Table of Contents

VOLUME XII.5 September + October 2005

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  • In this issue

    • In this issue

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      Summer is in full swing and some of us turn our thoughts to high adventure away from the routine of our workplaces, to beaches and relaxation, or to getting that syllabus in order for fall classes. Whether you're just entering the university environment for the first time, returning to…

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  • Fresh: rant

    • Hello, goodbye in the line of HCI

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      We deserve respect! Whether we're hiring or being hired, face it: Everyone is taking a risk. How recently have you searched for a new position in the field of HCI? How well were you treated? What was the hiring process like? How long did it take you to get…

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  • Fresh: ok/cancel

    • Infoaction education

      Tom Chi, Kevin Cheng

      We deserve respect! Whether we're hiring or being hired, face it: Everyone is taking a risk. How recently have you searched for a new position in the field of HCI? How well were you treated? What was the hiring process like? How long did it take you to get…

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  • Fresh: ask Doctor Usability

    • Growing designers

      Dr. Usability

      Dear Doctor Usability, A few years ago I was searching to "better" my life since the economy was not supporting graphic designers and my degree in graphic design communication wasn't getting me the kind of jobs I wanted. In my naiveté I phoned some well-known people in this field.…

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  • Fresh: pushing the envelope

    • If your prototype explodes in the forest, will anyone notice?

      Fred Sampson

      When the scientists and technicians of World War II's Manhattan Project needed to test their prototype of the atomic bomb, they had to blow it up. The gadget-makers not only had to develop their prototype based on new, untested theories, they had to develop the tools to design, build,…

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  • Fresh: mailbag

    • Letters to the editor

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      Ethnography and Usability: Where's the Glue? It was with equal parts curiosity and confusion that I read the article, Avoiding the Next Schism: Ethnography and Usability, by David Siegel and Susan Dray (Business, March-April 2005). The article begins by cautioning that a schism between these two disciplines "threatens to…

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  • Back to school: HCI & higher education

    • University HCI—-squeezed into where?

      Russell Beale

      I'm a passionate advocate of HCI, whether it be forcing it into the curriculum, trying to get my computer science colleagues to mention relevant aspects of it in their software engineering, project management or distributed systems modules, or by championing specific HCI modules within a computing course. I also…

    • Recognizing student designers

      Elizabeth Churchill, Jonathan Sykes, Todd Zazelenchuk

      We live in a world where design as a discipline is no longer resigned to the back room. Richard Buchanan wrote in 1990, "...in the 20th century, we have seen design grow from a trade activity to a segmented profession to a field for technical research and to what…

    • Discovering user information needs

      Frank Ritter, Andrew Freed, Onida Haskett

      University department Web pages are the focal point for prospective students, current students, parents, staff, and alumni who want to explore the university. Users visiting these sites expect to find the information they seek, perhaps most notably contact information for various people within departments, but also a wide range…

    • The University of Texas at Austin School of Information

      Randolph Bias

      The School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin is well situated within the thriving yet bohemian Silicon Hills and urban beauty of south central Texas. The School of Information has a rich tradition of training information professionals of all ilk: archivists, record managers, librarians, intelligence analysts,…

    • The Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University

      Bonnie John

      Carnegie Mellon University has a long history of pursuing HCI research and education. The idea for a Human Computer Interaction Institute can be traced back to 1967, when founders of the computer science program, Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, and Alan Perlis, wrote that the new discipline of computer science…

    • HCI at Stanford University

      Terry Winograd, Scott Klemmer

      Stanford University is creating a new multidisciplinary educational program in design, informally known as the "d.school," which will incorporate human-computer interaction design as one of its core elements. It does not yet have formal university status but has obtained initial funding and we have begun plans to renovate a…

    • The HCI program at the School of Information at the University of Michigan

      Judith Olson

      Human Computer Interaction is one of the specialties in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. The school is entirely user centered. All our work begins with understanding what the user needs and wants (where the user is either an individual, a group, a family unit, an…

    • HCI programs within the Information Science and Technology Department at the University of Missouri, Rolla

      Richard Hall

      In 2002 the Information Science and Technology department was created as a part of the new School of Management and Information Systems at the University of Missouri, Rolla (UMR). A primary focus area for the department is Human-Computer Interaction. In the short time since the program's inception, there have…

    • Eindhoven’s User-System-Interaction Design Program

      Maddy Janse, Panos Markopoulos, Patricia Vinken

      The User-System Interaction Design Program of the Technical University of Eindhoven (USI program) is a two-year post-master's program for students who want to become user system interaction designers in R&D organizations. The overall goal of the program is to provide students with the skills and capabilities for conceptualizing, designing,…

    • HCI education at the ICT&S Human-Computer Interaction as a cornerstone between technology and society

      Manfred Tscheligi, Regina Bernhaupt

      Understanding, applying, and developing the field of human-computer interaction has specific relevance for the development of our society. Societal applications of any kind (like electronic governments or applications to support special needs) had, have, and will have an interface to users. Placing HCI education right at the center of…

    • Teaching balance and respect

      Hartmut Obendorf, Matthias Finck, Axel Schmolitzky

      Creating user experiences is a cooperative effort that no-one "owns," yet one that requires coordination between people with different professional skills and attitudes, and also strong communication between the users and the development team. Changing the attitudes of future interaction designers and software engineers, and eliminating some of the…

    • HCI programs

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      DePaul University What is your school? The School of Computer Science, Telecommunications and Information Systems (CTI) at DePaul University offers BS and MS degrees in Human-Computer Interaction. In addition to HCI, the School of CTI offers 16 graduate degrees and 13 undergraduate degrees in technology. DePaul University is nationally…

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  • Practice: connections

    • Rise up, revolt!

