Odd day - mostly working on CHI workshop proposals ( said I would have it done by yesterday). I experimented with being on train with WIFI ( which on east coast was remarkably good if with the occasional delay).

This morning had a great conversation with Ruth (waiting for train) about meaning of HCI and what that might mean for building usability.

Invited to give keynote in Chille for SSSx but I have to find my own airflight money ( about £1000) ( the recession has hit Chile too - very much chance of a life time). From conference could go to Easter island for another £500.

Visited space syntax group in new building near Euston station which not only sorted out a guest lecture some time before christmas but also let me find out that Alan has pushed through special case to make sure the PHD gets fully ratified. Which is fantastic - my parents are still keen to come down and attend the phd award ceremony which at their age is a big achievement. Just very nice seeing everyone again.

After getting to OU spent some time with Rowen going over basic intro to Space syntax. She told me she didn't know, I knew anything about space syntax until Paul prompted her. She was suitably impressed with my description and has a nice problem to solve for the interview best of luck there. Tempted to do the intro to space syntax in 4 You tube videos some time.

Felt guilty about no getting carpet tile working in time for demos.

Got back to visit C+J J's willowbussness is going well and I have a nice evening  playing arm chair generals with him ( planning strategy for the business well he talks I listen). Easy for me, harder for him ( he has to do it) but I think this process of attaching distributing resources for maximum profit and minimum risk is the  is the 'fun' part ( intellectually stimulating)of any small business. I am always quite envious.

Nice being back int he lab ( my dream about bike being stolen appears to have been about Bike being moved. I wonder if my dream about Fight club means anything). Made all the more wonderful with plaq from CHI with best paper award to J+Y + (+Rose not sure hanv't seen it) at Ubicomp in it. Should be somewhere more suitable.

Panic

Why is it when I am in the midst of the final power diver towards the end of the CHI deadline that I get a demand to do another draft (# 5) of the student exercise with a deadline of today  !!!
Crap crap crap!!!

And the last Yvonne paper is going so well.

AT&T 1993 "You Will" Ads

Its odd seeing people predicting the future wrong, but its even more peculiar to get people who get it (just about ) right.

Statistics for HCI Research: Statistics for HCI Research

Statistics for HCI Research: Statistics for HCI Research

On the subject of what to teach on an HCI course to make it look more computer sciency I've been thinking a small intro to relevant stats would be putting most software people into their comfort zone for a while plus get some basic stats knowledge into students ( useful for people doing performance improvements to pure software).

This is really nicely explained.

http://yatani.jp/HCIstats/HomePage

- you can tell the CHI2012 deadline is friday can't you?

Apples 1987 vision ( complete with agents).

I liked this one - this is the iPad before iPads. This was when Agents was big ( before they were killed off by the Microsoft Paper clip ).

What to these things tell us - people like simple integration.  What do I like - summary and speech synthesis. I wish my Mac or IPad/IPhone talked a bit more we really under use speech in the interface.

Paper 2 down

Paper 2 is down, 2 to go - I'm off to a conference in Oxford tomorrow so I can get some time to get the next paper down.

Yvonne Rogers dream fellowship

Yvonne's new job ( her second day) - what a second day.


I found this quite provocative - particularly the bid about going beyond assistive technologies.

Odd seeing Yvonne hanging out near UCL which is strange ( I spent so much time around UCL ... ).

Will look for the blog she mentioned.
<- look this amazon recommending thing is still working !!!!!