Communications - April 2009

ACM
Member
News

DOI:10.1145/1498765.1498770
David Roman

An ongoing Study in usability

The new Communications Web site went live last month after several weeks of intense beta testing. While we gleaned many valuable insights and lessons in this process, several highlights and user comments do stand out:

GRAnDiSon WinS AWARDS

tyrone W. a. Grandison, leader of ibm almaden research center’s intelligent information

Systems team and an acm Senior member, was named Pioneer of the year by the national Society of black engineers. he was also named modern-day technology leader by the black engineer of the year Global competitiveness Stem board. “i think [i won the awards] because i am willing to explore new areas every 12 to 15 months,” Grandison said in an email interview. “my tendency is to look for emerging issues, define the pertinent problems, and actively seek to solve them.”

KieSLeR ReceiVeS
SiGchi AWARD
carnegie mellon university
professor Sara Kiesler won
SiGchi’s lifetime achievement
award. “Sara’s research in
hci has illuminated many
of the most significant social
impacts of computing, such as:
‘flaming,’ social equalization,
open communication, electronic
groups, information sharing,
and distributed collaboration,”
noted SiGchi in the award
announcement. “She brought
concepts from social psychology
and hci to robotics, helping to
create the new interdisciplinary
field of human-robot interaction.”

˲ Testers spent an impressive 12 minutes on the beta site before it was even in full swing, making it nine seconds shy of Top 10 rankings tracked by Nielsen/ NetRatings in March 2006.

˲ While Communications’ site may illustrate some user preferences for print v. digital, print is still strong. At press time, Google Analytics usage statistics showed Communications magazine archive was among the top five destinations ranked by page views, just ahead of the February 2009 edition.

˲ The latest batch of mobile devices is putting the design model for Communications’ site to the test. One user requested a single, narrow column layout for his small mobile screen; another commented on the scrolling required to view the site from his laptop.

˲ Even when beta-testers were prompted with such typical fighting words as “make bug-reporting a priority,” the response was blissful. “I did not react immediately because I did not have any criticism,” said one tester. “I must say, it is impressive.”

SiGiR ’09 inDuStRY tRAcK aiming to bridge the gap between research and practice, a full-day industry track will be held at SiGir ‘09, which takes place in boston, ma, from July 19–23. “the SiGir ’09 industry track brings together researchers and practitioners in the area that most defines our information age: information retrieval,” said daniel tunkelang, the industry track chair, in an email interview. “this assembly of the leading lights from industry—Google’s matt cutts, microsoft’s danah boyd, and the leading enterprise search vendors, autonomy, endeca, and faSt—offers an unprecedented opportunity for everyone to learn about the science and technology of real-world information retrieval in a vendor-neutral, analyst-neutral setting.”