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CapCHI Activities
Past Activities 2000-2001
- 2001/06/19 - Thesis Presentations from the Carleton University School of Architecture Masters Degree Program in Design and Technology; presentations by Amit Tugare and by Ash Randev
- 2001/06/01 - Understanding User's Work In Context: Practical Observation Skills, a CapCHI Tutorial presented by Susan Dray, Dray & Associates, Inc.
- 2001/05/14 - Supporting Casual Interaction between Intimate Collaborators, presented by Saul Greenberg, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary
- 2001/04/17 - Highlights of CHI 2001 "Anyone. Anywhere.", highlights of the annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
- 2001/03/21 - Buddy, can you spare the time? How technology affects the economy of attention, presented by Professor Warren Thorngate of the CURE Lab at Carleton University.
- 2001/02/27 - Introduction to XML, presented by Brian Thompson, of Nortel Networks
- 2001/01/18 - Interaction Environments - Conducting the Orchestra, presented by Gord Hopkins of Nortel Networks
- 2000/12/12 - Millennium Holiday Event Our annual holiday social & interactive gathering.
- 2000/11/15 - The state of HCI in Ottawa: How do we meet the need? panel discussion.
- 2000/10/19 - Smart Devices: HCI and Branding Opportunities presented by Allan Wille of Espial.
- 2000/09/14 - Trust: a two way street presented by Chris Locke.
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Thesis Presentations from the Carleton University School of Architecture
Masters Degree Program in Design and Technology
June 19, 2001 at Nortel Skyline
Our final CapCHI meeting of the season will feature presentations by two students who are graduating from the Carleton University School of Architecture Masters Degree Program in Design and Technology:
Le Corbusier's Principles in City Planning and their applications in
the development of Virtual City Environments
Presented by Amit Tungare
Amit Tungare will discuss his thesis in which he develops an approach to understanding the concept of 'Virtual City' by drawing information from the disciplines of architecture and city planning. Based on principles developed by some of the eminent thinkers and town planners for real world cities, the thesis attempts to conclude that principles of modern urban planning can form an effective strategy for the organization of information in virtual environments.
This exploration focuses on enhancing the user experience by creating a real time environment of a city on the screen. Le Corbusier's Chandigarh, the only realized city out of his many planned cities, is the main example of study. An interface that constitutes planning and design principles as applied to 'Virtual Chandigarh' will be presented.
Digital Media in Architecture-Engineering-Construction
Presented by Ash Randev
In Canada, the Architecture Engineering Construction (AEC) industry has lagged behind in the use of digital media in the design, construction and management of buildings. The application of new media technologies offers significant potential in rejuvenating AEC by making it more efficient and more competitive. Within this context, the intent in this thesis was to demonstrate that the range of digital technologies available for use within AEC extends beyond CADD or any single application. Instead, it includes the entire range of networked digital technologies that comprise electronic commerce for AEC.
Case Study: Government of Canada Building, Iqaluit, Nunavut Digital technologies were used extensively through all stages of this project - from the initial planning, public consultation and site selection process, through preliminary design and design development to construction and commissioning. This project also served as a pilot for on-line project management and delivery.
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Understanding User's Work In Context:
Practical Observation Skills
June 01, 2001 at Travelodge Hotel (Ottawa West)
Presented by Susan Dray, Dray & Associates, Inc. (This is a highly rated tutorial from CHI conferences)
About the Instructor
Susan Dray has a Ph.D. in Psychology and has worked as researcher, manager, and consultant in the design of technology at Honeywell and American Express, and as an independent consultant. She has published numerous articles on this and other relevant topics. She is a Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), and has been active in CHI since CHI 85.
She is the business column editor of Interactions magazine.
More information on Dray & Associates can be found at http://www.dray.com
About the Course
In this tutorial, participants learned how to plan for and carry out observations of users. Heavy emphasis was placed on practical steps for the designer that will lead to success. Participants practiced two types of observations (Naturalistic Observation and Contextual Inquiry).
What Participants Learned:
- Learned about Structured Observation techniques and how to use them;
- Learned three types of techniques: Naturalistic Observation, Contextual Inquiry, and Artifact Walkthroughs;
- Practiced doing Naturalistic Observation and Contextual Inquiry;
- Identified next steps for data analysis and use in design;
- Learned when and how to apply these tools to customer-centered design.
Audience:
This hands-on session focuses on practical solutions and skills and well-proven tools for participants to use with their own work. It is aimed at practitioners who want to understand how users work in order to do a better job of design, including developers, designers, and managers who are responsible for user experience, needs, or user requirements identification. This is an introductory tutorial, but will also be useful for those with some experience observing users.
Presentation:
Lecture, group discussion, and small group hands-on exercises.
Venue:
Travelodge Hotel Ottawa West
1376 Carling Ave. Ottawa, Ontario K1Z 75L
Tel. (613) 722 7600
http://www.the.travelodge.com/ottawa11311
The tutorial registration desk opened at 8:00 AM. Buffet breakfast was served from 8:30 AM. The tutorial ran from 9:00 AM. to 5:00 PM. Breakfast, lunch, coffee and tea was included in the price.
