Table of Contents

VOLUME XXIV.2 March + April 2017

  • WELCOME
    • WELCOME Looking forward: DIversity, debate, and days of yore

      Simone Barbosa, Gilbert Cockton

      This is our first issue of Interactions as the incoming editors-in-chief, very ably assisted by Rachel Clarke. We have inherited a thriving and vibrant magazine with outstanding design and content, supported by a team of excellent editors and publication managers. On behalf of our global community, we thank Ron…

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  • Demo Hour
    • Demo hour

      Tine Bech, Deqing Sun, Peiqi Su, David-Alexandre Chanel, Romain Constant, Anthony Rowe, Liam Birtles, Chris Bennewith, Oliver Bown

      We are constantly surrounded by networks, information, and data. Whether they consist of electromagnetic frequencies or physical wired connections, networks are everywhere, consuming and permeating our offices, homes, schools, and public indoor and outdoor spaces. The SIGGRAPH 2016 Art Gallery, Data Materialities, exposes this plethora of data and transforms…

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  • What are you reading?
    • Manuel A. Pérez Quiñones

      Manuel Pérez-Quiñones

      Manuel A. Pérez Quiñones

      Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore By Robin Sloan (2013). This novel tells the story of a bookstore with some curious business practices. The main character, Clay, works at the bookstore and starts noticing odd patterns. As he digs into them, we get a glimpse of how a technology and the…

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  • Blog@IX
    • A design by any other name would be so delightful

      Monica Granfield

      A design by any other name would be so delightful

      Several ago I attended the UXPA conference. The theme was "We're not there yet." After 26 years as an interaction, UI, and UX designer, my first reaction was joy, at the validation that I wasn't alone in my perception of my role on a product. My next reaction was…

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  • How was it made?
    • Rig animation with a tangible and modular input device

      Oliver Glauser, Benedek Vartok, Wan-Chun Ma, Daniele Panozzo, Alec Jacobson, Cédric Pradalier, Otmar Hilliges, Olga Sorkine-Hornung

      Rig animation with a tangible and modular input device

      Describe what you made. We developed a novel modular and tangible input device for digital character animation. It consists of joints and splitter parts. A novice user can assemble these parts into a skeleton that allows for the positioning or posing of any digital character. Our approach combines hardware…

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  • Columns
    • In search of the elusive CHI design paper

      Bill Gaver, Kristina Höök

      In search of the elusive CHI design paper

      Fresh out of this year's CHI paper committee meeting, we thought it might be helpful to share a few reflections from the Design subcommittee on our findings. We had time for a group discussion in the hotel meeting room we had shared over a long two days, discussing and…

    • Trusting the design process

      Uday Gajendar

      Trusting the design process

      It's often stated—usually in a casual way, to offset any anxiety by non-design stakeholders in the midst of a lengthy project engagement—"Let's trust the design process." But what does that mean? And is there even a bona fide design process to trust? As HCI-informed experts in the technology sector,…

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  • Special topic
    • Everyday futures: A new interdisciplinary area of research

      Lenneke Kuijer, Nicola Spurling

      Everyday futures: A new interdisciplinary area of research

      Everyday Futures: A New Interdisciplinary Area of Research With the rise of ubiquitous computing, the role of HCI and interaction design in making everyday futures is becoming ever more encompassing and profound. The articles in this Special Topic offer perspectives on how these implications might be researched, understood, and…

    • Connecting past, present, and future

      Rebecca Wright, Colin Pooley

      Connecting past, present, and future

      We cannot escape the past. It is always with us in our memories, in the physical landscape and environment that endures, and in the legacy of past policies and planning decisions at both local and global scales. On a personal level, we are constantly learning from past actions and…

    • The future is already here—It’s just not very evenly distributed

      Tim Chatterton, Georgia Newmarch

      The future is already here—It’s just not very evenly distributed

      The title comes from a quote by American speculative fiction author William Gibson [1]. In its original context, it alludes primarily to the fact that the things that will constitute the normal or everyday within the lives of those living in the future already exist for some today. Most…

    • Imagined futures of everyday life in the circular economy

      Daniel Welch, Margit Keller, Giuliana Mandich

      Imagined futures of everyday life in the circular economy

      Talk of the "circular economy" has grown in recent years. Today it's central to both EU policy and the design philosophy of Jaguar Land Rover. Consulting firm McKinsey estimates it could add $1 trillion to the global economy by 2025. Brad Pitt is a devotee. The circular economy is…

    • Future-making: Inclusive design and smart cities

      Maureen Meadows, Matthijs Kouw

      Future-making: Inclusive design and smart cities

      It is becoming more and more difficult to avoid the notion of the smart city. In the discussions surrounding it, an optimistic and firm belief in "smart" technologies drives efforts to use them to enable the efficient governance of urban public spaces, energy flows, and mobility patterns. City officials…

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  • Day in the Lab
    • Centre for design informatics

      Chris Speed, Jon Oberlander

      How do you describe your lab to visitors? The Centre for Design Informatics provides a platform in which design and data science can mix. As a team, we are interested in the emerging field of human-data interactions and developing ways for design to engage with the complexity of digital…

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  • Forums
    • From interactables to architectonic interaction

      Mikael Wiberg

      From interactables to architectonic interaction

      The fields of interaction design (IxD) and architecture are increasingly intertwined [1]. Architecture is to a large extent produced through the use of digital tools, and digital technologies are increasingly integrated with our built environment. However, these integrations themselves certainly have transformative effects. For example, as the drawing of…

