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Announcements: Next meetings: Sean O'Driscoll: Social Media: If you could only leverage what your customers know March 31st, 7:30pm |
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Upcoming Events
March 31st, 2008
Sean O'Driscoll:
Social Media: If you could only leverage what your customers knows
MOCHI: Meetings & Events
MOCHI meetings are usually held
from 7:00-9:00pm on the second Wednesday of every month. The usual meeting
format begins with an open discussion of chapter business followed by
the presentation of an invited speaker. Meetings take place in the University
of Michigan School of Information, Ehrlicher Room, on the fourth floor
of West Hall. Directions to the meetings
are available.
MOCHI meetings are open to the public, but we encourage participants to
join and become involved in their local SIGCHI. Annual membership fees
are $15 for a regular membership and $10 for students. Prospective members
can sign up at any meeting or contact the MOCHI Treasurer, John Rivard,
at jcr@jcrdesign.com.
If you have suggestions for future speakers or events please contact our
Vice-Chair for Program, Dan Cooney.
October 12th 2006
Joyce Chai:
Enhancing Language Understanding through Salience modeling ...
October 20th 2006
Mark Stock:
Evolving Technique in Digital Art
August 9th 2006
Tom Brink:
Obsession - Finding the sympathetic heart of design
July 28th 2006
MOCHI summer reading series:
Social knowledge construction - Are we really smarter in groups?
June 14th 2006
MOCHI summer reading series:
Cyberwork - New models for technology and economics of virtual work
November 9th 2005
Lada Adamic:
The Dynamics of Viral Marketing
October 12th 2005
Mick McQuaid:
iSchool Identity: A UI Opportunity Unfolding
September 14th 2005
MOCHI Reading Group:
Peril Sensitive Subglasses - A Discussion of Agency
March 14th - 15th 2005
MOCHI, STP, UPA joint event:
Internet User Experience 2005
February 23rd 2005
MOCHI, STP, UPA joint event:
Barbara Mirel
February 9th 2005
MOCHI Reading Series:
How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand
October
13th 2004
Bill Van Loo: "Electronic Music"
September 29, 2004
MOCHI Reading Series:
Emotional Design by Don Norman
August
25, 2004
MOCHI Reading Series:
Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold
May
12, 2004
Edward Vielmetti, "How technology has changed politics in four years"
Elizabeth Yakel, "Seeking Information, Seeking Connections, Seeking Meaning: Genealogists and Family Historians"
March
17, 2004
Cliff Lampe, "Slash(dot) and Burn: Distributed Moderation in a Large
Online Conversation Space"
January
14, 2004
Malcolm McCullough, "A theory of place for interaction design"
November
20, 2003
Christine A. Halverson, "Talk Among 50,000+: Designing for Presence
and evaluating connections"
October
8, 2003
Mark Handel, "Informal Communication in Distributed Environments"
September
10, 2003
Barbara Mirel and Leif Allmendinger, "Visualizing Complexity: Getting
from Here to There in Complex Problem Landscapes"
June
11, 2003
Jack Zaientz, "What Computer Game Visualization Techniques Offer
Interface Designers"
May
14, 2003
Robert R. Johnson, "Use on Top: Developing a Rhetorical and Philosophical
Theory of Usability"
April
16, 2003:
Tom Brinck, Seunghee Ha, and Kara Lock
"A Success Story in Usability: The University of Michigan Business
School Web Site"
March
12, 2003:
Christine A. Halverson: "Talk Among 50,000+: Designing for Presence
and Evaluating Connections"
February
12, 2003:
Gregory Abowd: "Programming Environments...literally: Ubicomp's Grand
Challenge"
details...
November 13, 2002:
Mark Ackerman: "Why Collaborative Systems Fail - The Intellectual
Challenge of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work"
October 9, 2002:
Deborah Hinderer Sova and Cory Knobel: "Winning With Rapid Development: Incorporating Customer Needs into Fast-Paced Web Design"
details...
September 18, 2002:
Dr. Marcia J. Bates: "Toward an Integrated Model of Information Seeking and Searching"
details...
July 10, 2002:
Dr. Stanley W. Driskell details...
June 12, 2002:
Tom Finholt details...
May 8, 2002:
Victor Strecher details...
