Proceedings of the Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces AVI 08

The 9th edition of the Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, (Naples on May 29--31 2008), follows in the tradition of previous editions, in hosting an impressive collection of contributions on the most diverse topics related to interaction, from design of interactive environments to new multi-touch interaction, from information visualization to presentation layout, from exploration of virtual spaces, to provision of services based on localisation in the real world, to name just a few. The main categories proposed for this edition of AVI were Interaction models and techniques, Interactive visualization, Interactive systems, and User interaction studies, and we were most pleased with a very good response from the interaction community on all of these subjects. We received 117 full papers, 36 poster papers and 18 demo papers. Each paper, independently of the category, was reviewed by 3 members of the Programme Committee, and in cases of controversy, discussions among the reviewers and with the Program Chairs ensued. In particular, the Demo Chair Phil Cox was instrumental in promoting and setting up the demo programme. The Programme Committee members were particularly attentive on evaluating both experimental and conceptual support for the statements in the papers and in many cases proposed effective ways to revise the papers In the end, 32 submissions were accepted as oral presentations, 42 as poster presentations, and 12 as demo presentations. All these contributions are included in these Proceedings. We think that this collection of works is a good representative of both the state of the art and of the vitality of the community interested in interaction at large, and we are proud to see many returning authors, who see AVI as the natural venue for disseminating their new ideas, as well as many new researchers, who test their achievements in a harsh competition. We hope to see more and more of these categories of authors in future AVIs. The scientific programme of AVI 2008 is completed by 3 excellent invited speeches, two tutorials and two workshops. This is the right place to acknowledge the contribution of all those who helped make AVI a successful event once again.