Chibangalore - Update 2007

Sarit Arora — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:44:31 GMT

Chibangalore was formed to address the growing needs of the HCI professionals in Bangalore. Bangalore is the hub of IT in India and now the IT companies are giving a lot of emphasis to usability and user centered design activities. In fact, according to the latest statistics from Google, the word ‘usability’ was most searched in the world from Bangalore! It was not that there weren’t any existing groups in South India which provided a platform to interact. There is the Easy conference on usability which takes place in Bangalore annually and has a sizable brand presence. But an annual event ,with limited participation, does not cater to the growing needs of the HCI community in bangalore. It was seen that the HCI professionals were grappling with lots of issues specific to the needs of the Indian IT industry. For example – Users not being in the same country, how to integrate user centered process with the software design life cycle, how to institutionalize usability in software outsourcing companies etc. Understanding this need, Chibangalore was formed which represents the software products, services and the consulting companies in Bangalore. The aim was to have more number of events and touch points within the community so that the sharing of best practices processes and developments can be done more frequently. Also, one of things this forum wants to achieve is to make this platform more inclusive- Include most of the companies representing many streams within IT so that the learning’s can be disseminated across the domains. Within the last year and half close to 6 events have been organized with host of speakers from around the world: Here are some of the speakers who have presented in chibangalore events

Jonathan Arnowitz - Rapid Prototyping and Demo of Prototyping Tools
Michael Arent - Moving from a engineering centered to a user centered organization
Jeremy Ashley - Head user experience Oracle
Joseph Konstan - President of ACM Sigchi
Geetha Naryanan - Founder and director of Srishti school of design

The events have been attended by wide array of companies like Infosys, SAP, Honeywell, HP, HFI, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun and many others. Companies have taken turns in organizing the events. Taking the lead in organizing are SAP, HFI, Honeywell, Oracle and Microsoft. To kick start the 2007 activities, there is an event planned in March. For more details, watch this space. To make Chibangalore as a more inclusive forum this new website has been initiated. You can contribute as an author; add comments to the articles, rate authors, add biographies etc. So please go ahead register yourself using the register link on the top right corner and start contributing!.

Expanding Boundaries of HCI

Sarit Arora — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:35:03 GMT

Expanding Boundaries of HCI : Chibangalore Event 22nd of March 2007 Chibangalore was formed to address the growing needs of the HCI professionals and students in Bangalore. Within the last year and half , 6 events have been organized with host of speakers from around the world. 2007 kick starts with an event in March. Topic: Expanding the Boundaries of HCI Guest Speakers: We have two renowned speakers for the event Joseph Kaye (Jofish) from Cornell University and Dr. Eric Schaffer , CEO, Human Factors International . Event Details Date : 22th March 2007 Venue : St. Mark ' s Hotel 4/1 St. Mark's Road Bangalore - 560001 Time : 3:00 - 5:45 pm Agenda 3:00 – 3:15 pm - Chibangalore Updates – Durga Prasad, Sarit Arora, Aurobinda Pradhan 3:15 – 4:00 pm - Expanding the Scope: Pushing the Boundaries of HCI – Joseph Kaye 4:00 - 4:10 pm - Q&A Session "As information technologies become ever more popular and ubiquitous, it becomes increasingly important to think about how we in human-computer interaction can build for, support, and understand the rich and varied ways that users interact with and through devices". Jofish will discuss ways to think about experience-focused HCI rather than task-focused. This approach considers technology use outside the workplace and designing information technologies that can support rich interactions. He will draw from a variety of research both within and outside the field, including his own work on computerized scent output and on building technologies for couples in long distance relationships. 4:10 – 4:45 pm – Break: Light refreshments will be served 4:45 – 5:30 - Usability PETscan – Dr. Eric Schaffer 5:30 - 5:45 - Q&A Session HFI's Usability PETscan through analysis of persuasion, emotion and trust provides deep insight into the users decision-making processes to create positive relationships with consumers and impact conversion. The PETscan solution provides an opportunity to truly understand the consumer experience—it gives a thorough analysis of the elements, content and interactions that lead to a more complete experience for your existing and potential consumers." Dr. Schaffer will conduct a session introducing you to the PETscan technique. Registration: There is no registration fee. Please confirm your participation by registering at the following link. If you are in the database then please mark "YES" @ 'Register me for the March event' column http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chibangalore/database?method=reportRows&tbl=1 If you have any difficulty in accessing the link please confirm your participation by sending a mail to Sarit Arora ( sarit(at)humanfactors.com)

chibangalore: Stories by Sarit Arora

Chibangalore - Update 2007

Expanding Boundaries of HCI