Université Paris-Sud is opening a new International Masters in HCI in Fall 2011, taught in English with students from around the world.

Université Paris-Sud, on the outskirts of Paris, France, is opening a new International Masters program in Human-Computer Interaction this fall. All courses are taught in English, and the program includes a language class, either French as a second language for non-francophones or English as a second language for francophones. Details of the curriculum are available at at http://hci-masters.org .

We are opening the second year of this 2-year Masters in the fall. North American students with qualified 4-year undergraduate degrees can go directly into the second year. Tuition in France is very inexpensive: 600 euros covers tuition and medical insurance for the full year.

The program is associated with world-class research laboratories in Human-Computer Interaction, including InSitu (http://insitu.lri.fr), AVIZ (http://www.aviz.fr) and VENISE (http://www.limsi.fr/Scientifique/venise/). These and other labs can host students for their Masters thesis research during the second semester.

If you are interested, please send a letter of motivation, a CV, and a copy of your most recent grades to hcimasters@gmail.com by August 1st. If you qualify, you will be directed to the formal registration procedure.

http://blog.privcom.gc.ca/index.php/2011/03/29/insights-on-privacy-adam-greenfield-and-aza-raskin/

What: Tech innovators Adam Greenfield (@agpublic) and Aza Raskin (@azaaza) will explore opportunities for privacy in the design of intimate devices, like smart phones, that we share our lives with every day, to the sensor-rich landscape that’s upon us. We’ll discuss opportunities for companies to empower individuals with greater choice and control over how their data are used and for greater collaboration within and across industry sectors.

Who: In his 2006 book Everyware, Adam Greenfield argued that we were headed for a world in which keeping the boundaries between different roles in our lives was going to prove untenable. That notion is coming to pass with the current debate over the public/private divide and the blurring of our various roles and reputations online. Adam was Nokia‘s head of design direction for user interface and services from 2008 to 2010 and Lead Information Architect at Razorfish Tokyo. His current projects through Urbanscale focus on improving how users experience technology, such as stored-value cards for public transit and many other “smart-city” initiatives.
Aza Raskin’s passion for improving the way we experience technology recently had him heading up user experience for Mozilla, developer of the popular Firefox browser, where he rethought and simplified conventional approaches to privacy policies. Raskin left Mozilla in late 2010 to launch the start-up Massive Health, with the goal of helping people improve control of their health through innovatively designed technology and the ways we interact with it.

When: Wednesday, April 20, 2011; 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Where: Minto Suites Hotel, 185 Lyon Street North, 2nd Floor, Salon Vanier/Stanley

How: RSVP to knowledge.savoir@priv.gc.ca before April 15, 2011. Space is limited and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you want help forming a team, post a comment here and we will see if we can bring people together. Voting starts on January 4, 2011.

More details can be found at http://www.ottawa.ca/home_page_feeds/features/open_data_en.html

The City of Ottawa is running its first public contest to develop apps from open data and is inviting residents from all over to participate both in creating new apps or voting on their favourites.

The goal of the contest is to encourage entrepreneurs, agencies, students, IT professionals and others to create innovative new apps that use open data to improve community experience, stimulate economic growth and engage residents in municipal government.

Our last session of the season will begin with our Annual General Meeting in which we briefly reviewed the activities and finances from this year, and make plans for next year (including election to the Officers). CapCHI is looking for new volunteers! We need people to recruit interesting speakers, organize events, and even shop for cookies. If you want to get involved, come to this meeting and/or send email to andrew@capchi.org.

The Design Challenge is a special event in which 3 or 4 design teams work for a short time on an interaction design challenge in real time, in a competitive and fun format. It provides the participating teams with the opportunity to contribute to the CapCHI community, as well as an opportunity to show off their design process and skills in an event that is sure to draw a big audience and generate a buzz! The session will be entertaining and educational, demonstrating ‘live’ some of the less tangible aspects of team design processes, as well as the more formal elements. For more information on the Design Challenge, contact michelle@capchi.org

When and Where:

This event will take place on Thursday, June 24, 6:00pm at The Clocktower Brew Pub, 575 Bank Street (just south of the Queensway/Hwy 417), in the downstairs room.

Note: there is no cost for attending this event and prior registration is not required.

Who:

CapCHI is a social and professional society of people who work as user interface designers, researchers, educators, software developers, web designers, graphic designers and human factors engineers in and around Canada’s National Capital Region. Founded in 1991, CapCHI’s goal is to bring together local professionals interested in how humans and computers interact, in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

CHIlights will feature highlights from the CHI 2010 conference and other conferences. Members from the CapCHI community will present their own personal views of recent HCI-related conferences, including highlights, lowlights, trends, observations and photos.

