Fwd: Get involved in CHI 2016!

[Jeffrey HO]

FYI

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jofish Kaye <jof...@jofish.com>
Date: 16 September 2015 at 08:28
Subject: Get involved in CHI 2016!
To: BCS...@jiscmail.ac.uk

Dear BCS-HCI folks —

As I think some of you might know, I’m co-chairing the CHI 2016 conference, which will be held in San Jose in May. The British and European HCI communities continue to be a hugely important part of CHI, and with CHI in Silicon Valley this year I wanted to make a particular effort to keep that involvement going.

I do know that many of you are extremely familiar with CHI, but because it’s such a large conference with so many moving parts, I wanted to send out this description of the different venues to which you can submit work at CHI (below).

I wanted to draw your attention in particular to two venues: Case Studies and Workshops. Our extremely capable case studies chairs (Kaisa Väänänen, Susan Dray, Suzanne Currie and Richard Anderson) have completely revamped the Case Study venue this year to make it a better place for people working in industry to submit their work. If you’ve finished up a really interesting project for a client and they recognize the value that comes from people talking about that project in public, or you’ve got a technique you’ve found works really well, then this is a great place to present that work.

Workshops are a bit different: they’re really a place to find people interested in the same thing you are. If you’re really into, say, digital money, or aging populations and technology, or design thinking for developing markets, then a workshop is a great way to find other people interested in the same topic. Our workshop chairs (Eve Hoggan, Frank Vetere, Sanjay Kairam and Siân Lindley) have really tightened and improved the process this year, and the process should be both simpler and this time around.

Happy to take any questions you might have (offline would probably be better, by the way, so we don’t spam the list). And look forward to seeing you in San Jose!

Jofish

The Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conference is coming to San Jose, California, USA in May 2016, and if you’re interested in HCI, UX, new technologies for humans and computers to work together, or just understanding more about how people and computers interact, then now is the time to get involved!

The main way to be part of CHI is to submit a write-up of some new work or research you’ve done. It's then evaluated by a group of experts, and if accepted you’ll present it at the conference. Depending on the kind of work you’ve done, there are a bunch of different ways to get involved.

The most rigorous kind of research is called a Paper, or Note, depending on the length. It’s equivalent to a journal publication in other fields, and it’s due on September 25th. These typically reflect several months or years of hard work, and are anonymous and thoroughly peer reviewed. But there’s a whole bunch of other ways to tell people about the work you’ve done! Read on.

If you’ve been working in industry, you may want to think about writing a Case Study, due on October 9th. Case Studies are compelling stories about real-world experiences of applying HCI, and focus on innovation.  They can illustrate, explore, report, analyze, summarize, challenge, or simply describe practical HCI work. They’re 2-10 pages long, and if accepted you’ll be able to present your Case Study as a talk at the conference.

Workshops are a great way to find your tribe! Let’s say you’re interested in gesture interaction — or digital money, or fitness tracking, or any other HCI-related topic — and you want to meet others with the same interest. Find a few people who work at another institution or company from you, and submit a workshop together by October 9th. If you’ve got a startup trying to find your lead users or people pushing the boundaries of your field, workshops can be a great way to find those people. Workshops are usually 1 day long and attract about 15-25 people.  They’re collaborative events, about meeting new people and presenting early work in a field: if you want to teach people how to do something, then that’s a Course.

Courses are “the best university there isn’t” for HCI! They’re (roughly) 2, 4, or 6 hours long, and can cover anything related to HCI. Previous courses have covered everything from sketching, electronics prototyping and computer vision to mobile interaction, data mining and card sorting. Course Instructors also get free conference registration! Submit your course proposal by October 9th.

If you want people to use something you’ve built, then you want to submit to Interactivity! We’ve had everything from smart igloos to sound-, smell-, and even golf-based interfaces. This year, we’ve got two deadlines for Interactivity. If you want to submit a specialized Installation of some kind, like an interactive wall or augmented full-body digital harp, then get it to us by October 9th. If you just need a table, a monitor and a powerstrip to show your Demonstration, then you can wait until January 13th. If you’re a hardware startup looking for a place to show off your kit: this could be a great place for you.

We’ve also got several other venues due on January 13th. Perhaps the most widely relevant is Late-Breaking Work, a chance to write up your research and present it as a Poster at the conference. This is usually a smaller contribution than a full Paper or Note or Case Study, and a great way to break into CHI. January 13th is also the deadline for submitting a Panel: 4-or-so people discussing an important topic or issue. If you’ve done a great movie about your work, submit it to our Video Showcase - and get a chance of winning the coveted Golden Mouse Award! If you’d like to meet with people about a particular topic — like a 2-hour workshop — submit a SIG. January 13th is also the deadline for our Student Design, Game and Research competitions as well as one of our most popular venues, alt.chi, an opportunity to submit novel, wacky, crazy, alternative or bizarre work which doesn’t fit into any other place.

Finally, CHI is a great place to meet new people, to build your network, and, importantly, to recruit the top talents in HCI and UX, as well as Computer Science, Information Science, Human-Centered Computing, Informatics and more. We’re always looking for companies to get great visibility and show their support of cutting-edge research by Sponsoring the conference, Exhibiting their products in their own booth, or Recruiting top level talent.

We look forward to seeing you in San Jose in May 2016!

Jofish Kaye & Allison Druin, Co-Chairs, CHI 2016