results, which might not be suitable or ready for the full paper track. Submissions to the Notes track should be tightly aligned with HCI topics grounded in African contexts and provide original and succinct scholarly accounts of African HCI research, design, and/or theory. This may not necessarily include an entire project’s work but should present a more focused research contribution.
We aim for Notes to advance HCI topics within African contexts or perspectives, highlighting the African spirit and wisdom. Authors should consider how their topic is relevant to African people, places, events, processes, phenomena, languages, experiences, meanings, values, livelihoods, or aesthetics in Africa and in line with this year’s theme “Recentering African Wisdom in HCI”
To foster a rich and inclusive scholarly community, we encourage reviewing African scholarship and local knowledge and consider citational justice best practices. Short papers should be well-written and use the English language; however, we do not restrict this to UK or American English.
Relevant Topics:
Contributions to HCI theory, design, methods, and practices that showcase Africa’s unique advances, potential, and approaches to challenges are welcome. Relevant topics include but are not limited to:
Submission:
Notes should be between 6000 words max (excluding references), with a title and a 200-word abstract. They should be stand-alone and include all the necessary tables, figures, and other relevant information.
Submissions must be anonymized, with no reference to the authors' names or institutions in the manuscript or document properties. However, citing your work in the third person is an acceptable practice.
All submissions must use the official conference template and follow the conference’s author’s guidelines. While we value the diversity and richness of African languages, we will need to adhere to the ACM publication language, which is English. Nevertheless, the inclusion of local language terms with a preface is an acceptable practice. For example, the use of “sawa” in a Kenyan paper might include a parenthetical remark or footnote defining “sawa” as “okay”.
Review process
All submitted notes will undergo a double-blind peer review process and will go through a single-phase review process. After the review process, based on the review summary provided by the primary committee member, the authors will receive the final acceptance or rejection notification.
Review criteria
Notes will be assessed based on:
Content in a Note should be significant and original and not contain material that has been previously published unless it has been “significantly” revised or was previously in a language other than English. According to the ACM Policies on Pre-Publication Evaluation and Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submissions guidelines, a significant revision contains more than 25% new content (e.g., new insights or results) and markedly amplifies or clarifies the original material.
Additionally, work that was previously presented or published in a language other than English may be translated and published in English at AfriCHI; however, the original author should also be the author (or co-author) of the translated work. In such cases, the new submission should indicate that it is a translation. Notes are also assessed on their coverage of literature. We strongly encourage contributions that cite African works, within and beyond HCI/Interaction Design, along with citing the background or related literature typically associated with the topic.
Note for authors:
AfriCHI’25 provides a mentorship program for early career researchers, students, and practitioners unfamiliar with academic writing. Experts will offer support in preparing submissions. For assistance, email the mentorship chairs at mentorshipsupport@africhi2025.org.
Important Dates
Notes Chairs
Houda Elmimouni-University of Manitoba.
Yasmeen Abdrabou- Lancaster University
Abdullahi Abubakar Kawu - Technological University Dublin and IBB University in Nigeria.
contact: notes@africhi2025.org
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