CHI 2005 | Development Consortium

April 2-7 | Portland, Oregon, USA

ACM SIGGRAPH User Experience Initiatives
Barbara Helfer
Capital University and ACM SIGGRAPH
1 College and Main, Columbus, OH 43209-2394
barb_helfer@siggraph.org
614.236.6633
ABSTRACTSMALL CONFERENCES

There has been a substantial growth in the number ofeducational and networking opportunities for professionals
in the computer graphics and related fields in the last threeyears. One of the fastest areas of growth is in the field ofcomputer user experience and the development of culturalcommunities through the advent of portal technologies,blogs, and wikis.

The number of small conferences that ACM SIGGRAPH
sponsors on a yearly basis has grown to forty, which is agrowth of almost fifty percent in the last three years.
Unlike the annual SIGGRAPH conference, these small
conferences deal with specific subsets of the computer
graphics field.
More often than not, these small
conferences are sponsored by multiple SIGs within theACM family or with sister organizations that have memberswith similar interests. These conferences range in the 100to 250 participants.

Author Keywords

Cooperating Societies,experience.

special interestgroups,user

As the ACM SIGGRAPH small conferences program has
expanded there has also been an increased need to support
those conferences with more publicity and advertising
support. There is a need to provide more than just a link offof our main web page in an effort to get information out
about these programs. ACM provides the approver fromevery SIG a list of events that are occurring within a threemonth window of the event. These database lists could beapplied to a central calendar that would support all theactivities of the ACM SIG family.

ACM Classification Keywords

UXINTRODUCTION

ACM SIGGRAPH is exploring a number of avenues toretain its excellence in the field of computer graphics andinteractive techniques. As the field has expanded thegrowing diversity at the main conference needs to besupported. The Executive Committee (EC) and theConference Advisory Group (CAG) working in cooperation
are looking into several avenues that could be adaptable tothe UX community.

As portal and XML technologies evolve, the ability torepurpose content in multiple ways will be important to ourmembers. The use of dynamic Web content and taxonomybased delivery mechanisms, similar to Amazon.com, could
give our membership information concerning other learning
opportunities in the categories that support their interest.
All information on an event could be entered once by theorganizer of the conference, and then distributed to SIG
members as interest is displayed.

COMMUNICATEThe first step is to communicate with the professionalgroups that support the community. We seem to think that
we have the answers and solutions. We won’t know if weneed to form a new society without asking, and we can’t rethink what it means to be a cooperating society withoutbringing the individuals that has the power to make thosedecisions together. Then because we are mostly an electedvolunteer base how do we sustain that communication andcooperation over multiple terms? It can be done, but it willtake champions in each participating society to achieve thegoals. But open communication with all the players is thefirst step.

In a similar vein, most small conference are attended byword of mouth of the organizers, published final reports,summaries or event reports with pictures that give theprofessional a flavor of what the conference is like. ACM
SIGGRAPH gives a small monetary sum to one attendee
for writing an event report for a small conference. As thenumber of conference opportunities grow so do thedecisions on which conference to attend, these users
experience and summary reports will allow the professional
to make informed decisions.

Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI 2005, April 2–7, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA.
ACM 1-59593-002-7/05/0004.

1085

CHI 2005 | Development Consortium

April 2-7 | Portland, Oregon, USA

HUB CONCEPT

Intronetworks provides this networking opportunity atconferences where meeting a person with similar interests
in a crowd of over ten thousand is slim. Each participant at
the conference is given the choice to enter interests throughkiosks situated throughout the venue. Through tracking,participants spark meaningful professional partnerships
with this comprehensive, interactive, online directory oftechnology players. A similar concept could be applied to amap technology to allow users throughout the country, or
globally for that matter, to connect.

In an effort to support the growing diversity of ourmembership, the EC and the CAG are looking jointly at aHub Concept for the annual conference.
The Papers Program has been the center of the technicalexcellence of the annual conference. Last year’s program
received a record number of submissions, totaling near 700,
with 88 accepted papers in 22 different categories. Evenstill, this represents a small subset of the diverse topics
within the community. Other programs, such as theSketches and Courses, are experiencing similar growth.

CONCLUSION

The Hub Concept will take a two-prong approach. The firstwill be to have the spokes of the wheel being co-locatedsmall conferences that will run prior to the annualconference. From those small conferences the best papers,
panels, sketches, and courses will be peer reviewed with afinite number of slots allotted to these quality submissions.
This could work well with the UX community where thediversity of interests spans multiple disciplines.

The user experience is paramount, and you have one shot tomake an impression on your membership base. If it is good
loyalty will follow, but if it less than optimal, there aremany possibilities for the professional to find what theyneed. Knowing what they need is the first step; working
cooperatively among the SIGs and to provide the sense ofcommunity will be obtained if the first goal is met.

SIGGRAPH and most of the small conferences have adefined view of what a technically excellent submission
contains. All of these submissions are peer reviewed withthe same process from year to year. This leaves little room
for a case-based course or paper to be accepted. In many
experienced-based venues case-based submissions are thenorm. The organizers of each co-located conference would
set the standard for submissions, and the peer review
process for the main conference would be based on thecriteria set by the individual small conference.

AuthorBarbara Helfer graduated with a Masters of Mass
Communications from the University of South Carolina in
1979. She went on to get an associate degree in Broadcast
Engineer in 1982. She first started working in the computer
graphics at the Ohio Supercomputer Center with the Ohio
Supercomputer Graphics Project and aPE the Animation
Production Environment a data flow scientific visualization
package. She then went to work for the Advanced
Computing Center for the Arts and Design at Ohio State
University and managed the Emerging Technology Studio(ETS) a multimedia that helped art professors in theCollege of the Arts use technology in traditional classes.
From Ohio State she spent over a year at the Naval
Postgraduate School in the MOVES Institute archiving
video, researching distance education and SCORM
technologies, visualizing 3D objects on the web with X3D,and working with the America's Army Project archiving theprogress of the game. She is now at Capital University
where she is the Director of New Media Services, which
deals with the Web, distance education, and portal
technologies.

The Hub Concept also provide opportunities for theintermingling of diverse communities at joint sessions, andthe ability for any attendee to sit in on sessions that are ofinterest in the other small conferences.
BLOGS AND WIKIS

Last year SIGGRAPH introduced both a conference blog
and wiki. These met with mild interest, mainly because
advertising and pre-conference hype was minimal. It is
hoped that these will be expanded this year.
Every group has its “star” players, be it people or topics,
and capitalizing on the “star” in the form of a blog willallow intercommunication among like-minded people. The
concept of sites, such as TheFaceBook, allows collegestudents to post information about themselves so otherpeople AT THE SAME COLLEGE can view thatinformation, could be applicable in this discussion as well.
It is sort of a networking tool that allows people tocommunicate in non-threatening ways.

She has volunteered in ACM SIGGRAPH related activities
since 1991 when she started reviewing courses for theannual Conference. She was Conference Courses Chair in1997 and 1999. In 2001 she was Pathfinders Chair, aprogram that she helped initiate in 1998. In 2002 she waselected Vice President of ACM SIGGRAPH, a position she
holds today.

As security issues arise these can go behind portals, wheremembers can respond and participate, while non-members
can only read. Participation in vital blog could help
promote membership as well as provide useful discussion
among the community.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like thank the ACM SIGGRAPH EC and CAG,
CHI, and all small conference organizers, for allowing me
to discussions and thoughts that were generated through ourcommunications.

1086