April 10, 2002:
Gary Olson details... | slides
March 13, 2002:
Paul Green details...
February 13, 2002:
Austin Henderson details...
January 9th, 2002:
Dr. Mick Couper details...
July, 11th 2001:
Nathan Bos, Postdoctoral Researcher
Trust without touch? Collaborating over video, phone and chat
Abstract: It is harder to develop trust at a distance than it is
face-to-face. Virtual teams have an increasingly powerful array of tools
to aid in distant collaboration, yet both laboratory and experimental
research show that trust development is still more difficult using computer-mediated
communications. This trust barrier is an expensive problem for multinational
corporations, for e-learning providers, and for anyone who desires to
work effectively at a distance.
Why does distance affect trust?
This month? MOCHI will look at current thinking about the nature of trust,
present CREW research on why trust is more difficult at a distance, and
examine possible treatments that can overcome this persistent barrier
to effective distant collaborations. more attention.
June, 13th 2001:
We have the PowerPoint presentation and a paper available online from
Jim Herbsleb's talk. Check it out!
Bell Labs Research
From Instant Messaging to Services for Converged Networks: The Bell Labs Collaboratory
Abstract: The talk will focus on how we combined empirical studies of distributed work and results from trials of an instant messaging (IM) application to design new collaborative services that take advantage of the convergence of voice and data networks. We used a survey and an analysis of change management data to measure the extent of delay in a multi-site software development organization. Results indicated that cross-site work takes much longer and requires more people than comparable same-site work. IM was among several tools we deployed, which were designed specifically to address the issues of speed we identified. I'll report on our strategy for introducing IM, the lessons we learned, and how we revised our strategy based on this experience. Next, I'll describe enhanced versions of these tools that are being developed as products. I conclude with an examination of research issues in collaborative technologies that we think should get more attention.
May, 9th 2001:
We have the PowerPoint presentation and a paper available online from Peter Polson's talk. Check it out!
University of Colorado
A Model of Web Navigation and Its Application to the Development of Web Sites for Diverse User Groups
Abstract: I will describe a comprehension-based simulation model of how people look for information in websites, outlining our research goal of transforming the model into an automated website usability tool for web developers. The model incorporates Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) as an engineering approximation for measuring "information scent," and it is closely related theoretically to the information foraging model of information scent and associated automated website usability tools developed at Xerox PARC. The model has important advantages for usability engineering, because it can simulate very diverse users -- users that differ in information search goals, reading comprehension levels, experience with Web navigation and other forms of information technology, background knowledge of the content of a website, and cultural models.
April, 11th 2001:
Director
Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work
Out of sight, short of trust: Creating shared expectations in geographically distributed software development teams
Abstract: The unpredictability of software development and the tightly coupled nature of individual developer activities impose great demands for continuous mutual adjustment and ad hoc solutions. In these circumstances, the weak role of formal coordination suggests that compensatory mechanisms, particularly individual trust, are crucial for successful coordination. This talk investigates the differences in levels of trust toward co-workers who are local versus those who are remote, reflecting the increasing practice of geographically distributed software development. Trust was measured by questionnaire items based on McAllister (1995) and on Pearce, Branyiczki, and Bakacsi (1994). Results from analysis of survey responses from 92 software developers within a unit of Lucent Technologies showed that local co-workers were trusted more than remote co-workers. Further, correlates of trust in a multiple regression model were cohesiveness, degree of shared agreement about work plans, and frequency of non-work communication. These findings are consistent with a cognitive view of trust where feelings of trust stem from common beliefs and expectations. Recommendations for increasing trust in geographically distributed teams are framed in terms of actions that will enhance common beliefs and expectations, such as liaison employees who can translate between local and remote workers and communication that encourages multivalent ties.
March, 14th 2001:
Usability Specialist
Argus Associates
STRESS-TEST your favorite, or least favorite website
Abstract: Keith will lead a discussion about web navigation. If you have a particular site, navigation style, or specific web navigation element that you want to talk about, submit it to Keith ahead of time using the format below. You can show off something you designed, show us your favorite navigation styles, or sites that have navigation that drive you crazy.
Keith will provide a framework for the discussion by presenting his navigation stress test and providing overviews of global, local, contextual and breadcrumb navigation.
