About the HCI Conference Series

This was the first time I attended this event. In 1999 my colleague Sundar from RSC had participated in the HCI while it was held in Munich - we had a joint paper then. In 2001 my colleague Joshua McGee presented our joint paper at the HCI conference in Geneva. In 2003 I had submitted a paper, but due to a short-term arranged at my employer at that time, I was not able to travel - what a pity! And now in 2007, this was the first time for me to attend this conference. Its positive side is at the same time also its negative side: the vast array of topics makes it possible to get a great overview of current trends and developments in the whole Human-Computer Interaction area, from automated system intelligence to user ergonomics. This also means that a participant can only attend a fraction of presentations, which is unfortunate as there are plenty of interesting talks and topics. The relatively benign review process also means that papers of a lower quality are accepted.

Overall, I think that the approach of the conference organisers is right: being inclusive and making this conference to a networking event, where the whole HCI community is welcomed. This allows to get contacts to many different experts and learn about the many different aspects of current HCI research.