Informatics teams nab 5 spots at upcoming contest

Five of the 12 teams chosen out of 54 contending teams to participate in the annual Computer/Human Interaction Conference consist of IU students. \nFrom April 28 to May 3, 18 members of IU’s School of Informatics will be in San Jose, Calif., for the annual conference. Twelve teams from around the world have been chosen to attend the conference. \nErik Stolterman, professor and director of IU’s Human/Computer Interaction Design program, said that for the last two years, teams from IU have won the competition, and three years ago, an IU team placed second. \n“...When they come in to our master’s program, the new students ... in the first semester, take two required courses. The last project they have to do in those courses is always tied to this competition,” Stolterman said. “If (they) want to send it to the competition, (they) can do that.” \nThe conference’s Web site states that each team creates a solution to a pre-announced problem. This year, students must “design a service to promote or encourage the use of public transport.” Designs are supposed to be based on real locations, taking into account the needs of both passengers and drivers, along with the physical geography and culture of each place. Every team consists of two to five members, who can be undergraduate or graduate students. \nNina Onesti, a graduate student who will be at the competition, is looking forward to the event. \n“I’m pretty nervous about presenting in front of the worldwide audience. ... Since it’s my first year in the program, I just don’t know who we’re up against, she said. “ I’m excited to be in San Jose and meet a bunch of people in the industry.” \nIn order for the teams to make it to the conference, they had to write a paper describing their solution. Twelve teams were then chosen to go to the conference. While there, each team will have to present a poster and discussion of its proposed design. The number of teams will then be limited to four. An oral presentation is the last step of the competition. \nBecause teams can be from anywhere in the world and any field of study, judges and reviewers must also be diverse. Ilona Posner, one of the conference’s co-chairs, is based in Canada while the other co-chair, Steven Wall, is based in the United Kingdom. In order to ensure that all teams are considered equally, reviewers are chosen from all over the world. Three reviewers read each paper before the 12 teams were chosen to go to California. \nPosner said that in order for students to win, they should be knowledgeable of their users’ needs and the ethnographic area of their design. \nShe suggested contestants “continue thinking about the needs of (the audience), (and) they will succeed.”