After the introductory material, Keith will select some of the submitted entries for the intelligent and opinionated minds of MOCHI to talk about. (You must be present to have your submission discussed.)
TO SUBMIT navigation for discussion Send the following information before 10am 03/14 to:
instone@argus-inc.com
Describe (in a few sentences) what you are interested in discussing.
Possibilities include: a specific site's navigation, a style of navigation (like rollovers), or an element of navigation (like indicating where-am-I).
Please provide URL(s) as examples. (We need live, publicly accessible examples for the discussion.)
January, 10th 2001:
School of Information, Business Administration, and Psychology
The University of Michigan
Professor Paul Resnick
School of Information
The University of Michigan
Professor Michael Traugott
Communication
The University of Michigan
Design issues in voting: What hath Florida wrought?
Abstract: MOCHI presents a forum on the design of voting systems. The evening begins with a discussion of the usability issues surrounding the Palm Beach County, FL ballot in the presidential election of 2000. The audience will have a chance to critique several alternative designs. We move then to a discussion of more general design principles for ballots for all kinds of choices: partisan and non-partisan, one of many and several of many, and issues or propositions, as well as the devices people are to use to indicate their choices. We then end with a discussion of the ultimate goals of having people make choices that collectively end up in a winner, and what kinds of voting systems might be better than the one we currently use.
November, 8th 2000:
School of Information
The University of Michigan
What's going on out there? A look at what the big companies are doing about usability.
Abstract: Big companies are making good progress on incorporating usability as a key feature of their products. They employ significant numbers of "User Experience" people, as they are often called, and their product development life cycles have explicit checkpoints that include usability testing and related activities. From interviews at 10 companies, I will report on what I found--who the people are that are doing this, what do they do, and what successes have they had. The companies include: Nortel, AT&T, IBM, Sapient, Ameritech (before it was taken over by Southwestern Bell), USWest (before it became Qwest), Microsoft, Sun, eBay and Adobe. I will also share some of the resources that these companies shared with me-- a white paper, some articles, and a great website.
October, 11th 2000:
School of Information
The University of Michigan
Mini-Tutorial on Automated Text Summarization
Abstract: The aim of this tutorial is to familiarize participants with the state of the art in automated text summarization and to give a perspective on the current research frontier in this area. Text summarization is concerned with the extraction of the most salient information from a text document. This tutorial will cover the existing and emerging techniques for producing automated summaries of text. Such techniques are based on research in linguistics, statistics, and artificial intelligence.
September 13, 2000:
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department
The University of Michigan
Using Computational Models of Human Performance in User Interface Design
Abstract: Considerable progress has been made since 1983, when Card, Moran, & Newell proposed engineering models for user interface design and evaluation. Current modeling approaches are based not just on their original GOMS proposal, but also on computational architectures for human cognition and performance. These efforts are both developing the underlying science of user interfaces, and leading to practical tools that can substantially shorten the iterative design process for usable systems. In this talk I will summarize my recent work on applying such models to user interface design issues.
July 12, 2000:
School of Information
The University of Michigan
Beyond Bowling Together: SocioTechnical Capital
Abstract: SocioTechnical Capital refers to any productive social relations that could not be maintained without ongoing use of technology. It is thus a special case of the idea of Social Capital, which has gained currency in the social sciences over the last few years. It is an important special case, however. Reliance on technology and other features of modern lifestyles appear to be eroding more traditional forms of Social Capital, at least in the United States (Putnam 2000). But SocioTechnical Capital may, in some cases, be even more productive than other forms of Social Capital. The challenge for human-computer interaction researchers at the beginning of this new milennium is to understand what new kinds of productive social relations are possible and to invent technologies that encourage the development of those productive social relations.
