Call for Case Studies to impress the Businesses of Yorkshire

The British HCI Group conference - taking place in Leeds in September - is working with trade bodies in the north to get a large business turn-out for Industry Day. In readiness, and to encourage practitioners to contribute interesting stories of how user-centred design and human factors have made a difference to companies, the submission criteria for Industry Day have been changed to make it less time-consuming to prepare contributions.

The key element is now a presentation of a topic, with just a short paper required as a summary for the proceedings. The idea, says Dave Roberts of IBM Ease of Use, the HCI 2004 Industry Day chair, is to give practitioners an easy-to-use opportunity to talk to each other and potential clients about items of interest.

'I would like to encourage you all to submit a presentation for inclusion in the programme. A new element for this year's Industry Day is to publicise to local businesses. We hope to interest them in how HCI, Human Factors, and any of the many related disciplines can help them. I would really like to have some presentations submitted that might be useful to that audience. For example, a case study of how HF was introduced into a small business.'

The official Call for Papers is now on-line at the website below. The submission system itself should be open in a few days. The deadline is 7 May.

Roberts is also looking for some volunteers to review presentations for acceptance at the conference. This will take place between 10-21 May. If you would like to volunteer or discuss any other aspect with Roberts, get in touch on +44(0)1926 464788 or DaveRoberts@UK.IBM.COM.

Associated Link: Further details

The Net generation, Unplugged
Source: The Economist, 11 March 2010
 
Is it really helpful to talk about a new generation of "digital natives" who have grown up with the internet?

Rewriting the Human-Computer interaction Handbook
Source: CIOL, 10 March 2010
 
Indrani Medhi of Microsoft Research India has developed text-free user interfaces (UIs) to allow any illiterate or semi-literate person on first contact with a computer, to proceed with minimal or no assistance.

Lip reading Mobile promises End to noisy phone calls
Source: BBC, 9 March 2010
 
A prototype device shown off at CeBIT could allow people to conduct silent phone conversations.

Games User Researchers band together
Source: UN, 8 March 2010
 
The number of UX professionals in gaming has reached critical mass.

Quince Pro enables privately-held UX Design Libraries
Source: Infragistics, 6 March 2010
 
Infragistics has launched Quince Pro, a private, secure and organized way to collaborate, communicate and cultivate private UX design libraries to ensure consistent user experiences across teams, departments and companies.

Announcing a new issue of the Journal of Usability Studies
Source: UPA, 5 March 2010
 
UPA is happy to announce the publication of the second issue of volume 5, the Journal of Usability Studies.

Impatient versus Bored
Source: Gerry McGovern, 4 March 2010
 
Customers are much more likely to get impatient with your website than they are to be bored with it.

Futures Thinking: Writing Scenarios
Source: Fast Company, 3 March 2010
 
A valuable skill for UX folks (that's 'how to write scenarios', not 'scenarios in which one writes').

How to Conduct a Usability Review
Source: UsefulUsability, 2 March 2010
 
Never hurts to be reminded.

New Tool pitched at UX consultants and small Usability Teams
Source: UN, 1 March 2010
 
Ovo Studios has released a new software product targeting user experience consultants and small usability teams.