UCD Project News Edition 32, November 1, 2004
UCD Project News is a fortnightly e-newsletter devoted to increasing
awareness of user-centred design (UCD) principles and contributing
towards a culture of UCD within the Smart Internet Technology CRC.
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In this issue:
1. Supriya: RAC and Beyond
2. Introducing the New Face in the UCD Group
3. Craig Chatfield Attends British HCI Conference
4. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
5. Useful Links & References
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1. Supriya: RAC and Beyond
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The recent Research Advisory Committee meeting in Sydney brought
many of us together again soon after the Annual Conference. We dealt
well with the current emphasis on Smart Internet Technologies in
Homes and Communities. The concept of territories is one with which
we have been working, for it coincides in the main with broad activity
areas. The projects we proposed had User-Centred Design approaches
at the centre.
Gunela Astbrink presented with her Amivox team to take the work
further in an expanded version. Paul Turner proposed a research
stream on health within Trevor’s project on Internet futures.
We at RMIT proposed research on the user centred dimensions of trust,
privacy, security and identity across banking, personal communications
and health. So linkages with the technological programs and industry
partners were explicit in our work.
We expect to work in more focused areas in the next year. What will
remain the same is that we keep users and their activities at the
centre of design. We hope to continue with the multidisciplinary
communication that has been hard won. But more than anything else,
this RAC showed that the UCD group has forged links that are strong
enough for communication to continue outside formal project structures.
Supriya
Assoc Prof Supriya Singh,
Project Leader
supriya.singh@rmit.edu.au
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2. Introducing the New Face of UCD
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The UCD Group would like to extend a warm welcome to its newest
member:
Dr Juliana Yim
Research Fellow
RMIT
juliana.yim@rmit.edu.au
http://www.ucd.smartinternet.com.au/yim.html
Juliana recently completed her doctorate in Economics and Finance
at RMIT University. Her PhD thesis was on forecasting financial
crises using a neural network approach. Part of her thesis was published
in a paper called “A Comparison of Australian Financial Service
Failure Models: Hybrid Neural Networks, Logit Models and Discriminant
Analysis.” The paper received the Barclays Global Investors
prize at the 15th Annual Australasian Finance and Banking Conference
in 2002.
Juliana also has bachelor and masters degrees in Economics from
the University of Sao Paulo (USP). She has worked as a credit analyst
at ABN-Amro Bank and as an economic researcher in a project coordinated
by BOOZ-ALLEN & HAMILTON/FIPE-USP for the Brazilian government.
She is currently working as a market research analyst at Roberts
Research Group. Her research interests are in Money and Banking,
Credit Risk Analysis, Financial Econometrics, Neural Networks, Artificial
Intelligence, Microeconometrics and Market Research.
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4. Craig Chatfield Attends British HCI Conference
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In early September Craig Chatfield attended the British HCI conference
at Leeds Metropolitan University. The doctoral consortium was made
up of mostly British PhD students, and had a great atmosphere as
students shared their research and PhD tales (of success and woe).
The conference itself was a great success with most papers being
well received. A highlight was seeing the Smart Internet paper on
Mediating Intimacy (complete with virtual hugs).
The conference keynotes were of particular interest, with Kees Dorst
describing the importance (and emerging roles) of design in HCI
and Thomas Erickson talking about designing socially rich digital
environments. Thomas described the process, and imperative, of designing
social clues into our communication systems, and gave great examples
of how adding these to everyday systems (like online auctions or
group communication tools) can greatly improve their effectiveness.
A fairly social conference, the conference dinner was in a renovated
woollen mill come Art Gallery (devoted to David Hockney's work).
The final reception was held in the Thackray Medical Museum which
described the living conditions of 1840 Leeds, and ultimately had
all involved glad we live in the 21st centaury - complete with cabs
to move us on to the next stop of the evening - The blood and puss
museum, another conference highlight!
The next British HCI conference is in Edinburgh, strategically placed
just after the Fringe Festival. Based upon the quality of submissions
and the enjoyable sense of community at this year’s conference,
it is highly recommended.
Craig Chatfield
PhD Student
Griffith University
C.Chatfield@griffith.edu.au
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5. Upcoming Conferences & Calls for Papers
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* C&T 2005
The Second International Conference on Communities & Technologies
(C&T 2005) will be held in Milan, Italy, 13-16 June, 2005. The
relationship between communities and technology is an increasingly
important research topic as the number of communities turning to
technology for online and face-to-face support grows. This conference
provides a forum for stimulating and disseminating research about
all facets of community and technology support for communities.
The call for papers is now open and submissions are due November
12, 2004. Conference topics include, but are not limited to, trust-building,
maintaining (awareness of) social relations, social capital, visualization
of social relationships, matching (unknown) participants, bridging
between physical and electronically-mediated interaction, and cultural
needs.
http://www.cct2005.disco.unimib.it/
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* HOIT 2005
An international conference sponsored by IFIP Working Group 9.3
in association with CUHTec, the Centre for Usable Home Technology
at York University UK, “Home Oriented Informatics and Telematics”
will be held on April 13-15, 2005 at the University of York, UK.
Conference themes include: Care and health at home, Ambient intelligence
in everyday life, Ubiquitous computing and the wireless home, Play
and fun in the home of the future, Socialising and the user experience,
Involving users in the design of new ICTs, and Lessons from ethnographic
research on new ICTS in the home.
http://www.hoit2005.org/
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* Academy symposium on CMC and relationships
Anyone interested in participating in the symposium on computer
mediated communication and relationships, which is currently being
planned for the 2005 Academy of Management conference is encouraged
to contact the organiser. Examples of relevant papers could be on
conflict, emotions, trust or other related issues when communicating
electronically.
If you are interested or would like more information, please contact
Kristin Byron at Rochester Institute of Technology on kbyron@cob.rit.edu
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6. Useful Links and References
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* International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 61(5), November
2004
1) Chris J. van Aart, Bob Wielinga and Guus Schreiber, Organizational
building blocks for design of distributed intelligent system, pp567-599.
2) L. Hollink, A. Th. Schreiber, B. J. Wielinga and M. Worring,
Classification of user image descriptions, pp601-626.
3) Beomjin Choi, T. S. Raghu and Ajay Vinze, Addressing a standards
creation process: a focus on ebXML, pp627-648.
4) Ann Britt Miberg Skjerve and Gyrd Skraaning, Jr., The quality
of human-automation cooperation in human-system interface for nuclear
power plants, pp649-677.
5) Yung-Ching Liu and Ming-Hui Wen, Comparison of head-up display
(HUD) vs. head-down display (HDD): driving performance of commercial
vehicle operators in Taiwan, pp679-697.
6) Efstratios T. Diamadis and George C. Polyzos, Efficient cooperative
searching on the Web: system design and evaluation, pp699-724.
7) Nikos Bozionelos, Socio-economic background and computer use:
the role of computer anxiety and computer experience in their relationship,
pp725-746.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/issue/6829-2004-999389994-520318
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