Workshops

Example Submission

Here is an example of successful workshop submission developed for CHI 95: a workshop on "Tools & Techniques for Visual Design Development". We thank the organizer of this workshop, Loretta Staples, for permission to use her materials here.

For CHI 95, there were two parts to a workshop proposal. An example of each is available here:

One-page summary, to be prepared in conference proceedings format
Three-page proposal for the workshop review committee

Don't forget that for CHI 96, a 250-word Call for Participation is required as part of the workshop submission. (For CHI 95, this document was due later.) Here are the Calls for Participation for all of the CHI 95 Workshops.

Example Summary

Please note that the format used in the Web version of the one-page summary is not the same as the format required for submission; it is just an HTML approximation. Be sure to follow the submission guidelines to produce the correct format for your submissions.

Tools & Techniques for Visual Design Development

Loretta Staples

U dot I, Inc.
444 Spear Street, Suite 213
San Francisco, CA 94015, USA
Phone: (415) 495-7808
E-mail: udoti@aol.com

KEYWORDS
User interfaces, graphical user interfaces, visual interaction design, graphic design, design methodology, visual representation, tools

OVERVIEW
This one-day workshop provides an opportunity for experienced practitioners in visual design to share ideas, techniques, and methods for developing visual designs for interfaces. The range of techniques is expected to include ways to generate images, represent sequences, and iterate designs with respect to media, cultural context, and technology. Toward this end, each participant is expected to share a single useful technique with the group. This technique can be shared through example, demonstration, or case history. The only requirement is that the technique be presented as concretely as possible, in a manner that allows all participants to apply the technique. Possible examples might include:

The use of a specific tool or technology for generating drawings of interface elements with a focus on the attributes that make it preferred.
Non-digital techniques for visualizing and representing linear and branching sequences.
The analysis of media images in advertising as a basis for developing brand identity in a multimedia interface.

MOTIVATION
The workshop emerged from discussions at last year's Visual Interaction Design SIA meeting at CHI '94 in which it was acknowledged that CHI's visual design tutorials were geared toward novices rather than experts [1]. The workshop is intended to provide a focused, peer-oriented setting within which experienced practitioners can share knowledge. CHI provides an especially appropriate context for such a workshop since the conference brings together diverse visual design practitioners from academia and industry, and because there already exists an active visual design community within CHI, evidenced by the Visual Interaction Design Special Interest Area and its distribution list, VISUAL-L, along with the visual SIG meetings of the past five conferences.

GOALS
It is believed that the workshop will surface techniques that may have been heretofore undocumented for two primary reasons: 1) visual designers do not tend to publish since incentives for doing so are minimal, and 2) visual design techniques for interface design are often improvised in the absence of specialized tools and are seen both as informal and ephemeral.

While this workshop seeks to provide its participants with working knowledge that can be applied to future work, its larger purpose is to capture these techniques for larger distribution via publication in the SIGCHI Bulletin.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZATION & ACTIVITIES
During this one-day workshop, each participant will briefly share their tool or technique with the group, followed by discussion and an opportunity to try out the tool or technique. The final hour of the workshop will be devoted to a comparison of the day's samplings and discussion about their applicability to future work.

REFERENCES
[1] Comment by Dan Boyarski at the Visual Interaction Design Special Interest Area Annual Meeting, CHI '94, Boston, April 27, 1994.

Example Proposal

Tools & Techniques for Visual Design Development

Organizer:
Loretta Staples:
U dot I, Inc.
444 Spear Street, Suite 213
San Francisco, CA 94105

415/495-7808 phone
415/495-7809 fax
udoti@aol.com e-mail

Purpose

This workshop provides an opportunity for a small group of experienced practitioners in visual design to share, with their peers, concrete tools and techniques for the design and development of visual interfaces. These might include:

Specific software tools for drawing interface objects
Media techniques for simulating interactive environments
Non-digital techniques for representing linear sequences

I believe that these techniques are numerous, useful, and largely undocumented. Given the relative newness of our field, visual interaction designers have had to resort to ad hoc adaptations of existing tools and improvised techniques in overcoming the limitations of tools that were never intended for use in interface design developmnet. Tools that are currently marketed for interface design tend to be targetted to those wishing to rapidly prototype conventional interfaces in compliance with current standards, and are therefore too constrained for more than anything but "widget-building." Thus the tendency is for visual designers to adapt and invent ways that support unconstrained visualization.

While the immediate purpose of the workshop is to share a small sampling of such tools and techniques with a group of peers, its larger goal is to present that sampling to the larger CHI community through publication in the SIGCHI Bulletin. I think this will be an especially relevant contribution since visual designers are not in the habit of publishing and since the methods to be shared are, by their nature, ephemeral.

CHI is an especially appropriate setting for such a workshop since many of its members are professionals in visual interaction design (evidenced by the Visual Interaction Design Special Interest Area) and since CHI provides a rare opportunity for the gathering together of such professionals from academia and industry. The diversity of design experience represented by such a specialized group in HCI is unparalleled.

Participation

The workshop is planned for one day. Approximately seven participants will be chosen from a pool of respondents to the Call for Participation. Each respondent is expected to describe the tool or technique they wish to present, its relevance to practice, and any proposed workshop exercise that might be desirable for imparting a clearer knowledge of the technique. It is presumed that each respondent accepts responsibility for documenting his or her presentation for later publication in the CHI Bulletin (this will be expressed as a requirement in the Call for Participation). Final participants will be chosen on the basis of:

the general usefulness and applicability of the tool or technique
the relative simplicity with which the tool or technique can be taught, given the brevity of the workshop and potential lack of hardware support
the willingness of the participant to richly document the tool or technique for subsequent publication in the SIGCHI Bulletin (demonstrated by any prior efforts at publishing, if any, along with an outline of the proposed submission)

Workshop Organization

Each of the seven participants will have approximately 20 minutes to present his or her tool or technique, followed by 30 minutes for discussion and an opportunity to try out the tool or technique. The final hour of the workshop will be devoted to reviewing all the methods shared and discussion about their applicability to current or future work. I will act as facilitator to the workshop, managing the flow of time, ensuring adequate facilities and breaks, and ultimately editing the final documentation and submitting it for publication in the SIGCHI Bulletin.

Organizer Background

I'm currently President of U dot I, Inc., a San Francisco-based firm specializing in interface design that I founded two years ago. I have over fifteen years of experience in design and visual communications, including curatorial work at the Yale University Art Gallery, exhibit development for The Burdick Group, graphic design for The Understanding Business, and most recently, intereface design at Apple Computer. U dot I's recent projects have included designs for proprietary administrative systems, interactive television, educational software, and personal communications devices. Our clients have included Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Paramount, Sony, and Stanford University.

I have been a guest speaker at the University of Minnesota, Parsons School of Design, Stanford University, and the Schule for Gestaltung in Basel. I studied graphic design at Rhode Island School of Design and have a B.A.in art history from Yale.

I have extensive experience in meeting facilitation, with limited (albeit successful!) experience in workshop instruction. I was commissioned by Stanford University to develop and teach a one-day workshop - Visual Design for the Interface - in 1993 that resulted in a 100-page workbook, several structured exercises (manual and computer-based), and a concise, successful instructional experience for its 15 students.

Within CHI, I have been very active in the visual design community. I was a paper presenter at INTERCHI '93, with one of the very few non-technical papers in visual representation. At CHI '94, I was co-organizer of the Visual Interaction Design Special Interest Area SIG meeting, and I have been an active participant of these meetings since CHI '90. I have written two columns this year for the CHI Bulletin. Finally, I have been a CHI papers reviewer for the past two years and will serve as a reviewer again this year.