CHI 2009 Highlights

CHI 2009
Highlights

August 2009

Table of Contents
Introduction

Research
1. Jan Chipchase Talk
2. Engagement by Design Workshop

Design
3. Student Design Competition
4. One Armed Bandits Talk

Theory
5. Beauty Dilemma Panel
6. Theory of Aesthetics

Summary

CHI Highlights from CHI 2009 © 2009 frog design. confidential & proprietary August 12, 2009 2

Introduction
What is CHI?

The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) series of
academic conferences is generally considered the most prestigious in the field of hu-
man-computer interaction. It is hosted by ACM SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on
Computer-Human Interaction. CHI has been held annually since 1982 and attracts
thousands of international attendees.

The conference consists of multiple tracks, including:

• Case studies
• Posters, notes, and academic papers on a variety of topics (ubiquitous computing, visualization,
usability and user experience design, etc.)
• Workshops hosted by domain experts
• Invited panels on relevant topics

The number of accepted full papers is slowly increasing and reached 157 accepted papers with an acceptance
rate of 22 percent in 2008


Introduction
Goals

- Share what CHI is like
- Discuss how the role of design at CHI is evolving and how frog is influencing it
- Learn insights from the work presented


1. JAN CHIPCHASE TALK

5

Robert Fabricant
Design Chair


Jan Chipchase
Nokia


Jan Chipchase Summary

Findings
- Waking up with the city (research team up at 4AM)
- Reading signs and obituaries reveal cultural values
- Researching in the context of poverty provides extreme use cases
- Having local interpreters for the culture facilitates understanding

Process
- CHI is evolving their “Design Track”
- CHI is adding more invited, inspirational speakers


2. ENGAGEMENT BY DESIGN WORKSHOP

16

Engagement by Design
Workshop


Engagement by Design Summary

Findings
- Tracking in itself is a useful part of lifestyle change (diabetes)
- Rewards need to be aligned with growth of the system (gaming, social networks)
- Playability is more important than usability in gaming
- Trans-Theoretical Model for Treatment common reference point (cancer)
- Archetype model received well (self-selecting states, modes of downshifting)
- Relationship model for system usage over time (all)

Process
- 12 authors with point of view on Engagement by Design
- 10 minute presentations each
- Breakout sessions
- Present back to the group
- Discussing publishing an issue of Interactions Magazine


3. STUDENT DESIGN COMPETITION

34

Jon Kolko
Student Design Competition

Student Design Competition Summary

Process
- frog is involving design more in the CHI community
- The student competition is a way to integrate practice with academics (frog, Smart
Design on the panel)
- This is a transparent example of the process
- Started with 125 papers, selected 10 for a poster session, then selected 4 for the
presentation with the top three selected for first, second, third place.


4. ONE ARMED BANDIT TALK

43

One-Armed Bandit Summary

Finding
- Archetypes well received as an alternative to Personas.

Process
- Example of how a design project at frog can be published
- Lots questioning - what is “successful” design?
- Awards as recognition (e.g., IDSA Gold Award) doesn’t translate well to CHI
- As consultants, we face the challenge of “knowing” how our designs progress
unless we do a follow-up project, win an award,
- To publish “archetypes” as a framework, we would probably need to have 3-5
projects as supporting evidence.


5. BEAUTY DILEMMA PANEL

50

The “Beauty Dilemma”
Panel


Bill Buxton
Microsoft Research


Jodi Folizzi
Carnegie Mellon


Beauty Panel Summary

Findings
- In this context, “beauty” is confused between styling and design
- Beauty is culturally defined
- Beauty is difficult to quantify
- Empirical study can’t describe successful design
- A study based on hypothetical trade-offs doesn’t really answer the right questions

Process
- Main paper was distributed to 3 panelists
- Each panelist was asked to critique the paper in a 10 min presentation
- Provided a good discussion, and contextualized the findings


6. THEORY OF AESTHETICS

64

Theory of Aesthetics Summary

Findings
- Defining CHI’s approach to aesthetics has a long way to go (as compared to film
theory, etc)
- Cultivating expert judgement is perhaps the best approach
- Doing lots of critiques is the best way to develop these skills
- “Implications for Design” as part of the submission process should clearly delineate if
it is relevant to this design or the practice of Design

Process
- Discussion evolved out of the alt.CHI forum
- Material was iterated on over several conferences
- Has helped influence the requirement for future


Summary

Impressions
- Change is slow, but the Design Track and connection to CHI are evolving
- Framing our work in the context of conferences help validate and
contextualize our work
- Submitting Design work will be easier and clearer in upcoming years
- Conferences such as SXSW or IxDA are less academic alternatives

Next year

- 2010’s theme: encouraging people to take a walk.
- CHI will be in Atlanta, April 10th
- Requirements are changing - Have Expert, Invited, and Juried talks
- The Design Track is advancing


Summary

For more information:

CHI
- http://www.chi2009.org/

Engagement by Design
- http://ebd.wikispaces.com/

Jan Chipchase
- http://www.janchipchase.com/

Interactions Magazine
- http://interactions.acm.org/

Papers and presentation
Frogsf-fileSV-UsersCeline PeringCHI 2009 papers and frog internal meeting


Interactive Photo Viewers: Another
group from Japan showed off sandwich-
size, turtle-shaped “CaraClocks”--
devices that sync when they touch to
show related photos. For example, a
father, mother, and child could connect
their CaraClocks, turn a knob, and see
pictures of one another at the same
age.

The researchers behind the project,
from Keio University, say that this
can evoke what they call “collective
memory.” They also say that
CaraClocks can generate various
visual parallels between users by


CHI 2009 Highlights

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