June 14, 2000:
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department
The University of Michigan
Building Intelligent Synthetic Characters for Computer Games
Abstract: Synthetic characters in computer games usually fall short of human players, struggling to exhibit even a modicum of intelligence. However, progress is being made. Characters in recent games have progressed to include limited forms of situation-based reasoning, communication, and cooperation. The continued improvement in the intelligence of synthetic characters should lead to significant improvements in game play as well as new gaming experiences. Our work in developing characters for computer games using the Soar architecture tries to push even further to human-like behavior. In this talk, I'll review our research on Soar, an architecture for building AI systems and psychological models of human behavior. I'll also briefly describe our development of TacAir-Soar, a real-time expert system that flies U.S. military air missions in simulation, and that is used for training in the U.S. Air Force. Our experience building TacAir-Soar is now being applied to building human-like synthetic characters for computer games, which include Descent 3 and Quake II. The Soar Quakebot creates and uses internal maps of its environment and attempts to anticipate the actions of opponents via internal projective modeling. Two hypotheses underlying this talk are that AI architectures such as Soar can greatly improve the cognitive capabilities of synthetic characters and speed development using modest computational resources; and that computer games provide a challenging (and cool) environment for research in AI.
May 10, 2000:
MOCHI President
Co-founder of Diamond Bullet Design
Ann Arbor, MI
Writing for the Web
Abstract: In the midst of a media revolution, the written word still reigns supreme. The meat and the message of a website is in the prose. How is writing for the web any different from traditional writing and how is it the same? We'll look at the few empirical studies that have been done and what they don't yet tell us. Then we'll rummage through communication blunders past and present, examining the latest guiding principles in website design and the misbegotten principles we've abandoned. Much of this talk is drawn from a book on web usability currently being written with Darren Gergle and Scott Wood.
April 12, 2000:
Slashdot and the Open Source Software Community
Abstract: Slashdot (www.slashdot.org) is the largest online community for open source developers, providing news, commentary, information and reviews. Although closely associated with Linux and the open source community, Slashdot also covers a wide range of content falling under the general category of "News for nerds".
March 8, 2000:
Manager, Social Computing
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Yorktown Heights, NY
Supporting Collaborative Work with Socially Translucent Systems
Abstract: People and organizations increasingly expect to be able to carry out work assignments with key team members who are remote, or, indeed, with completely distributed teams. Although remote work will always present challenges, we would like to know how technology can best be employed to support collaborative work now, and what novel technologies might be advantageous to create in the future. In this talk I will review research on computer-mediated collaboration and barriers to remote work, and describe our own approach to supporting workgroup collaboration by making people and their activities visible to one another, a characteristic of systems that we call social translucence. Our goal is to create computer-mediated collaboration environments that blend synchronous and asynchronous interaction, work and social talk, structured and unstructured activities, and private and public discourse. We hope to provide a digital substrate upon which knowledge communities can grow, where "discoursebases," rather than databases, provide a medium for people to develop, share, and reuse experiences and knowledge, and watch others do the same.
February 9, 2000:
Assistant Professor
College of Computing and GVU Center
Georgia Tech
Classroom 2000: Examining ubiquitous computing and automated capture and access in a living laboratory
Abstract: Since July of 1995, we have been working on a project entitled Classroom 2000. In Classroom 2000, we are trying to see how automated support for the capture of and access to live lecture experiences influences the teaching and learning experience. In the past 4 years we have gained a lot of experience instrumenting an environment and developing the software infrastructure to automate live lecture capture and produce useful interfaces to access the classroom experience. Our experience has led to an unprecedented long-term experimentation and evaluation with a ubiquitous computing research project. In this presentation, we will give an historical account of the Classroom 2000 project, summarize results of our evaluations and give some insight into the general catpure and access problem as it applies to education and other relevant domains.
About the speaker: Gregory D. Abowd is an Assistant Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include software engineering for interactive systems, with particular focus on future computing environments which emphasize mobile and ubiquitous computing applications. He leads the Future Computing Environments (FCE) Group, focussed on the development of prototype future computing environments which emphasize ubiquitous and mobile computing technology for everyday uses.
Dr. Abowd received a BS in Mathematics from the University of Notre Damein 1986 and the degrees of M.Sc. (1987) and D.Phil. (1991) in Computation from the University of Oxford, where he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Before coming to Georgia Tech in 1994, Dr. Abowd held post-doctoral positions with the Human-Computer Interaction group at the University of York in England and with the Software Engineering Institute and Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University.
January 12, 2000
We now have the PowerPoint presentation available online for download from Judy Olson's talk. Check it out!
