Designing for the Arab World

Since the Arab Spring, there has been a global growing interest in the use of technology in the Arab world. In particular, social media and its impact on democratic practices. The region came to the forefront once more with the refugee crisis with many of those studies address Arabs as users of technologies designed and developed in Western countries. Our experience working/researching HCI motivates us to assert that current research on Arab HCI mostly deals with this population in a superficial way and is yet to reflect the depth and richness of the Arab culture as well as the diversity of the socio-political and economic aspects of the region. This one-day workshop aims to bring together HCI researchers/practitioners from the Arab World with those who are conducting/interested in research in this context. The goal is to start a dialog that leverages our "insider" understanding of HCI research in the Arab context to explore challenges and unique opportunities for future research.