During the past couple of months, I ended up doing some things that I have never done before, which have helped me to see how much more of an HCI professional I am now than a year ago.

Going to CHI

I went to the conference on Computer-Human Interaction in Boston, USA. The experience there was fantastic. I was able to see how not only how respected our program at IU is, but how the community at large welcomes each other to comment and critique each other’s work. I was also able to meet some wonderful people from the MIT media lab and Cornell, and was very excited to hear about their work and their PhD programs there. It helped to make the possibility of further education even more exciting and tempting. I also got to see the sights of Boston as well. Overall, it was a very exciting and expensive trip, but it was well worth the money and week off from school to go there (even if I had to wake up at 6AM every day to get to all of the festivities).

I will definitely plan on being at next year’s CHI. If you plan on being there, please write a comment here and I would be more than happy to discuss anything on design, technology, HCI, and what is currently going on.

The Capstone

For the past month here at IU, there have been some wonderful capstone presentations. A capstone is a yearlong project that every student gets to complete and then present their work in a public forum. This year, there have been projects on using technology to help the lives of the elderly, to creating new types of interactions, to using technology to help cyclists be seen by motorists. I’ll have to start this journey soon, and if you would like to see a topic, please feel free to suggest something, though I have a couple ideas of where I would like to start.

Keep it tuned here to see the latest in what is going on here!