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.

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.

By Master of Ceremonies, Michelle Gauthier, CAE Professional Services

The Background

An eager local CHI community gathered on June 17th, 2010, for an Interactionary event held by CapCHI. Four brave teams arrived to tackle a design problem within an insane time constraint, all the while working together in front of a live audience. Held at the Clocktower Pub on Bank St., this was a fun and interactive event that required participation not only from the teams but from the audience as well. The Interactionary was so successful that due to overwhelming popular demand, the event will surely become an annual occurrence!

The Teams

Team UCDC: The “Unbelievable Creative Designers Collaborating” (UCDC) of Macadamian were a powerful team of seven; Amit (The Anvil) Tungare, Barbara (The Bruiser) Spanton, Carley (The Claw) Treen, Ed (The Eraser) Sarfeld, Francis (The Fracture) Beaudet, Meaghan (The Mauler) Reinecke.

Team ACDC: From Carleton University representing Industrial Design and Engineering, this team of four flamboyant students was composed up of the following members; Anneliis “LiveWire” Tosine, Chris “Problem Child” Koser, Diana “Money Talks” Isaza-Shelton and the team captain, Catherine ”Thunderstruck” Campbell.

Team Use This!: Another group of students from Carleton University’s HOTlab, while the smallest team of the evening, don’t let their size fool you, they packed a big punch! They were represented by Seneca Brandeezy fo Sheezy, Lana “Left Eye” Lodge and team captain, Adam “LL Cool A” Freed.

Team IBM (I Build Mockups): And last, but not least, representing the IBM user experience team, come four experienced and crafty designers; Ron-”The-Builder” Gagnier, Danny “Handy Manny” Lee, Susan “The-Toolman” McIntyre, and last but not least, Steve “Heidi” Macko.

The Format

Following an entertaining and musical introduction, three teams were sequestered out of earshot and eyesight in the main dining area to enjoy some refreshments while one team was left to work on the design problem. Each team was presented the same problem (see Problem Statement below), with only 15 minutes to tackle it. They were given warnings with 5 minutes and 2 minutes remaining, and were given additional time to describe their solution to the audience. When each team completed its session, it was allowed to join the audience and encouraged to keep the heckling of other teams to a minimum!

The audience was tasked with scoring each team’s performance on the following dimensions:

• Teamwork
• Process
• The Design

Following all team presentations, the audience voted for the team that met one or all of the following winning categories:

• Most Creative Style
• Best Team Presentation
• Best Overall Team

The Problem Statement: “The Kitchen Recycling System”

The teams were provided with the following problem:

“The City of Ottawa requires that homeowners sort their garbage into various classes of recyclables.  This requires multiple containers, of different types, both inside the house and outside (because of snow and dirt).  It also requires that specific class of recyclables be collected on a rotating weekly schedule.

Your challenge is to design a kitchen recycling system that is effective, clean, easy to use, and promotes compliance.

The product priorities are:

• May use some disruptive technology (e.g., smart boxes, IP addressable appliance, RFID chip, GPS, weight indicators)
• Design for a single family home composed of a family of 5 (parents, young children and teenagers)
• Must comply with the collection schedule

The Teams, The Designs

The four teams all threw themselves wholeheartedly into the spirit of the event, each with their own ‘dress code’ and theme music. We also saw variations in approaches to the problem, which is probably the feature of Interactionaries that most contributes to discussion and learning.

Team UCDC: The first team to tackle the challenge, UCDC! at Macadamia were ruthlessly organized, arriving with pre-made whiteboards for each step of the design process, strictly designated designer roles and a hard-nosed team leader that enforced a disciplined time-boxed approach. This focused and experienced team surprised many at the amount of smooth progress they achieved in such a short time.

Team ACDC: With a very charismatic and colourful style, team ACDC tackled the design problem with flair and creativity. As Industrial Design and Engineering students, they evaluated many possible solutions. Definitely creative, they spilled out of the box on all sides and came up with a design solution that met all user needs.

Team Use This!: The baddest bunch of usability mofos on the block, team Use This! from the HOTlab applied the “nastiest” design approach of the evening. A relatively inexperienced team, they made up for their lack of experience by coming up with an innovative design solution.

Team IBM: Team I Build Mockups applied their solid tools and rigorous process to tackle the problem. Soliciting active participation from the audience, they captured and validated user needs and their design solutions. This experienced and skilled team applied their well-oiled process to craft an innovative design.

The Winners

Voting was a difficult task as each team tackled the problem with professionalism and charisma. Each team accumulated many votes, leaving the final tally a close count. The results of the tally determined a category winner for all teams!

• Style: Team ACDC
• Presentation: Team IBM (I Build Mockups)
• Overall: A tie! Team Use This! And Team UCDC.

Prizes included gift certificates for Chapters and imaginative trophies generously provided by the CapCHI executive committee. One large trophy will be designated with the winning overall teams – and will be used for future CapCHI Interactive events.

The Learning

To see other Interactionary events, or for information on how to run your own, see Scott Berkun’s excellent set of resources at http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/dsports/guide/.

Thank you!