CHIstuds will feature brief presentations highlighting student projects and research from the past year. Speakers will include Elizabeth Stobert, a recipient of our Student Research Travel Supplement. The speakers for this evening will be as follows…

• Alain Forget: Shoulder-Surfing Resistance with Eye-Gaze Entry in Click-Based Graphical Passwords
• Aren Hunter: Recovering Dynamic Objects after Interruptions
• Stephanie Pineau: Visual Attributes Contributing to Web Page Appeal
• Patrick Noonan: Deriving User Requirements for an CBRNE Emergency Support System
• Elizabeth Stobert: Usability and Strength in Click-based Graphical Passwords

When and Where:

This event will take place on Tuesday, May 18, 6:00pm at TheCodeFactory, located at 246 Queen Street, between Bank and Kent, (on the second floor) above the Green Papaya Restaurant.

Note: there is no cost for attending this event and prior registration is not required. Light snacks and refreshments will be served. An informal social gathering will follow at a nearby pub.

Who:

CapCHI is a social and professional society of people who work as user interface designers, researchers, educators, software developers, web designers, graphic designers and human factors engineers in and around Canada’s National Capital Region. Founded in 1991, CapCHI’s goal is to bring together local professionals interested in how humans and computers interact, in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

The Student Research Competition is a forum for undergraduates and graduate students to share their research results, exchange ideas, and improve their communication skills while competing for prizes at CHI 2010.

Students submit a short (6 pages max.) paper describing their research. Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of experts, and evaluated based on

• Quality of work
• Novelty of approach
• Significance of the contribution to the field of HCI
• Clarity of written presentation

Up to twenty-five students (15 undergraduate and 10 graduate) will be chosen to participate in the competition at CHI 2008.

Students accepted to the competition are entitled to a travel grant covering expenses for travel to CHI, including conference registration, transportation, lodging, and meals, up to a limit of US$500. Students must be members of ACM to qualify for these awards.

For any Ottawa-area students who are chosen to participate in the competition in Atlanta, CapCHI will award and additional CAN$500 travel grant (one student per paper) towards incurred expenses.

At the CHI 2010 conference, students will be competing for cash prices of US$500, US$300, and US$200 for first, second, and third place (separate categories for undergraduate and graduate students).

More information on the competition can be found at

http://www.chi2010.org/authors/cfp-src.html

Abstract:
Even before Microsoft announced the Surface system in 2007, the Human-Computer Interaction community was actively researching digital tabletop technologies since Pierre Wellner proposed the DigitalDesk in 1991. Yet only very recent and emerging hardware and software advances have begun to make digital tabletops a feasible technology for real-world markets. Innovations in operating systems (e.g. Microsoft 7), development environments (e.g. Windows Presentation Foundation), and input technologies (e.g. FTIR and TouchCo “multitouch” technologies) are enabling a move beyond proof-of-concept tabletop systems, beyond demonstrations of simple applications that show new interface metaphors and interaction techniques for manipulating and sharing digital photos. Though we are still a few years away from consumer-grade interactive tabletop systems being sold at Best Buy, more specialized markets are emerging and early-adopter markets are on the horizon. This talk will overview some of the digital tabletop research being conducted in the Collaborative Systems Laboratory at the University of Waterloo in two specific application areas: military command and control operations, and digital board gaming.

Speaker Bio:
Stacey D. Scott, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Human Systems Engineering in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, ON, Canada. Dr. Scott received her Ph.D. in Computer Science (specializing in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Collaboration) from the University of Calgary in 2005. She received her B.Sc. in Computing Science and Mathematics from Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS) in 1997. She completed two years of postdoctoral studies in the Humans and Automation Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA, USA) from 2005-2007, where she developed awareness technologies to facilitate collaborative decision-making in time-critical military command and control operations. Dr. Scott’s graduate research focused on understanding collaborative tabletop work practices with traditional media and developing interface design requirements for digital tabletop platforms. She is now combining this previous
theoretical and high-level requirements work with the applied research experience gained in her postdoc to pursue the development of digital tabletop systems that support real-world collaboration in complex task domains. In general, her research interests include computer-supported collaboration, large-screen displays, interface and interaction design, and information visualization.

