Considering I never write to this blog, it will be nice to update it with the full CHI low-down. For those who do not know, the Association for Computing and Machinery (ACM) has a Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction (SIGCHI). This insanely long-winded name is why the whole endeavor is referred to as ‘CHI’ (both the group and the conference itself). The annual conference was in Florence, Italy this year, and I was a student volunteer (SV).
This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll cut it off here. All of my pictures can now be found on Picasa.
Click to read on.
This was my first CHI and I jumped at the opportunity to be an SV. The deal was: work 20 hours and get free entrance to the conference and free lunch. Deal. The lunch was mighty tasty and the work wasn’t hard. 20 hours in a week at a conference is a lot longer than it sounds. I spent most of my time doing the ‘videographer’ job, which entailed putting a camcorder on the person, and pressing start/stop on the computer. One of the sessions I taped was a Design Theatre session, so I got to move the camera around.
I got to see some interesting sessions. Now that I have time to review my notes and such, I’ll give a full run-down. But first: Florence. Ah, Florence. What a wonderful city. My father proclaimed its wonders, as he spent some time there for work. Boy howdy was he right. It’s small enough that you can’t get lost and everything is easily walkable. The only vehicle I got into in Florence was a train (to/from Rome). The food was amazing. I typically hate tomatoes. But I happily ate any tomato offered to me. Lotsa Bruschetta, veal, pasta, sauces, red wine, gelato (cantaloupe was my fave), tiramisu, and coca-cola with real sugar. I shared an apartment with three PhD students who were participating in CHI (SV & presenting). It worked out great - the apartment was very nice (I forgot to get a picture, darn), as were the guys. It was right near the Central Market, so there was plenty of everything available within walking distance.
I took an opportunity to tour the city with a few professors, which was great. It’s nice to see school people outside the context of school. The architecture in Florence is beautiful. The green and white marble, the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, the David, and the random beauty, all great.
Ok, now for CHI. The site was amazing: an old fort. The conference had three levels: top floor had rooms for classes (I took 3). The bottom floor had rooms for speakers and panels. All were equipped with two projectors, mics, and a podium. Overall, very impressive. The middle floor was the main conference floor. It had: a cafe (coke = 2.30 euro, yikes) and some services in the middle, an ‘internet cafe’ where people could congregate (getting wireless during coffee breaks was not an option (2300 people)), a posters area, interactive exhibits, and the regular exhibitors. There was also the big plenary room in a building right next to the main building. It is a long, huge room with a nice brick wall (that they lit up), and was used for the opening and closing plenaries (gatherings and speeches) and for other panels during the week.
Some of the interactive exhibits were cool. A surface table, a shadow boxing game with a sensored mattress as the interface, tangrams, and some others too strange too explain. Very out there, but very interesting. Exhibitors were nothing special: book sellers, companies (MS, Google, SAP, Oracle, Autodesk), and lotsa eye-tracking companies. I went over to the people at eye-squared and thanked them for putting their research online (using during school). They were surprised and happy to hear it was found and used.
I attended three classes: (1) Psychological Basis of UI Design Rules (2) Quantitative Research Methods for HCI and (3) Usability Testing: Creating Good Test Tasks. The first one was a complete waste of money; I could have taught it. Ah well. The second was quite good, and served as a nice complement to the quantitative methods class I am taking at school. The last course was my favorite. It was with Rolf Molich, who was a great lecturer. He talked about the CUE studies, hidden clues in tasks, and open-ended tasks. He raised some novel points worth mentioning:
- Make it as realistic as possible. Are they buying CDs online? Actually buy the CDs and reimburse them. This also enables open-ended tasks. Let them find a flight/hotel/CD they’ll actually use, not something specific (”find this CD”).
- Slip in a task that can’t be done. This adds to the realism.
Okay. Now for the sessions that I attended, either by choice or by having to be there for monitoring/videoing. Sessions are typically three different people presenting three different papers with a similar theme. The first session was Human-Robot Interaction. The interesting paper in this one was from a fellow SV who was using Wiimotes to control an Aibo. Another paper in this session was on the See Puck, which was also interesting. Another good session was the Game Zone. The first paper (entitled, “Game Over“) demonstrated an unwinable game, each level highlights different affordances needed in a computer game. The next paper in this session concerned heuristic evaluations of video games and the last paper was about social uses of the Nintendo DS game system. People are evidently doing cool things with the wireless features on that system.
Finally, I taped a Design Theatre session. This entailed professional actors and a director who were working with a university on gathering requirements through theatre. They put on a show about an elderly couple interacting with a particular device in their home. It was wonderful. They were a British bunch, took questions in character, and were delightful. I attended at least two other sessions, but they really aren’t worth mentioning.
Wow, this is quite the long post. But I’m going to trudge on, as I’m almost done, I think.
So CHI was great. I was surrounded by smart people in my field. I had great and interesting conversation with everyone I talked to. Everyone was very friendly. The food was great. Being an SV was great. Bill Buxton, the closing speaker, wasn’t so great, but I got in a nap. I got confirmation that Bentley was the best choice on at least two occasions. It’s amazing to think that I’m going to this small school that has such a large impact on the HF world.
After CHI, I went to Rome for the weekend. I split a hotel room with a friend of a friend, which worked out great. We both didn’t care about any schedules, just that we got to see Roman stuff, and eat Italian food. We accomplished both of these tasks. Saw: Trevi fountain, the Vatican, Coliseum, Palatino, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and others. It was impossible to take a bad picture. We went to a jazz club and one of the CDs for sale was the trombone player’s band doing the music of Frank Zappa. That was a good sign. The metro in Rome is useful, we didn’t take any taxis.
Well, that should just about do it. Did anyone actually hang on this long? I probably wouldn’t have. Well, it’s all now documented on the tubes of the interweb.
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