Conferences and Events

The first-ever CHI-AIGA Experience Design Forum was greeted with a real Minnesota welcome. Snow. Several inches of it. But inside the Minneapolis Convention Center there was a warm sense of camaraderie among the Forum attendees, who came in from both the CHI and AIGA communities, a hopeful sign for future collaboration among the two groups, as well as the practitioners they represent.

CHI, the annual conference for ACM’s special interest group on computer-human interaction (SIGCHI) was, as usual, packed with information, research findings, and hotly debated theories. In this article I’ll try to cover the events and topics that were most interesting to me as well as the issues that stirred up the most intense conversations during breaks or at social gatherings afterwards.

STC, the Society for Technical Communication, has historically been the home of technical writers. However, the organization has seen an influx of members whose interests extend beyond writing, and this year’s conference at Opryland will provide nearly 50 sessions in usability and information design.

The 2002 Summit in Baltimore has come and gone. Boxes and Arrows was in attendance covering the events, the social mixing and the controversies. Throughout the summit we made some new friends and took a lot of pictures. We have gathered our notes and images together in this highlights of the two day event.

Sunday morning found 240 tired IAs eagerly grabbing breakfast and pondering the chickens that had been set up in a little farm scene in the conference area of the hotel. All I can say is that a lot of pictures were taken of the chickens (and a few of them even "mysteriously" flew the coop).