When and Where:

This event will take place on Tuesday Dec 15th, 2009, 6:00pm at TheCodeFactory, located at 246 Queen Street, between Bank and Kent, (on the second floor) above the Green Papaya Restaurant.

Note: there is no cost for attending this event and prior registration is not required. Light snacks and refreshments will be served. An informal social gathering will follow at a nearby pub.

Date: Tuesday Nov. 17, 2009
Time: 6:00pm
Place: TheCodeFactory, 246 Queen St., Ottawa

Abstract
Secure socket layer (SSL) certificates have been deployed to provide security for web-based transactions, which allow information to be transmitted securely as well as provide information about the party a user is transacting with. There has been a loss of confidence in the security provided by SSL certificates and browser interfaces in the face of various attacks. As one response, Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates have been proposed, which are intended to restore confidence among users that a website operator is legitimate. Unfortunately, EV SSL certificates may complicate the already difficult design challenge of effectively conveying certificate information to the average user. This talk describes a user study that explored the interfaces related to SSL certificates in the most widely deployed browser (Internet Explorer 7), proposed an alternative set of interface dialogs, and compared their effectiveness through a user study involving 40 participants. The alternative interface was found to offer statistically significant improvements in confidence, ease of finding information, and ease of understanding. Such results from a modest re-design effort suggest considerable room for improvement in the user interfaces of browsers today. This work motivates further study of whether EV SSL certificates offer a robust foundation for improving Internet trust, or a further compromise to usable security for ordinary users.

Biography
Tara Whalen is a post-doctoral research associate at Carleton University, who received her PhD in the human factors of security in 2008 at Dalhousie University. She previously worked in network security at the Communications Research Centre Canada. Her current research interests include usable security, privacy, and the social implications of technology.

When and Where:

This event will take place on Tuesday Nov. 17, 6:00pm at TheCodeFactory, located at 246 Queen Street, between Bank and Kent, (on the second floor) above the Green Papaya Restaurant.

Note: there is no cost for attending this event and prior registration is not required. Light snacks and refreshments will be served. An informal social gathering will follow at a nearby pub.

Graphics Interface 2010 will have joint sessions for the graphics and HCI tracks. Topics of interest at GI include (but are not restricted to):

* Shading and rendering
* Geometric modeling and meshing
* Graphics in simulation
* Image-based rendering
* Image synthesis and realism
* Medical and scientific visualization
* Computer animation
* Real-time rendering
* Non-photorealistic rendering
* Interaction techniques
* Computer-supported cooperative work
* Human interface devices
* Virtual reality
* Augmented reality
* Data and information visualization
* Multimedia
* Mobile computing
* Haptic and tangible interfaces
* Affective interfaces
* Aesthetic design
* Perception

Paper submissions are due December 16, 2009.

Posters are due April 21, 2010.

Time and Date: Thursday Nov. 12, 2009, 5:30-7:30pm

Location: The Code Factory, 246 Queen St., 2nd Floor, Ottawa

Organizers: Macadamian, Akendi, CapCHI

The global theme for World Usability Day 2009 is how our products and services impact our world. Let World Usability Day 2009 be your impetus to create greater awareness for designs, products and services that improve the sustainability of our world.

The Ottawa World Usability event will feature local experts in the area of designing for a sustainable world. The keynote presentation will be given by David Berman, author of Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World: “In this lively presentation, design expert David Berman discusses the power and effectiveness of good design, and therefore the need to incorporate notions of social responsibility into design principles. Berman is a Canadian communications strategist, designer and author, and a vice-president of Icograda, the world body for graphic design.

Presentations will also be made by:

Natasha Wilson, Director, Community Relations, Ottawa Riverkeeper. The Ottawa Riverkeeper takes action to defend the Ottawa River and to influence decisions that affect the health and future of the river. Natasha will discuss the design challenges involved in bringing municipal water to the 2009 Ottawa Folk Festival in lieu of environmentally unsustainable plastic water bottles.

Kevin Bailey, President, Neal Cowan, Director of Design, Design 1st. Kevin and Neal will examine the balance between Product Design and Mechanical Engineering in sustainability-related product decisions using real life product development examples. The presentation will be an interactive discussion on sustainable thinking within the framework of a several real product developments. Design 1st was founded in 1996 and the team is hired by companies developing new products in medical, retail, commercial and communications markets.

Snacks and drinks provided, and a trip to a local pub will follow the event.

No Cost: There is no cost for this event.

WAITING LIST: We have reached room capacity and have created a waiting list for this event. Please register at http://world-usability-day-ottawa-2009.eventbrite.com/