    • Civic media art and practice: Toward a pedagogy for civic design

      Eric Gordon, Catherine D'Ignazio, Gabriel Mugar, Paul Mihailidis

      Civic media art and practice: Toward a pedagogy for civic design

      What does it mean to be a civic designer? Second-wave thinking in HCI brought a lot of attention to cooperation, learning, and participation, with a distinct focus on participatory methods in well-defined spaces for user interaction, including the workplace and home. But as Suzanne Bødker defines it, the third…

    • ‘Back off, man. I’m a scientist.’ Using fiction to teach beginners HCI

      Jennifer Golbeck

      ‘Back off, man. I’m a scientist.’ Using fiction to teach beginners HCI

      Introductory human-computer interaction (HCI) classes have a few common learning objectives: developing the ability to understand users, their environments, and their tasks; learning to design interfaces to support them; and learning to evaluate the interfaces' usability. A final project in such a class should leverage all these skills. This…

    • From the BBC micro to micro:bit and beyond

      Yvonne Rogers, Venus Shum, Nicolai Marquardt, Susan Lechelt, Rose Johnson, Howard Baker, Matt Davies

      From the BBC micro to micro:bit and beyond

      Many British people remember fondly the BBC Micro from their childhood in the 1980s. They spent hours playing video games like Frogger and Pac-Man while also learning to program using the BASIC language. The computer's colorful graphics and chunky keyboard, with a row of orange function keys at the…

    • Crafting tools

      Irene Posch

      Crafting tools

      How do tools shape our process of making and the objects made? How could new tools give way to new skills and meanings being incorporated into electronic making practices? Insights My work explores interactions with technologies and their role in our everyday lives, through active engagement in making…

    • Getting the most out of remote research and testing

      Carol Smith

      Getting the most out of remote research and testing

      Fast-moving software development. International adoption of your product. Smaller travel budgets. There are many reasons why we are driven to first try, and then rely on, technology to help us connect with users. Insights How do we manage the challenges with remote sessions while maintaining the level of…

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  • Community square
    • Update from Southeast Asia—CHIuXiD 2017

      Eunice Sari, Adi Tedjasaputra, Tuomo Kujala

      Update from Southeast Asia—CHIuXiD 2017

      CHI UX Indonesia started in early 2014 on the initiative of Eunice Sari and Adi Tedjasaputra. As we embarked on the journey of getting ACM SIGCHI to support the formation of the first HCI and UX community in Indonesia, we organized a kick-off event, UX Indonesia-Malaysia 2014, with support…

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  • Features
    • Everyday futures: A new interdisciplinary area of research

      Lenneke Kuijer, Nicola Spurling

      Everyday futures: A new interdisciplinary area of research

      Everyday Futures: A New Interdisciplinary Area of Research With the rise of ubiquitous computing, the role of HCI and interaction design in making everyday futures is becoming ever more encompassing and profound. The articles in this Special Topic offer perspectives on how these implications might be researched, understood, and…

    • Connecting past, present, and future

      Rebecca Wright, Colin Pooley

      Connecting past, present, and future

      We cannot escape the past. It is always with us in our memories, in the physical landscape and environment that endures, and in the legacy of past policies and planning decisions at both local and global scales. On a personal level, we are constantly learning from past actions and…

    • The future is already here—It’s just not very evenly distributed

      Tim Chatterton, Georgia Newmarch

      The future is already here—It’s just not very evenly distributed

      The title comes from a quote by American speculative fiction author William Gibson [1]. In its original context, it alludes primarily to the fact that the things that will constitute the normal or everyday within the lives of those living in the future already exist for some today. Most…

    • Imagined futures of everyday life in the circular economy

      Daniel Welch, Margit Keller, Giuliana Mandich

      Imagined futures of everyday life in the circular economy

      Talk of the "circular economy" has grown in recent years. Today it's central to both EU policy and the design philosophy of Jaguar Land Rover. Consulting firm McKinsey estimates it could add $1 trillion to the global economy by 2025. Brad Pitt is a devotee. The circular economy is…

    • Future-making: Inclusive design and smart cities

      Maureen Meadows, Matthijs Kouw

      Future-making: Inclusive design and smart cities

      It is becoming more and more difficult to avoid the notion of the smart city. In the discussions surrounding it, an optimistic and firm belief in "smart" technologies drives efforts to use them to enable the efficient governance of urban public spaces, energy flows, and mobility patterns. City officials…

    • UX in Agile projects: Taking stock after 12 years

      Paul McInerney

      UX in Agile projects: Taking stock after 12 years

      We've come a long way since 2004. That year, one tech forecaster made the bold prediction that "eventually up to one third" of smartphones would include a camera. He could hardly have imagined the popularity of selfie sticks today. That same year, the agile movement was emerging, prompting some…

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  • Cover story
    • How two billion smartphone users can save species!

      Jennifer Preece

      What are some of your happiest memories of being in nature? Perhaps, as a kid, you watched swallows skimming over a glistening lake or skimmers by the sea? Or maybe one summer you found a tiny humming bird's nest in an elderly relative's backyard? Whatever precious memories you have,…

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  • Visual thinking gallery
    • Selfish-driving car

      Eli Blevis

      Selfish-driving car

      Contributor: Eli Blevis Curator/Editor: Eli Blevis Genre: Humor, new technologies versus old technologies, visual sociology A human driver fails to navigate a U-turn, halting traffic in one direction and unable to recover due to the traffic in the other direction. Can autonomous vehicles be programmed to anticipate extreme driver…

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  • Calendar