Atlanta for CHI 2010: Days Two and Three

Tuesday and Wednesday blur together in my memories about CHI. I remember Tuesday morning wanting to run but deciding not to because I might die in rush hour traffic in a strange city. I remember eating lunch at the Corner Bakery both days and the food being awesome. Mostly, I remember that on Tuesday we ate Indian food in a restaurant where we presented the Indian man with some ideas about what we wanted to order but he pretty much wrote down what he wanted us to order (no complaints, really, it was delicious):

and on Wednesday we went to the Georgia Aquarium for the reception. Aquariums are one of my favorite places to be in the entire world.

I still think the Chattanooga Aquarium is my very favorite ever. I didn't get to spend enough time in this one though. The food at this reception was very tasty and I ate way too much. One of the entrees was shrimp and grits, which I had to explain to a northern colleague. I told him that if he tried it he wouldn't regret it. He didn't. I also got to see my Virginia Tech colleagues at this reception and throughout the conference. It's good to keep those connections!

On one of those days Toni and I also walked to Centennial Park down near the aquarium during lunch break. A homeless man came up to us and offered directions to Centennial Park then asked for money, which apparently, Atlanta doesn't take too kindly to, because a policewoman yelled at him and told him to go to the train station. I bought him lunch and gave it to him as he was walking to the train station. I wish I could have sat down with him and heard his story. I wonder what Atlanta does to help its homeless people? I know it's a big problem there and that there are donation boxes on street corners, but where does that money go? Experience with homeless people has taught me that yes, some people are slackers, but not all of them, and some have just had a really rough time of it and need some help.

I also forgot to write about Jerome's car saga. Here is what happened to him and his car at CHI:

Jerome had to arrive in Atlanta on Friday for a preconference workshop. He parked his car in a garage and went to the workshop, and came back to find the garage locked. So, he wore the same clothes for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and hitched a ride back with Aqueasha to Clemson so he could be in class on Monday when we left. I heard about all this when Amy said, "Lauren, make sure Jerome gets to CHI, because I don't think his car is here. Something about a parking garage." Anyhow, so Jerome rode back to Atlanta with me and Toni.

He gets to the parking garage and they have booted his car. He makes up a story and they take the boot off and say they'll not charge it to his card but they do anyhow. He calls the bank to fix it. Then, I'm in bed late on Tuesday night and I get a phone call from Jerome, who had driven to meet his Mom for dinner. "Lauren, I'm going to need you to take me to the Nissan dealership tomorrow." His car had stopped working on an interstate in Atlanta! I offered to come get him but he called a tow truck and got his car towed to the dealership. The transmission had to be replaced--an $800 repair :(. He somehow managed to catch rides back and forth to the dealership, missing most of the conference on Wednesday.

Back to the conference...

These were the most enjoyable paper sessions to me. I went to a great session on HCI in India and a couple sessions on HCI4D: human computer interaction for developing countries, which I didn't know existed, but kind of lines up with what I want to do. The first session I went to on it I was elated, thinking, "This is perfect! This is exactly what I want to do! Yay!", but then a couple sessions later on it I realized that it's not quite what I want to do and was tired of hearing silly acronyms like "HCI4D" and hippie buzzwords. Do I still want to do HCI4D? Maybe. But it seems too trendy to me now to commit to. Also, it seems kind of unattainable except for an elite group of people who have connections and access to people in developing countries. I don't have those connections so projects like that are put on the shelf for me right now. I'll focus on developing good interfaces for everyday people that I can connect with.

There were lots of good presentations that I need to go read papers for. CHI's a weird conference because it's both social sciences and computer science. I tend to appreciate the papers with a technical achievement more than the ones that are purely social studies just because of my own orientation, I suppose. There were lots of both, and perhaps the best papers were those that integrated the best elements of both fields: good requirements gathering, strong implementation, excellent evaluation techniques, enlightening results. I feel like my work would fit well here.

I also asked my first question after a presentation. I was shaky and nervous but I didn't say anything stupid. I had already neglected to ask one good question in another presentation due to nervousness so when I thought of this one the audience was significantly smaller so I decided to go for it. I'll still be afraid of asking questions but maybe the first one is the hardest?

One more day at CHI!