Wednesday, January 12, 1999
7 pm -- 9 pm
Ehrlicher Room, School of Information
4th Floor of West Hall
550 East University
Ann Arbor, MI
Welcome back from the holidays everyone! This month's program is a special usability tutorial and workshop session led by Judy Olson. The tutorial will present a number of methods for assessing usability before you do user testing, usability assessments that don't involve users directly. Judy has been doing research in human-computer interaction since the last millenium (since the early 80’s to be specific), building on her ten years of more basic research in cognitive psychology before that. In the early 1980’s, Judy was a manager of a usability/design group at Bell Labs. Since returning to the University, she has been consulting on issues of design for usability and usefulness with companies including Intel, IBM, Ford, AT&T, EDS, Xerox, Sun, and Steelcase. She now teaches User Needs Analysis and Evaluation at the School of Information and does research on technology support for groups that work remotely.
This month we also have more than our usual amount of chapter business. The current MOCHI officers are coming to the ends of their terms of office. We'll be holding elections shortly (by email for members only) for the following positions: Chair, Vice Chair for Programs, Vice Chair for Publicity, Secretary and Treasurer. At this meeting we will collect names of people who would like to run or suggestions of who might like to run. Short descriptions of the four positions can be seen by clicking on the "contact us" link on the MOCHI Web site. Being an officer is a great way to become more connected to your professional community and to share your skills and knowledge with others.
Professor of Psychology
Professor of Information (School of Information)
Professor of Computer and Information Systems (Business School)
Assessing Usability without Users:
A tutorial on tests you can do before you do a usability test
Abstract:We all know that in order to insure that a piece of software or a web site is useful and usable, you have to conduct a usability test. But there are, in addition, other methods that reveal usability issues that don't require real users. By assessing the software/site with these methods early, you can insure that you are spending your expensive user testing budget on a "pretty good" application or site. In this session, we'll teach the various methods and then try out a few in small groups. We'll try them out on the address book feature of the Palm, so if you have a Palm (any kind), bring it.
About the speaker: Judith S. Olson is Professor in the School of Information, a Professor of Computer and Information Systems in the Business School, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. in 1965 in Psychology from Northwestern University, then her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology in 1969 from the University of Michigan. After a Post Doctoral Fellowship at Stanford in 1969-70, she returned to the University of Michigan as an Assistant then Associate Professor of Psychology. In 1980 she moved to Bell Laboratories in New Jersey to head up a group doing design of software to support both direct customer access to various telecommunications management services and to support operators in their work. In 1983, she returned to the University of Michigan, first in the Business School and Psychology. In 1996 she additionally became a charter member and Professor in the new School of Information.
From the time she went to Bell Laboratories, Judy has worked in Human Computer Interaction, specifically cognitive modeling and methods for making the design of usable software easier. More recently she and Gary have been working on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, studying group work both in the field and the laboratory. They are both founders of the Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work (CREW), a multidisciplinary research organization studying a number of kinds of group work and technologies to support them.
December 8, 1999:
We now have the book reviews from the MOCHI Book Garden available online for your perusal. Check it out!
Books! Food! Interesting people!
On Wednesday December 8, 7-9pm in the Ehrlicher Room (411 West Hall), School of Information, University of Michigan, MOCHI will be hosting a Book Garden! We need all of you to help us make it a success. We experimented with this last year and it was quite fun (and educational of course).
What we need from you:
Please bring a book or two that you think other MOCHI members would enjoy - the range of books is limited only by your enthusiasm! It could be a mainstream HCI-interest item, or something a little more tangential - it's up to you.
We'd also like you to write a paragraph or so to give people your opinion, or rationale for recommedation - just a brief summary to pique people's interest.
What we'll do:
We'll display the books and reviews, and then spend the evening perusing, munching, chatting, getting to know each other.
After the Book Garden, we'll post the reviews of all of our books on the MOCHI website. It will also serve as a nice reference for our members - so we call all run to (or click on) the bookstores before the holidays.
This meeting, in particular, depends on you for its success - please come and bring a book (or two)!
There's more:
Concurrent with the book garden, we will also have a viewing of the Don Norman video. If you missed his talk in November here's your chance. Please join us for an evening of food, fun, great books and Don Norman's encore. See you there!