      Russell Beale

      The other day, I watched a friend show a colleague how to use some new program on his computer. He played with it for a while, demonstrated its powers, and then vacated his seat to let Jim have a try. A few mouse clicks later, Jim said, "Ooohh, sorry,…

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  • Practice: whiteboard

    • Aesthetics and interaction design

      David Heller

      For the last ten years, my work has involved some aspect of the design and development of network-distributed informational applications. My career has relied on self-education, and thus self-discovery. Not only does this lend me a bit of freedom to formulate design thoughts in new ways, it also enables…

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  • Practice: business

    • Common Industry Format approved as international standard

      Mary Theofanos

      The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) subcommittee on systems and software engineering approved the Common Industry Format for Usability Test Reports as an international standard at their plenary in Helsinki, May 2005. The new standard, "ISO/IEC 25062: Software Engineering—Software Product Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE)"—common industry format for usability…

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  • People: the way I see it

    • To school or not to school?

      Donald Norman

      To school or not to school, is that the question? Should you go back to school? Is experience enough? To me, the answer depends a lot upon the individual, a lot upon the goals. Basically, school will not offer much to those who are already skilled craft workers. But…

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  • People: fast forward

    • What would an ideal CHI education look like?

      Aaron Marcus

      What would you select if someone asked you to develop an ideal professional education in CHI's essential subject matter? If someone were to ask me, first I would check the core CHI curriculum for computer science departments that an ACM SIGCHI committee (including professor Ron Baecker, University of Toronto,…

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  • People: on the enterprise

    • Back to school

      Dustin Beltramo

      It's the back to school season, time for a new flock of UI designers to begin their education at HCI programs around the world. Unfortunately, when they emerge from their studies with diploma in hand, they will not have the knowledge necessary to successfully design business-oriented applications. Hiring managers…

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  • Books

    • Book review

      Tim Moore

      Rapid Contextual Design: A How-To Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design Karen Holtzblatt, Jessamyn Burns Wendell, and Shelley Wood Morgan Kaufmann ISBN 0123540518 $39.95 Rapid Contextual Design: A How-To Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design is a successor to Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt's 1998…

    • New & upcoming titles

      Gerard Torenvliet

      The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit-Twentieth Anniversary Edition Sherry Turkle The MIT Press, May 2005 ISBN: 0262701111 $23 Professional CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design Christopher Schmitt, Mark Trammell, Ethan Marcotte, Todd Dominey, Dunstan Orchard Wrox, July 2005 ISBN: 0764588338 $39.99 Process…

    • Errata

      Gerard Torenvliet

      The correct details for the book reviewed in the May-June issue of <interactions> are: 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice Doug A. Bowman, Ernst Kruiff, Joseph H. LaViola, Jr., Ivan Poupyrev Addison-Wesley Professional ISBN 0201758679 $64.99 Author Editor: Gerard Torenvliet CMC Electronics 415 Leggett Drive, P.O. Box…

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  • Rewind

    • Michel Waisvisz

      Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson, Jonathan Arnowitz

      Michel Waisvisz finished high school, ran away from home, and pursued a passion for freedom and expression through his explorations with circuitry and sound in live performance. Michel is an inspiring, warm, sincere, and funny man who has dedicated more than 30 years to live electronic performance. Self-taught by…

    • Report on the First All-India Human-Computer Interaction Conference

      Sanjay Prasad, Andy Smith, Anirudha Joshi, Iqbal Ahmed

      The First All India Human Computer Interaction Conference (IHCI 2004) was held in Bangalore on December 6 and 7, 2004 under the aegis of the Indo-European Systems Usability Partnership (IESUP), a non-profit EU Asia IT&C initiative. This event was organized in cooperation/association with the Computer Society of India, the…

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  • People: HCI & the web

    • Playing your cards right

      William Hudson

      Card sorting is a knowledge-elicitation technique often used by information architects, interaction designers, and usability professionals to establish or assess the navigation hierarchy of a Web site. The items are typically menu entries or hyperlinks, while the groups are categories or headings. The process involves asking participants to sort…

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  • Event planner

    • Event planner

      interactions Staff

      September 12-14 gd20005 13th Annual International Symposium on Graph Drawing Limerick, Ireland www.ul.ie/gd2005 September 12-16 Interact `05: Tenth IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction Rome, Italy www.interact2005.org September 14-17 ICINCO 2005 2nd International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation, and Robots Barcelona, Spain www.icinco.org September…

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  • People: on the edge

    • Mixed-up realities

      Lars Holmquist

      I have just spent two months as a guest researcher at the University of Nottingham's Mixed Reality Laboratory (MRL). Although the British concepts of food and weather may leave something to be desired, the MRL is the place to be if you want to find out about the latest…

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  • Rave

    • Heads-up!

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      There are certainly a lot of ways to conduct a search process for the ideal candidate, and a lot of pointers exist for how to present yourself well, and what questions and answers are likely to come up. Both of us have recently changed jobs. The job search process…

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  • Elitoons

    • Computer humor interface

      Nevin Berger

      There are certainly a lot of ways to conduct a search process for the ideal candidate, and a lot of pointers exist for how to present yourself well, and what questions and answers are likely to come up. Both of us have recently changed jobs. The job search process…

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