INTERACT 2017 Mumbai, the 16th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. September 25-29, 2017 in Mumbai, India. © IFIP INTERACT (Document generated on: Nov 11, 2018 08:52PM)

Keynotes & Talks

Albrecht Schmidt Computer Scientist & Professor Opening Keynote: Sep 27 Amplifying Human Abilities: Digital Technologies to Enhance Perception and Cognition
Matt Jones Professor in Human-Computer Interaction Closing Keynote: Sep 29 Weaving new Mobile UX futures through integrated innovation across 3 Continents, 4 Countries and a diversity of perspectives.
Rama Bijapurkar Author, Consultant & Strategist Invited Talk 1: Sep 27 Understanding Consumer India and what businesses need to do to serve them better
Gerrit C. van der Veer Emeritus Prof., Past President of ACM SIGCHI Invited Talk 2: Sep 28 Human-Computer Interaction – the Life and Times, and the History
Devdutt Pattanaik Mythologist, Author and Illustrator Invited Talk 3: Sep 28 Designing a 'Mahabharata for Children' - Challenges
Tom Gross Professor in Human-Computer Interaction Invited Talk 4: Sep 29 Towards Human-Centred Collaborative Computing
Albrecht Schmidt, Opening Keynote on September 27

Amplifying Human Abilities: Digital Technologies to Enhance Perception and Cognition

Historically, the use and development of tools is strongly linked to human evolution and intelligence. The last 10.000 years show a stunning progress in physical tools that have transformed what people can do and how people live. Currently, we are at the beginning of an even more fundamental transformation: the use of digital tools to amplify the mind.

Digital technologies provide us with entirely new opportunities to enhance the perceptual and cognitive abilities of humans. Many ideas, ranging from mobile access to search engines, to wearable devices for lifelogging and augmented realty application give as first indications of this transition.

In our research we create novel digital technologies that systematically explore how to enhance human cognition and perception. Our experimental approach is to: first, understand the users in their context as well as the potential for enhancement. Second, we create innovative interventions that provide functionality that amplifies human capabilities. And third, we empirically evaluate and quantify the enhancement that is gained by these developments.

It is exciting to see how ultimately these new ubiquitous computing technologies have the potential for overcoming fundamental limitations in human perception and cognition.

Speaker Bio

Albrecht Schmidt is a professor for Human Computer Interaction and Cognitive Systems at the University of Stuttgart. Previously he was a Professor for User Interface Engineering and Pervasive Computing at University of Duisburg-Essen.

In 2006/2007 he had a joined appointment between the University of Bonn and the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) working in the area of Media Informatics. He studied computer science in Ulm, Germany and Manchester, UK and receive in 2003 a PhD from the Lancaster University in the UK.

For the last 15 years Albrecht has been dedicated to creating usable systems. The focus of his current work is on novel user interfaces to enhance and amplify human cognition. He is working on interaction techniques and interactive applications in the context of mobile and ubiquitous computing, including new communication interfaces and user interfaces in the car.

Albrecht has published well over 200 refereed archival publications and his work is widely cited. He is co-founder of the ACM conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI) and initiated the ACM conference on Automotive User Interfaces (auto-ui.org).

In 2014 Albrecht co-chaired the ACM SIGCHI program. He is on the editorial board of ACM ToCHI, edits a forum on interaction technologies in the ACM Interactions magazine, and has a column in the IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine.

In 2016 Albrecht Schmidt received a ERC Consolidator Grant to work on the Project “AMPLIFY: Amplifying Human Perception Through Interactive Digital Technologies”.


Matt Jones, closing keynote on September 29

Weaving new Mobile UX futures through integrated innovation across 3 Continents, 4 Countries and a diversity of perspectives

Andy Cockburn was originally scheduled to give the closing keynote at INTERACT 2017. Unfortunately, Andy has had an accident - he injured his neck while trying to teach his kids how to backflip on a trampoline! He cannot fly to India (he's OK and we wish him a speedy recovery). Our closing keynote will now be given by Matt Jones - as you'll see from his abstract, Matt is often travelling the world and is a regular visitor to Mumbai. We're delighted that he is able to join us for the conference. (Read about Andy's now-cancelled talk)

Mobile and ubiquitous computing researchers have long imagined future worlds for users in developed regions. Steered by such visions, they have innovated devices and services exploring the value of these with and for individuals, groups and communities. Meanwhile, such radical and long-term explorations are uncommon for what have been termed emergent users; users, that is, for whom advanced technologies are just within grasp. Instead, a driving assumption is, perhaps, that today’s high-end mobile technologies will "trickle down" to these user groups in due course.

For the past three years, our team of researchers and partner organisations have started to explore how to do future envisioning that includes emergent communities. We have carried out intensive, coordinated innovation-prototyping-deploym ent yearly cycles that has seen us work with people from townships in South Africa and informal and slum districts in India and Kenya. These activities have seen the development of a number of novel mobile devices and services that would not have emerged without the insights provided and integrated across these regions.

In this talk, I will explore what mobile technologies might be like if emergent users are directly involved in creating their visions for the future 5–10 years from now; explain and reflect on our methods, highlighting the success and failures; detail some of the platforms and devices we've created; and, argue that such innovation is also vital to re-invigorate mobile design for the "traditional users" (like me) in the rest of the world.

Speaker Bio

Matt Jones is the author of two books and many research articles that have helped shape the field of Mobile HCI and UX (Mobile Interaction Design - with Gary Marsden; and There's Not an App for That - with Simon Robinson and Gary Marsden).

He has spoken at events with both an arts focus (such as the Hay Book Festiva 2017l) and the sciences (such as this the British Science Festival 2016). He has worked both with academic research groups and industrial partners across the world. His work combines a passion for invention with a commitment to working alongside non-traditional users of mobile technology.

He is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award Holder (for his work on interactions for resource constrained communities); was awarded an IBM Faculty Award (for work with the Spoken Web); and leads two major UK programmes focussed on human values and computational science (the Research Council UK funded Digital Economy CHERISH Centre; and the Welsh Government/ EU funded Computational Foundry). He has enjoyed being part of the HCI community: he co-chaired ACM CHI 2014; ACM Mobile HCI 2017; and is on the steering committee of both of these conference series.