November 10, 1999:
MOCHI is pleased to announce that human-computer interaction luminary Donald A. Norman will be the invited speaker at its November meeting. This meeting represents a rare opportunity to hear and speak with one of the world's most influential and highly regarded advocates of user-centered design. All are welcome to attend this exciting free presentation, co-sponsored by MOCHI and the SI Students' Speakers Committe. See below for more details:
Abstract: Imagine a university where the emphasis is on teaching. Imagine a university where there is a distinction between those who define and develop the content, those who assemble it, and those who instruct it. Imagine a university open 24 hours a day, all across the world to people who are employed or otherwise unable to attend a location-based university full time. And imagine a university that caters to the remaining two-thirds of a person's life -- the life that exists after the traditional period of study at traditional universities.
- What role does technology play? (It makes it possible.)
- Does technology magically improve the quality of education? (Of course not.)
- Doesn't the on-line university neglect the critical nature of social interaction between student and student, between student and instructor? (Yes, but the alternative for most people is no education at all.)
- Don't you have to teach very differently when the education is done at a distance? (Yes you do.)
About the speaker: Don Norman is Professor Emeritus (Cognitive Science) at the University of California, San Diego, former Vice President of the Advanced Technology Group of Apple Computer and an executive at Hewlett-Packard. He is well-known as the author of "The Psychology of Everyday Things," "Things That Make Us Smart" and most recently, "The Invisible Computer," a book that Business Week has called "the bible of 'post PC' thinking." Don Norman calls himself a "user advocate." Business Week calls him a "cantankerous visionary" -- cantankerous in his quest for excellence. Dr. Norman is currently President of Learning Systems, a division of Unext.com, a distance education company located just north of Chicago. He is also cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services. In this role, he serves on the advisory boards of numerous companies.
October 13, 1999:
Speaker Stephanie Rosenbaum, founder and president of Tec-Ed, Inc., will present on, "Iterative Usability Research Methods: Why Testing Isn't Enough."
Abstract: Iterative usability studies - as part of iterative design and development - make a major contribution to achieving successful products. Most iterative usability programs follow two models that have been justifiably successful: exploratory usability testing and heuristic evaluation. Exploratory usability testing is so frequently performed that many organizations fail to take advantage of other usability methods. Usability research is in peril of becoming a usability testing "commodity." Instead, we should assess the trade-offs among different methods, so that our organizations can make informed decisions about where, when, and how to spend resources on usability research. We will discuss how to choose different usability methods for iterative research. We will discuss case studies of iterative usability research. Then, in a group discussion, we will raise and address issues of the tradeoffs, concerns, and challenges of trying to achieve effective iterative usability research. If we want usability research to have a greater strategic impact within organizations, then we must build programs involving a "toolkit" of methods.
About the speaker: Stephanie Rosenbaum is founder and president of Tec-Ed, Inc. She regularly delivers tutorials, workshops, and presentations on product and documentation usability for the Usability Professionals' Association, ACM SIGCHI, and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, as well as for companies such as Sun Microsystems and Federal Express.
An STC Fellow, Stephanie heads the STC's Research Grants Committee and serves on the Administrative Council of the IEEE Professional Communication Society. Stephanie holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MA in the philosophy of language from the University of California at Berkeley. Her research background includes anthropology studies at Columbia University and experimental psychology research for the University of California at Berkeley.
September, 1999:
Speakers Judy Dean and John Cady of ITD will co-present their talk, "The Functional Web: User Testing Your Site"
Abstract: If you've recently re-engineered your Web site or even just given it a fresh look, you probably think your users are enjoying the fruits of your labors. But are they? We put our content-rich information technology site to the test recently by sending members of our campus community on a "scavenger hunt" for some of our most frequently requested Web-based information. In doing so, we discovered firsthand dozens of usability problems concerning content organization, navigation, naming conventions and more. The good news was that our testing led to many improvements that were both easy to make and resulted in faster and more intuitive information retrieval for our users. In this session, we'll review our process and talk about how to plan, conduct, and evaluate observation-based user testing, as well as how to build this important component into ongoing Web projects.
August, 1999:
There will not be an August MOCHI meeting. See you in September!
July 14, 1999:
This month's MOCHI meeting will feature a presentation by Prof. George Furnas of the UM School of Information. A principal focus of his research is human computer interaction, specializing in areas related to information access and visualization. He has also published work in multivariate statistics and graphical reasoning. Please join us in welcoming a most interesting and provacative speaker to our meeting.
