with the new digital materials being
shaped in the labs in life science,
chemistry, and physics.
More important, we must articulate our experiences in forms other
than just academic papers. Videos
and demos need to be upgraded
in academic status. I am greatly
impressed by ACM Computers in
Entertainment’s inclusion of archival
“video articles” (see Löwgren [ 3]
and http://www.acm.org/pubs/cie/
cie-archive.html). A video article
consists of a short text and a video,
preferably complementing one
another. The video aims to capture
aspects of the interactions that
might otherwise have been difficult to express in an academic
text. Having videos peer-reviewed
and then archived is really what is
needed to raise their status. In turn,
this will put requirements on us as
a community to craft videos with
the same finesse with which we
craft our academic papers.
CHI should also archive its
videos! A first step to increase
their status was taken this year
by Jeffrey Bardzell and Michael S.
Bernstein, who are putting loads of
work into the selection and shaping
process for videos to help improve
their quality.
Photograph by LambdaCZ | http:// www.flickr.com/photos/lambdacz/4876994513/
The Interactivity demos at CHI
should also be peer-reviewed,
archival material, articulated in
some form that captures their
interactive capacity. We all know
that only when demos are raised in
status will we start engaging more
with technology and novel digital
materials. They need to become a
crucial part of any HCI researcher’s
C.V. And going to the CHI conference should mean hearing, feeling,
touching, and interacting with novel
apps and exciting digital materials.
But do not misunderstand me.
I don’t mean that it is enough to
show off some new piece of tech.
As pointed out by Patrick Baudisch,
one of the chairs of Interactivity,
any such demo must be an answer
to, or an exploration of, a research
question. As such it needs to be cri-tiqued like any research result.
• A Peltier cooler
assembly.
What Can You Do?
This is a call for taking videos and
demos seriously, both at CHI 2012
and in the years to follow. Only
when we get more and better quality videos and demos will we be able
to argue more strongly for including
them in the archival proceedings of
the conference.
Furthermore, if you bring your
tech to CHI, we might get more
HCI researchers involved with the
materials and possible interactions
of the future. Instead of tagging
along behind the developments
created by others, HCI research-
ers should be part of shaping
them. We can do so only if we are
deeply involved with understand-
ing digital materials’ experien-
tial and interactive qualities.
ENDNOTES:
1. Zangouie, F., Gashti, M.A.B., Höök, K., Tijs, T.,
Gert-Jan de Vries, G-J., and Westerink, J. How to
stay in the emotional rollercoaster: Lessons learnt
from designing EmRoll. NordiCHI 2010, Reykjavik,
Iceland, 2010.
2. Löwgren, J. and Stolterman, E. Thoughtful
Interaction Design. MI T Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005.
3. Löwgren, J. The need for video in scientific communication. interactions 18, 1 (2011), 22-25.
March + April 2012
DOI:
10.1145/2090150.2090154
© 2012 ACM 1072-5220/12/03 $10.00