#chi2016

This week at CHI we are presenting two research projects, a qualitative study and a system design, that highlight how the design of online communities can support creative expression and personal connections that otherwise wouldn't have existed. 

The first project, titled Journeys & Notes, focuses on the design and deployment of a production-quality mobile app that enables people to log their travels, leave notes behind, and build a community around spaces in between destinations (think of it as a Foursquare for trips). The app is playful, supports creative expression, and allows people to do this anonymously and pseudonymously. The project grew out of Justin Cranshaw’s internship project (who is now a full time member of our lab), in collaboration with designer S.A. Needham and myself. Justin is presenting the work on Wed May 11 at 4:30pm in room 210AE.

The second project, Surviving an "Eternal September," is a qualitative study of the NoSleep subreddit, an online community of horror fiction writers, was able to manage accelerated growth after being featured on the home page of Reddit. Usenet's infamous "Eternal September" suggest that large influxes of newcomers can hurt online communities, but our interviews suggest that NoSleep survived without major incident because of three traits of this community: (1) administrators, (2) shared community moderation, and (3) technological infrastructure for preventing norm violations. This research was done in collaboration with Charles Kiene, a UW undergraduate student, and his advisor Benjamin Mako Hill at the UW Department of Communication. Charles presents the work on Mon May 9 at 4:30 pm in room LL20A.

This year at CHI we won’t be including a USB key in your conference bag. We surveyed attendees and found that 40% of you used the USB precisely once, to copy the contents to the paper; 30% of you never used the key at all or accessing the contents; 20% told us you accessed the USB occasionally during the conference.

Each submission in the Proceedings and Extended Abstracts will be available starting the week before the conference on the ACM Digital Library, but for your convenience and to replace the utility of having the USB key, here’s a link to a file containing all the proceedings and extended abstracts.

[Link removed by request of the ACM]

We’ve left off the videos, which will all be available through the Digital Library, so it’s a manageable (hopefully!) 3.33GB, and uncompresses to 4.5GB. 

You might ask yourself, why robots?  We feel that in addition to all of the great talks, a large part of what makes CHI great are the interactions.  Whether wandering through the poster session and chatting with the presenter, bumping into someone you know in the hall, or chumming with new friends at the reception, those interactions are what turns a good conference experience into a great one.  Each year, over 2500 people travel from all over the world to share that experience.  However, some are unable to make the trip due to difficulties with travel accommodations, disabilities, or other obstacles.  Telepresence robots are a first step to providing these interactions for those who are unable to be physically present.  By offering the ability to attend via telepresence robots, we hope to increase access so that more people are able to share the CHI-ness of the conference as active participants rather than as passive watchers.

Two Beam robots chat at CSCW’16. Photo (cc) jofish on Flickr.

Although what we’re doing this year is on the small scale, especially when considering the size of CHI, we look at this is a pilot test of how this may work in the future.  This means that in addition to enabling people to remotely attend, we’ll also be keeping track of how it’s going and lessons learned.  During CHI, we’ll be looking for your feedback on whether it’s working out and after the conference, we’ll be letting you know how it went and what we’ve found so that we can make improvements in the future!

If you are unable to attend CHI this year in-person and this sounds like something you’d be interested in, please fill out this application form [http://goo.gl/forms/G6zECqYVkW] by April 20, 2016.  If you are selected to participate, we will contact you by April 22.  Registration cost will be $75/day and remote attendees will be able to register for the days of their choice, availability permitting.  

We are happy to announce that there will be childcare at CHI 2016 in San Jose. The care will be available for children 6 months to 12 years old, with age appropriate care. Initially, we’ll have childcare is open from 8:30am to 1pm and 2:30pm to 6 pm Monday through Thursday; we may be able to add Saturday and Sunday if there is interest. The childcare will be located in a room within the conference center. The carers will be from a professional childcare company, Kiddie Corp, all of whom are CPR/first aid certified and with child care experience.

There will be activities and play materials such as arts and crafts as well as appropriate toys for babies (including baby bouncers). There will be a quiet area for napping with blankets and pillows.

Signup: Signup to register your interest when you register for CHI. Initial childcare slot signup will be approximately 4 weeks before the conference (separate from registration), although it may also be possible to sign up at the conference itself. Priority will be given to providing childcare to children of parents who are presenting during that particular day of the conference.

Price: Childcare will likely be $7 per hour which can be paid in cash or by credit card at the conference. Childcare will also likely be on a day-by-day rather than hour-by-hour basis.

A few practicalities (particularly to international visitor who might not be used to US regulations):

• Parents will need a photo ID for the security procedure for check-in and check-out of children. A driving license with photo or passport is fine.

• Parents are allowed to visit at any time but unauthorized adults are not allowed in the area.

• There will be parent consent/waiver forms to sign

• There will be check-in/out sheets

If you have any questions or concerns email us at [email protected]

-Louise Barkhuus, Judd Antin and Funda Kivran-Swaine

I’m really happy to be able to announce that, for the first time, students from developing countries are able to apply to the Marsden Fund to support attending CHI (or any other SIGCHI-affiliated conference). You can get up to $3000 to support your travel costs, including registration. You’ll need to have an accepted publication (of any kind, including Late Breaking Work), or doctoral consortium submission, or be an accepted student volunteer.  You’ll also need a note from your advisor. The deadline to email your submission for the CHI 2016 funding round is February 20th at noon PST. There will be no extensions.

I’m particularly happy to have this award available in time for CHI’16.  The SIGCHI Gary Marsden Student Development Fund is named after Gary Marsden, an HCI researcher and pioneer who died suddenly in 2013. 

photo cc-by afropicmusing on flickr

Gary was a great friend and a great person, generous and enthusiastic with his time and attention. I miss his friendship, his support and his vision. He made an enormous impact on the field, and in particular on the growth of HCI in Africa, and I’m delighted we’re able to honor his memory this way.