"Can We Enrich Interaction Space with Visually Rich Computation?"
Abstract: "Despite the tremendous rise of visual representations at the surface of human interaction with computers, most of the underlying computation is still sentential - based on traditional string languages. There are a number of dramatic but largely overlooked consequences of this. Our computational environments are confined to a restricted set of graphical forms, behaviors, interactions, algorithms and problems - namely those with simple sentential expression. A couple of graduate students and I are beginning research on a new NSF grant aimed at enriching the interactive human computational environment using computation with spatially dense, non-sentential representations. We are seeking new forms, behaviors, interactions, algorithms and problems, the development of new interaction paradigms built on those, and the construction of new sorts of applications. The research includes the development of better computational infrastructure implementing one particular non-sentential computational paradigm (called BITPICT), and any needed relevant theory. The goal is to explore such interaction concepts as field-based graphics, painterly ubi-active environments and shape based input, with possible applications in areas like interactive image analysis, robot motion planning, interactive weather or physics simulation, new analysis techniques for 2D simulation results, less-crisp representations for early-stage design, and new sorts of games."
About the speaker: George Furnas earned his AB degree from Harvard and his PhD from Stanford, both in Cognitive Psychology. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1995 as a Professor in the School of Information, with additional appointments in Comptuer Science and Psychology. He came to Michigan following 15 years in research at Bell Labs and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), where he was Director of Computer Graphics and Interactive Media research in the Computer Science Research Department. Some of his specific research contributions include work on statistical semantics, adaptive indexing, latent semantic indexing, generalized fisheye views, purely graphical deduction systems, the prosection method for high dimensional visualization, multitrees, space-scale diagrams and information navigation.
June 9, 1999:
This month's meeting will feature an informal discussion of the recent CHI 99 conference. Themed "The CHI is the Limit," the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems was held from May 15-20, 1999 in Pittsburgh, PA. (See http://www1.acm.org/sigchi/chi99/index.html for more information.)
The organizers of CHI 99 have rightly identified the interaction of user and system as the limiting factor for many information technologies in many contexts. CHI 99 focused on identifying issues of the practical and theoretical limits of computer-human interaction. As the leading international forum for the exchange of ideas and information about human-computer interaction (HCI), the annual CHI conference is the event of the year for many MOCHI members.
Whether or not you were able to attend CHI 99, please join us for an open discussion of conference highlights and other notable outcomes from this year's event. Which speakers and topics did you like best? What was good, interesting, useful to you? What struck you as the keys ideas emerging from the program? All this and more will be valuable input for those of us who were unable to attend, or just unable to attend all of the sessions.
May 12, 1999:
This meeting will feature Stephen Markel of Diamond Bullet Design speaking on "Getting Usability Accepted."
Abstract: This talk will take the form of a formal presentation as given to IBAA Bankcard and Equifax E-banking Solution customers, with a focus on how Diamond Bullet Design markets the idea of usability. The presentation includes how marketing and usability are shown to provide return on investment and how to effectively market internet banking. Following the presentation is a discussion of the usability methods Diamond Bullet used in the development of the E-banking product and the methods of selling usability to financial institution.
Stephen Markel is Diamond Bullet Design's director of sales and marketing. He has 11 years experience in media production and distribution as an independent producer and sales executive. He has a degree in film and video studies from the University of Michigan Honors College and a master's degree from Michigan's School of Information. For more about Diamond Bullet visit the company Web site at http://diamondbullet.com/.
April 14, 1999:
This month's MOCHI meeting will start with updates and a discussion of chapter business followed by a presentation by Loretta Staples of the UM School of Art and Design. Please join us in welcoming this high-caliber graphic artist, interface designer and entrepreneur as she presents: "What Graphic Design Affords".
Abstract: While graphic design is a recognized contributor to software usability through "improved appearance," those appearances run deep. Professional graphic design operates at a number of different levels, referencing history and culture to challenge (or conversely uphold) visual norms. In so doing, it helps stimulate and sustain patterns of affiliation between audiences, clients, cultures, products, and markets. This talk will focus on the many ways graphic design contributes to usability, innovation, and visual culture.
