HCI2002/EUPA: 15 Minutes of Fame at the Doctoral Consortium

The British HCI Doctoral Consortium (DC) was held as part of the British HCI Conference. It comprised 3 discussants: Sally Fincher, Leon Watts and Helen Petrie, and 15 eager and bright-eyed participants whose research covered an eclectic range of disciplines and interests that were neatly classified under the umbrella term of HCI. Thirteen of the students attending were from British universities and two were from Sweden. Most of the students were in their second or third year of studies.

The first great hurdle for many who attended the DC was finding the venue for the meeting (given the confusing map provided); the second hurdle was the lack of a laptop to display their presentations on when they finally got there; while still others found the lack of caffeine refreshments provided meant they had to resort to orange juice and water to remain focused during the day. However, once these initial teething problems were resolved, the consortium, under the helm of Sally, seemed to go remarkably smoothly.

The student presentations were divided into four sessions, each lasting for one and a half hours. These were interspersed with various presentations from the discussants. Sally talked about "how to handle the information and references you collect as a PhD student". Leon reassured the participants that there is no 'fairytale' direct route to completing a PhD but it does, in the style of all good user-centred designed products, come about through an 'iterative process'. Sally also instructed the participants through some relaxation exercises, a picture of which found its way into the pages of the scurrilous "Purple Press" [gossip sheet of the conference].

Fintan Culwin, the chair of the conference, also made a flying visit to the DC room. During his welcome address he disclosed to the participants that they were lucky he wasn't one of the discussants; freely admitting the last time he took part, the collective feeling afterwards was he should be dubbed the 'interrogator'.

During the day the participants took part in a "Where are you in your PhD?" exercise and had to talk to each other to establish where they were in their research in relation to the other students present and then line up accordingly. On one end of the scale, those at the beginning of their studies, agreed that there was a lack of focus in their work and 'confusion' as to what they were doing; whereas at the other end of the scale those participants that were supposedly near the end of the process admitted the confusion never really goes away and now included such pressing concerns as 'When do I know I've finished?'; a constantly 'shuffling focus' and a string of 'motivational issues'.

The majority of the DC time was taken up with the 15 minutes of fame that each of the participants had been allocated. Ten minutes were spent presenting and a further 5 minutes was left open for constructive feedback. As it turned out, the other participants were far more vocal in their constructive feedback than the three discussants were, who remained conscious of the time limitations of the exercise. This was also reflected in the comments placed on the flipchart paper each participant had been given bearing their names. This was used to stick post-it note comments by other participants and discussants after each presentation. Although all the participants had worthwhile presentations, it was near the end that the DC was given a very interesting and stimulating talk by Jens Riegelsberger, from UCL, on his research into trust and ecommerce. This paper went on to be awarded, at the closing ceremony of the conference, the prize for the best paper presentation at the DC (a picture of Jens presenting appears above).

Those participants who were around on the Thursday of the conference were also given a brief audience with Dianne Murray, the new chair for the Research and Strategy committee of the British HCI Group and she listened intently to the improvements suggested by this year's participants. We hope they are to be acted upon next year. For example, extending the DC over two days (instead of one) to allow more thorough feedback for participants was discussed, as well as a clearer implementation of what one participant called the 'good cop, bad cop' routine by the discussants! For more information regarding next year's DC and how to apply keep an eye on the HCI2003 website!

Jackie Brodie of Brunel University, with Priscilla Chueng & Richard Boardman

Associated Link: Details of next year's HCI conference and DC

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