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Supporting Casual Interaction between Intimate Collaborators
May 14, 2001 at Nortel Skyline
Download the meeting poster (PDF file, 19K)
The presentation is available online: http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/grouplab/papers/
- First go to www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/grouplab/papers/
- In the 2001 section, you will find Greenberg, S. (2001) Supporting Casual Interaction between Intimate Collaborators. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Proc. 8th IFIP Working Conference on Engineering for Human-Computer Interaction-EHCI'01), Springer Verlag.
- Just select the presentation link-this is the same talk.
Note that I left out the videos due to size.
About the Speaker
Saul Greenberg, a professor in Computer Science at the University of Calgary, is an active researcher in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Notable technologies produced by his group include Groupkit (a groupware toolkit) and TeamRooms (a room-based groupware environment now commercialized as TeamWave Workplace). He is the author/editor of several HCI and CSCW books, has numerous publications, serves on several journal editorial boards, and has a high service involvement in both the ACM CSCW and CHI conferences. Samples of Grouplab work and papers are available at http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/grouplab/ .
About the Talk
Over last decade, there has been mounting interest in how groupware technology can support electronic interaction between intimate collaborators who are separated by time and distance. Saul and others in his group are researching and producing prototypes exploring the nuances of electronic casual interaction including:
- How we can enrich on-line opportunities for casual interaction by providing the group with a rich sense of awareness of others: who is around, what they are doing, and what they are working on;
- How awareness information is presented at the periphery, where it becomes part of the background hum of activity that people can then selectively attend to;
- How people can seamlessly and quickly move from this awareness into conversation and actual work;
- How others can overhear and enter into ongoing conversations and activities;
- How the same opportunities work for a mix of co-located and distributed collaborators;
- How we balance distraction and privacy concerns.
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Highlights of CHI 2001 - "Anyone, Anywhere"
Highlights of the annual CHI Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems.
April 17, 2001 at Nortel Skyline
A series of highlights presented by members of the local HCI community who attended the annual CHI conference in Seattle Washington.
Presenters?
- John Meech, of AmikaNow!
- Ron Boring, Carleton University CURE Lab;
- Kirsten Carroll of InterNetivity Inc.;
- Stephen Marsh, of the NRC.
What?
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The CHI 2001 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems will take place in Seattle, Washington, USA, from March 31 - April 05 2001. The annual CHI conference is the leading international forum for the exchange of ideas and information about human-computer interaction (HCI).
For more information about CHI 2001, please visit the conference web site: http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi2001
For information on CHI 2002 - "changing the world, changing ourselves", in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, please visit: http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi2002
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Buddy, can you spare the time? How technology affects the economy of
attention
March 21, 2001 at Nortel Skyline
Download the meeting poster (PDF file, 17K)
View the slide presentation (PPT file, 78K)
About the Speaker
Following an unsuccessful career as a classical guitarist, Warren Thorngate received his BA in Psychology and Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, then fled to Canada to obtain two more psychology degrees at the University of British Columbia, specializing in the study of human decision making and social behaviour. He spent over a decade developing and evaluating computer mediated communication and information science projects in Latin America and Iran, including the creation of Internet facilities at the University of Havana. While working on these projects, he became a founding member of the National Capital Freenet, Opera Lyra and the Computer User Research and Evaluation (CURE) group at Carleton University. He is currently a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University, writing a book on the economics of attention which will include ideas from this presentation. A variant of the presentation was recently given as a keynote address to the Association of Computing Machinery conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work.
About the Talk
Attention, as Herbert Simon has noted, is a limited resource. The exchange of attention for information defines communication and provides the conditions for an economy of attention based on principles rather different than those taught in traditional economics courses. Some of these principles allow us better to understand the recursive evolution of information, communication and attention technologies. The principles assist us in producing, distributing, and consuming information, as well as distinguishing between Information that reduces the demand for additional attention from information that increases it. The talk outlined some of the principles of attentional economics and sampled some of the implications for Computer Supported Cooperative Work.
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Introduction to XML
February 27, 2001 at Nortel Skyline
Download the meeting poster (PDF file, 13K)
View the slide presentation (PPT file, 2153K) or
Download the slide presentation (ZIP file, 1808K)
About the Speaker
Brian Thompson, an interaction designer at Nortel Networks, has a long and colourful past, which included playing bassoon in symphony orchestras, building robotic dinosaurs for the ROM and time machines for the Canadian Museum of Nature. Interested in pattern languages, agents and active network objects as well as map making, XML is the next logical step.
About the Talk
What is XML?
How will it change the way we design?
The two most important things for Microsoft in the new millennium: Windows 2000 and XML. Bill Gates - Microsoft
By year end-2003, remembering how things were done "before XML" will be as difficult as it is today to remember how they were done "before the web". Gartner Group - 2000.
In his talk, Brian first introduced the concepts of the eXtensible Markup Language, followed by a presentation and discussion on how this language will change the way we design.