Loretta Staples has worked as a graphic, exhibit, and interaction designer in a variety of settings, including a period as an interface designer for Apple Computer. She was owner, president, and director of design of her own interface design company, U dot I, Inc., in San Francisco from 1992-1996, where her work focused on specialized applications, conceptual models, and prototypes for emerging technologies. U dot I's clients included Apple Computer, Northern Telecom, Paramount, Sony, and Stanford University. Loretta joined the faculty of the UM School of Art and Design in 1996.
Most recently, she has been focusing on dimensional typography in cyberspace.
March 10, 1999:
This month we are delighted to announce that Mary Czerwinski of Microsoft will be our invited speaker. Please join us for a rare opportunity to hear this well-known interface specialist speak on "3D User Interfaces for Enhanced Document Organization and Memory"
Abstract: Effective management of documents on computers has been a central user interface problem for many years. One common approach to this problem involves using 2D spatial layouts of icons representing the documents, particularly for information workspace tasks. This approach takes advantage of human 2D spatial cognition. More recently, several 3D spatial layouts have attempted to leverage spatial cognition in 3D virtual environments. However, there has been little evidence to date that spatial memory works the same way in 3D virtual environments as it does in the real world. I will describe a few new techniques for document management, which allow users to place documents at arbitrary positions in a 3D desktop virtual environment, often using simple 2D interaction techniques. I will also discuss how the designs evolved in response to user feedback, and include studies that demonstrate that these 3D environments do take advantage of spatial memory. In addition, I will present evidence which demonstrates that these 3D environments are reliably more usable than their extant, 2D counterparts
February 10, 1999:
This month we welcome infopreneur Lou Rosenfeld, President of Argus Associates, an Ann Arbor-based information architecture design firm with a national clientele and co-author of "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web" (O'Reilly, 1998). Rosenfeld's presentation is entitled "Information Architecture".
Abstract: It's no secret that finding information you need on a Web site or intranet is much harder than it should be. Or is it? If we assume that Webmasters aren't buffoons who don't care a whit about users' needs, then why don't sites perform better? A major cause is that many sites have poorly designed (or unplanned) information architectures. In the Web context, an information architecture should optimize systems for organizing, searching, labeling, and indexing content so that users can browse and search effectively. This presentation will provide an overview and examples of information architecture; time allowing, we will also review case studies, discuss relationships to LIS, human factors, and other fields, and share a very open and interactive dialog.
January 13, 1999:
Invited speaker Elliot Soloway is a renowned researcher in Human Computer Interaction, contributing exciting research to issues in computer supported learning environments. He is a very engaging speaker, someone you will remember once you hear him. This month he will give a presentation called "Learner-Centered Design: It's More than User-Centered Design".
Abstract: Learners are not just short users; they have unique needs that users typically don't (they do, but that's another argument). For example, learners learn; they change over time. Now, how does one design interfaces that also change? In my presentation, I will review our efforts at constructing a theory of Learner-Centered Design and our efforts at creating instances of interfaces that are LC designed.
We now have the book reviews from the MOCHI Book Garden available online for your perusal. Check it out! December 9, 1998:
This month we are holding a book garden. Members are asked to bring copies of favorite books they believe will be interesting to other HCI enthusiasts, along with a brief review of their books to share with others. This book garden event is the second formal meeting of MOCHI, the new Southeastern Michigan and Northern Ohio local chapter of SIGCHI. Refreshments will be served.
November 11, 1998:
This meeting will include the business of setting up the new local SIGCHI chapter, including discussion of the group name, chapter bylaws, and the naming of officers. The meeting will also include a presentation by Nathaniel Borenstein, visiting research scientist at SI, speaking on "User-Friendly Linux: Oxymoron or Myth?"
Abstract: This talk will cover the larger forces of commerce and ideology that shape the Linux movement and why the Linux user interface is so bad. This will be followed by an open discussion of what can be done to improve things.
October 7, 1998:
The School of Information will sponsor this meeting to determine interest in organizing a new local chapter of ACM SIGCHI in order to provide a professional identity for the many human-computer interaction professionals, students and faculty at SI, UM, and the wider geographic region. All interested persons from are invited to attend.