I would like to give a huge “Thanks!” to all the people (and there were lots of you!) who put in so much effort, creativity, and a little bit of courage to make CapCHI’s Interactionary a success! It was evident that everyone had fun and also learned a lot.

Thanks also go out to CapCHI for organizing the venue, the people, the prizes, the materials, etc; to the audience for their active and enthusiastic participation, and – of course, the teams: Macadamian’s UCDC, the Industrial Design and Engineering Team ACDC, the HOTLab’s Team Use This!, and IBM’s I Build Mockups, who all threw themselves wholeheartedly into the spirit of the event.

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

ACM SIGCHI, our parent organization, is conducting a survey about local chapters and the people who participate in their events. Please read the following introduction letter and participate in the survey.

Hello SIGCHI Chapter Leaders and Members,

The SIGCHI Executive Committee is working to better meet the needs of its members, and especially local chapters. As part of that effort, we hope you will take a few minutes to complete a short survey.

Your feedback will help us better understand who you are and what your needs are.

Survey Link:
SIGCHI Local Chapters Survey, 2009

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Sincerely,

Nick Sabadosh, Vice President for Chapters, ACM/SIGCHI, sigchi-vp-chapters@acm.org
Elizabeth Churchill, Executive Vice President, ACM/SIGCHI, sigchi-executive-vp@acm.org

About IxDA
http://www.ixda.org/about.php

The Ottawa chapter is open for anyone to join by visiting

http://groups.google.com/group/ixda-ottawa?lnk=gcimh

The student application period is open until May 20 2009. The Season of Usability runs from June 1 to August 31 2009.

Student Requirements

* You must be an undergraduate or graduate level student enrolled at a College or University as of January 1 2009. (Recent graduates are eligible to apply)

* You must be a student of design, usability, human factors or other HCI-related major. Computer science and information systems students who are interested in applying must have had at least one course in human factors, user interface design, or human-computer interaction.

* Students from any country are eligible to apply; however, some English skills are necessary.

* You must be able to dedicate 10-15 hours a week to work on your project. This time requirement may vary from week to week depending on your project activities and responsibilities.

* After successful completion of your project and a satisfactory rating from your mentors, you will receive a $1000 USD stipend for your work.

* You are not required to have knowledge of a programming language, nor will there be programming requirements to the internship.

How to apply:

* Review the available projects and decide which project you would like to apply to.If you have any questions, please send them to students@openusability.org.

* Prepare a résumé or curriculum vitae with relevant education, work, and open source experience.

* Prepare a single page cover explaining why you would like to work with your chosen project.

* All materials must be submitted in Open Document Format (ODF) or Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF).

* Send your documents to students@openusability.org by May 20 2009. Please include the name of the project you are applying to in the email Subject.

* If you would like to apply to more than one project, please send separate application packages.

2009 Projects
* Amarok
* Drupal
* Gallery
* GeneMANIA
* GNOME
* Kadu
* KOrganizer
* OLM
* SemNotes
* Ubuntu

See the http://season.openusability.org/index.php/projects for more information on the projects and how to apply. Applications are due May 20 2009.

Questions about the projects or application process may be directed to students@openusability.org.

We would like to thank our sponsors, Google and Canonical, as well as our many mentoring organizations for making this Season of Usability possible.

Ellen Reitmayr
Season of Usability Organisation

http://season.openusability.org

www.openusability.org

For those of you who are not already ACM Professional Members, I wanted to let you know that ACM has a special offer for you to join. It includes a discount and a free gift. Their complete offer is below for your consideration.

As a Professional Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, you will have access to a host of career-enhancing benefits including:

• ACM’s newly re-launched flagship publication “Communications of the ACM”
• Discounts on ACM SIG conference registration
• Full access to over 3,000 online courses from SkillSoft
• Full access to 1,100 online books, including a large selection from Safari(R) featuring O’Reilly and many others
• Full access to ACM’s robust Career & Job Center
• Full member access to the new “Queue” website, “Queue” magazine, plus “Queuecasts” and more
• “TechNews” and “CareerNews” email digests
• ACM’s monthly electronic newsletter “MemberNet”
• The ACM Guide to Computing Literature with over one million bibliographic citations
• The option to subscribe to the full ACM Digital Library with unlimited access to all ACM journals, magazines, proceedings, and newsletters
• A free “acm.org” email forwarding address with high-quality Postini spam filtering

All this and much more by joining at:

http://www.acm.org/joinacm10.

Join ACM today, receive a 15% discount, and you will receive a Free ACM Flip-Top World Calculator!

Who would you like to see?

Or do you have an interesting topic you would like to present?

CapCHI meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 7:00pm at TheCodeFactory (246 Queen at Kent).

We have a small budget available to cover travel expenses.

Please send us your ideas by posting a comment here or sending email to announce@capchi.org.

Gord also talked about the importance of building task-focused web sites, and showed examples where key tasks are supported right on the home page (e.g., booking flights).

Given that this is Ottawa, Gord also spent a fair bit of time discussing Government of Canada sites, and the restrictions imposed by Common Look and Feel guidelines.

There was healthy discussion throughout the presentation, and it seemed to be a good time for everyone.

Were you there? If so, post a comment and tell us what you think.