[IxDA Discuss] At CHI? Why? Or why not? -> Summary, etc.

[Tom Erickson]

A bit over a week ago I asked the list their opinions about the new 
CHI program. Most responses from the list were not particularly 
substantive (and as far as I can tell, all from people not at CHI), 
but as several expressed curiosity about how CHI went this year, I 
thought I'd share my two cents (based on my own experience, 
attendance at the design SIG, an informal survey of design oriented 
sessions, and chats with a lot of people).

The bottom line for me is that the jury is still out, but that 
progress is being made.

To my eyes (and those of others) there are a lot more events of 
interest to designers and practitioners at CHI. Even long papers, 
which is typically not terribly design friendly territory, had some 
things of interest, perhaps because of a special effort to make sure 
that paper's flagged of interest to the design community were 
reviewed by people with both academic and design credentials. I 
thought there were some very good experience reports. And, in the 
design SIG, there was a lot of interest and discussion about 
experience reports and how they are reviewed (it's a different and 
much less 'academic' model than papers), and also, to be honest, some 
frustration and confusion--I'm optimistic that this is going to 
receive a lot of attention in the coming year. Most heartening, there 
seems to be significant interest from designers/practitioners in 
participating. [And if you're interested in participating, I urge you 
to get in touch with the CHI '07 design community chairs, Jon Kolko 
of the Savannah College of Art and Design (who posted here just a few 
days ago), and Bill Lucas of Maya Design, both of whom seem really 
enthusiastic and committed.]

I think the combination of interest and new venues will make CHI 
considerably more attractive for IxD folk and other practitioners. In 
terms of new innovations, the big hit of CHI appeared to be the "CHI 
madness session" each morning, in which each individual presenter of 
the day had about 30 seconds to give a summary with one slide of 
their talk -- this makes it *much* easier to figure out what to go 
see, and gives a very nice sense of the breadth and diversity of the 
conference. It's likely that the other new innovations will continue 
next year, though some will receive some tweaking. The surveys aren't 
in, but the new model of courses integrated with the sessions 
appeared well received (judging from attendance). The addition of a 
day to the conference is more difficult to assess -- people were 
ambivalent about wanting another day's content -- and even with the 
CHI madness sessions, the program is complex to navigate, but on the 
other hand a lot of people commented that the extra day made it 
significantly easier to chat with everyone (that was my experience, 
as well). Finally, in spite of the new prices -- which were received 
with considerable dismay by some -- attendance was quite good 
(including a record number of student attendees).

Personally, I enjoyed CHI more than I have in years.

Thanks to all who sent feedback.

--Tom

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Tom Erickson
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Email: snowfall at acm.org (preferred); snowfall at us.ibm.com(IBM confidential)
http://www.visi.com/~snowfall/