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Interaction Environments - Conducting the Orchestra
January 18, 2001 at Nortel Skyline
Download the meeting poster (PDF file, 19K)
View the slides (PDF file, 6231K) or
Download the slides (ZIP file, 3200K)
About the Speaker
Gord Hopkins has been working in the area of human factors since 1979. He completed his Doctorate in human cognition, psychophysics and perception from McMaster University; conducted human factors research and taught at the University of Alberta; worked on Telidon, videotext, and high-definition TV with the Communication Research Centre; and has worked with Nortel Network's Design Interpretive since 1984. His work at Nortel has included artificial intelligence, natural language understanding, consoles for telephone operator's, key system and PBX phone system design, network management, cordless and wireless phone interfaces, collaboration systems, web home research, and others. His more recent work has been focused on web-enabled applications and networked services that provide anywhere, anytime access.
About the Talk
We are on the brink of a home networking and/or home gateway explosion (already 1M networked homes in the US and over 100K in Canada). Are the user interfaces of today up to the challenge? Hardly! We continue to develop and buy products that have remote controls and interfaces that are geared to that specific piece of equipment and have little or no knowledge of what other devices might need to be manipulated or controlled in concert with them. We have to move towards interface elements and actions that may control multiple devices at the same time or aggregate the output from several devices to present to the consumer...
...we have to move from designing user interfaces to products to designing integrated user interaction environments for multiple products.
Gord will share some of his perspectives on this evolving and demanding area of user interaction design and facilitate a hands-on mini-workshop to explore designing in this new space.
The only prerequisites are:
- having experienced life in the latter 1990s
- having been frustrated with existing technologies
- having thought "there must be a better way!"
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Millennium Holiday Event
December 12, 2000 at The Clock Tower Brew Pub
What?
Friends of CapCHI and their guests joined us for pool, food and drinks.
Where and When?
The meeting took place on Tuesday, December 12, 2000 from 7:00 PM at the Clock Tower Brew Pub, 575 Bank Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Bank Street just south of the Queensway/Hwy 417)
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The State of HCI in Ottawa: How do we meet the need?
November 15, 2000 at Nortel Skyline
Download the meeting poster (PDF file, 17K).
The Panel...
- Helen Maskery of the Usability Design Group (UDG) at Nortel Networks
- Kevin Deevey of Corel Corporation
- Arnold Campbell of Design Interpretive (DI) at Nortel Networks
- Kit Lamoureaux of Filament Communications
- Christine Pietschmann of Itemus Solutions
- Scott McEwen of Cognos Incorporated
About the Meeting
Given that companies worldwide are struggling to find skilled and experienced HCI people, the panel members discussed the issues as it related to their own companies and the community of Ottawa. We heard about the career opportunities in HCI in each of these organizations, the skills that these employers are looking for, and their views on how people can get these skills.
After listening to each panel member talk about the situation in their own company, there was a questions & answers period, which shared insights and suggestions that will help us build a strong HCI community in Ottawa.
Position Statements Presentations
- Cognos
Incorporated slides (PPT file, 365K)
or Cognos Incorporated slides (PDF file, 296K) - Nortel
Networks Design Interpretive slides (PPT file, 2714K)
or Nortel Networks Design Interpretive slides (PDF file, 561K) - Nortel
Networks Usability Design Group slides (PPT file, 1,995K)
or Nortel Networks Usability Design Group slides (PDF file, 181K)
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Smart Devices: HCI and Branding Opportunities
October 19, 2000 at Nortel Skyline
About the Speaker
Allan Wille is the Chief Creative Officer at Espial, a local software firm catalyzing the pervasive Internet.
A founding partner, Allan is responsible for corporate design. He oversees and directs Espial's corporate identity, communication design, and product interface design. Allan co-founded Espial after working at several companies, including Teknion, Black & Decker, and Nortel. He is the principal designer of several patents and a recipient of numerous awards. Allan holds a Bachelor's degree in industrial design from Carleton University.
(More at http://www.espial.com)
About the Talk
The pervasive Internet is the next step in the maturing of the information age. As more and more smart devices get connected to the Internet, content services, bandwidth and to an increasing degree, quality of use are going to be the deciding success factors of the future. In his presentation, Allan introduced the opportunities in this new "access, anywhere" space with two presentations...
- a "day in the life" scenario outlining Espial's vision of the pervasive internet and
- an introductory presentation highlighting HCI and branding opportunities for smart devices.
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Trust: a two way street
September 14, 2000 at Nortel Woodline II
About the Speaker
Chris Locke is an Ottawa area computer communications consultant who focuses on security issues. He has been doing this stuff for 20 years.
Materials and updates for this discussion can be found at http://www.lo0.com.
Chris may be contacted at chris@lo0.com.
About the Talk
Remember prank phone calls? Would you make one now? As technology evolves our privacy buffer becomes thinner and thinner. When accessing electronic services the vendor needs to authenticate the user, but is the user really accessing the information that they think they are?
Chris' discussion covered user and site authentication issues along with privacy and other security topics related to Internet technologies (SSL, PKI, denial of service attacks, email spam/spoofing etc.) and their impact on business.
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