The development of digital television, the ubiquity of mobile phones and most recently the spread of digital tablets have together led to users engaging with combinations of devices that were only vaguely perceived a few years ago.

Sometimes we will be doing quite different things on each device: we browse, text, Tweet and Skype while consuming TV or use the TV for background as we play a game on a laptop. 

Sometimes our activities are more tightly connected: we tweet about a TV programme, or look up a TV news programme to follow up a friend’s text. 

Most recently, a new genre of system has been developed to provide a user experience even more closely “tethered” to the broadcast TV programme, with companion applications supporting shows via play-along quizzes, games and educational activities, often in synchronous mode.  

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These new developments in juggling with multiple devices prompt on the one hand fascinating questions for observers of user behaviour and on the other challenges for designers of these experiences. 

In this workshop we aim to bring together researchers interested in cognitive, social and cultural aspects of multi-device user experience and designers and developers of second screen experiences, in a mutually informative conversation.  

The range of topics of interest to the workshop includes, but is not restricted to:

• Cognitive issues in interacting with multiple screens: usability, perception, attention, accessibility

• Sociability and second screens, including social networking activity

• Observational user studies in homes and on the move

• Casual use of handheld devices in the TV context: the lessons for second screen design

• The design space for potential companion and second screen experiences

• Second screens in different applications areas: games, entertainment, news, documentary, edutainment

• Standards, guidelines and patterns for second screens

• Production routes and authoring methods for multi-screen applications

• Examples of second screen deployment

• Design guidelines for companion applications 

The purpose of workshop is twofold. On the one hand we aim to provide a knowledge exchange opportunity for participants, in the form of short presentations of papers, which we will seek to publish in a relevant journal.  

We also aim to create a relatively informal setting where participants have the opportunity to work actively together in an atmosphere that fosters the creative thinking. In order to encourage this, the output of the workshop will be a set of scenarios to capture the discussion and point to potential future systems. The scenarios will ideally be presented via a poster in the conference poster session.