Online format of the international conference “Human-computer interaction international” (HCII): reality and prospects

The paper analyzes the last three international conferences Human Computer Interaction International (HCII) held in online format in 2020-2022 from the participant’s perspective. HCII is a yearly large scale international conference embracing 2 thematic areas and 19 affiliated conferences in 2022. The Plenary speakers’ talks are considered as elaboration of the key ideas formulated by the leading experts in the field in their policy statement paper on 7 mega-challenges in the sphere of human-computer interaction published in 2019. Special attention is paid to the papers submitted by Russian participants, research papers awarded with the Best paper Certificate at the affiliated conference Learning and Collaboration Technologies, and papers delivered at Technology-Enhanced Language Learning session. The functionality of the award winning conference platform Whova are described. Besides being able to host several dozens of HCII-2022 conference events running simultaneously and store video recordings of all 306 sessions taking place during the conference for a month after the conference end, the Whova platform provides multiple opportunities for socialization and collaboration for conference attendees in their free time awarding them with points for many activities. As a result, most active conference participants have become winners in the category Leadership in the informal part of the conference. HCII-2023 is supposed to be held in-person in Copenhagen (Denmark).