Planning Design at the Computer/Human Interaction Conference

Those of us who work at design consultancies often attend conferences, like the IDSA conference or the IxDA conference, in an effort to learn new methods and techniques and to catch a hint of the "buzz" - the various themes that are occurring within our field. I've spent the last two days in a conference room in Boston getting an intimate view of how these conferences come to life. The 100 members of the CHI 2009 conference planning committee met to hammer out the core content, and I wanted to briefly share the process for those who sometimes sit in session wondering "how on earth did this get included in the conference?" - a position I've frequently found myself in.

Throughout the last four months, leadings designers, researchers and academics have submitted their work to the CHI conference. 1132 submissions were received, and 145 of these submissions were flagged as being "Design" submissions. We then discussed, at length, these 145 submissions in a committee, with the hope of identifying the strongest contributions to the larger community of those engaged in Design and Human Computer Interaction. We accepted 30 of the 145 Design submissions, showing roughly how difficult it is to get work into the conference, and I feel that Design is well represented .

I found the discussion to be interesting and very honest; this was due to the extremely diverse group of people that were gathered together. Our Design committee included:

Jodi Forlizzi and John Zimmerman, from Carnegie Mellon
Erik Stolterman, from Indiana University
Win Burleson, from Arizona State University
Carl DiSalvo, from Georgia Tech
Daniel Fallman, from Umea University
Bill Gaver, from Goldsmiths College, University of London
Steve Harrison, from Virginia Tech
Youn Kyung Lim, from KAIST
Ron Wakkary, from Simon Fraser University

For those that attend the CHI conference and feel it "too academic", there is likely good reason: I was the only member of industry in our group, and frequently found myself wondering about and arguing against the applicability of the paper content on my daily life at frog. The word Design is frequently used in a number of ways, and the papers discussed presented some of the most exotic uses of the term, with names like:

Design Research as Explanation: Perceptions in the Field
Framing Design in the Third Paradigm
Theory-Driven Design Strategies for Technologies that Support Behavior Change in Everyday Life

Yet in addition to some very theoretical and intellectual discourse, the submitted (and accepted) content points to some very obvious themes, themes that have a direct impact on the work we do at frog and the problems that our clients are trying to solve.

One of the highest rated papers, called "Nourishing the Ground for Sustainable HCI: Considerations from Ecologically Engaged Art", looks at the connection between the arts and sustainability. As we continue to drive for more emotionally resonate consumer products, finding rich inspiration in the arts, and weaving a connection between the arts and positive environmental responsibility seems to be critical.

Another well rated paper, called "User Experience Over Time: An initial framework", examines the way ethnographic research can be conducted over a longer period of time with devices like the Apple iPhone - devices that grow and change with the user as the user embraces the temporal nature of the object and interface.

Ultimately, themes of sustainability, do-it-yourself, ethnography, and holistic-design-framing emerged; while the last is a tremendously academic (and ultimately less actionable) set of content for practitioners to apply, the first three themes are immediately actionable and illustrate a common set of discussion in our Austin studio.

I'm excited for the CHI conference, now that I've gotten a more intimate view of the mechanics; I'm also more aware than ever of a substantial divide between practitioners and academics, concerning the applicability of theory and the way in which the process is idealized in research (or bastardized in practice, depending on your point of view). Regardless, the conference looks to be quite strong, so I hope I'll see ya' in Boston in April :)

Jon Kolko