Interactions

Reflections on planning and running a virtual Doctoral Consortium at CHI 2020

Posted: Tue, June 30, 2020 - 10:28:52

This article describes what was done to run a virtual Doctoral Consortium at CHI 2020. The event was originally planned as an in-person, two-day event to take place in Honolulu, Hawaii, on April 25–26, 2020. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the decision was taken in March that the CHI conference would not go ahead as a physical event. Most events…

A call to action for the ACM

Posted: Mon, June 22, 2020 - 5:49:56

On June 8, 2020, several Black scholars, academic researchers, graduate students, practitioners, and other members and affiliates of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) gathered to write a letter to express concern for the ACM’s response to this current political moment. The letter, shown below, detailed the importance of solidarity needed from such a major association that is an academic…

A challenging response

Posted: Wed, June 17, 2020 - 2:32:05

Being an ally means being uncomfortable. —R.A.C.E. team, addressing institutional racism within initiatives for SIGCHI’s diversity and inclusion I write this to support the courageous R.A.C.E. Diversity and Inclusion team members who documented their experiences in their recent blog post addressing material impacts of institutional racism. Their crucial yet risky labor to hold leaders accountable cast my recent accessibility experiences…

Addressing institutional racism within initiatives for SIGCHI’s diversity and inclusion

Posted: Thu, June 11, 2020 - 11:00:32

Realizing that All Can be Equal (or R.A.C.E) was the name that we gave ourselves when we volunteered in November 2018 to be ACM SIGCHI Innovators for Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). Our D&I team was composed of seven individuals, primarily junior scholars, who all identify as racial minorities and who had all personally experienced the ways in which academia could…

A solution without a problem? Seeking questions to ask and problems to solve within open, civic data

Posted: Mon, June 01, 2020 - 10:16:42

The city of Amsterdam is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help sort through and triage their version of 311 calls. Chicago is using AI to help analyze and decrease rat infestations and to prevent them in the future. There is value in applying AI to urban challenges, but that value must come with explicit protections to privacy and citizen safety.…

Is remote the new normal? Reflections on Covid-19, technology, and humankind

Posted: Thu, May 28, 2020 - 1:46:39

Covid-19 forced governments to urge full or partial lockdown measures to slow the progression of the pandemic. By the end of March, more than 100 countries had “locked down” billions of people. During that time, Yvonne Rogers wrote a series of blog posts on the topic of “remote,” structured around the themes of living, working, numbers, and tracking (the full…

A crash course in online learning

Posted: Fri, May 22, 2020 - 5:58:53

As in many countries, when New Zealand went into lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in late March, tertiary education providers had to suddenly move from face-to-face teaching to online learning. Although providers already offered some online courses and had considered the need to expand online learning, the requirement for an immediate about face while a trimester was in…

Design-led innovation: Lessons from the Scientific Revolution

Posted: Thu, May 21, 2020 - 2:58:42

In recent years, design has established itself as a strategic business asset that helps organizations innovate and grow. From first being associated with aesthetics, design has become a measure for user centricity and an engine for creating meaningful experiences and improved business performance. An increasing number of organizations recognize the value of design and seek to interweave design capabilities into…

Evaluating immersive experiences during Covid-19 and beyond

Posted: Tue, May 19, 2020 - 4:52:13

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted life as we once knew it. The safety and well-being of people are paramount, and there is no exception for the human-computer interaction (HCI) field. Most universities and research labs have closed non-critical research labs. With that closure and the student populations having left campus, in-person user studies have been suspended for the foreseeable future.…

This is not the new normal: Studying during a pandemic

Posted: Wed, May 13, 2020 - 2:31:59

table, th, td { padding: 10px; border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse; } Illustration by Renée Sophie Singer. Austria began its lockdown on March 10, 2020. Just three days later, the government issued stay-at-home orders, quarantined entire villages, decreed non-emergency medical procedures to be moved to a later date, and closed all but essential shops, as well as hospitals, retirement…