SAP at CHI 2012 – Austin, Texas

By Gerd Waloszek and Michelle Clary, SAP User Experience – April 20, 2012

This editorial introduces the upcoming CHI 2012 conference in Austin, Texas, offers a preview of SAP User Experience's activities at the conference, and – finally – reveals a connection between the conference venue and the SAP Design Guild Website.

CHI 2012 logo

Figure 1: The CHI 2012 logo (from the CHI 2012 Website)

In 2012, the CHI conference will return to the United States and be held in Austin, Texas, from May 5-10, 2012. Austin claims to be the "live music capital of the world" and has even registered its claim with an "®" sign, which suggests that it must be very confident about this indeed. But Austin and its environs have much more to offer, including one of the largest universities in the United States. And, as the capital of Texas, Austin boasts its own capitol, the Texas State Capitol, which was completed in 1888 and claimed to be the seventh largest building in the world at the time.

Austin downtown skyline as seen from Lady Bird Lake

Figure 2: Austin downtown skyline as seen from Lady Bird Lake (from Wikipedia)

 

SAP User Experience at CHI 2012

It has more or less become a tradition for SAP to sponsor the CHI conference. In 2012, SAP will once again be a champion sponsor and will therefore have a booth at the conference – booth 10 to be precise. Michelle Clary, whom attendees of CHI 2011 in Vancouver, Canada, may already know, will coordinate the SAP UX conference activities and head the booth team. Please stop by booth 10 to meet our SAP UX professionals and to network with colleagues old and new.

Christine Ronnewinkel and Michelle Clary at the SAP booth at CHI 2011 in Vancouver, Canada

Figure 3: Michelle Clary will organize the SAP booth at CHI 2012 in Austin, Texas

This year, SAP UX members will once again be active conference participants. Janaki Kumar will take part in a panel session entitled Women in UX Leadership in Business, on Monday, May 7, 2012, from 2:30-3:50 p.m. On the same day, Visvapriya Sathiyam and Muktha Hiremath will present a case study entitled Design Re-Thinking for the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Case Study Based on Designing Business Software for SME's in India from 4:30-5:50 p.m. Michelle plans to have SAP's CHI presenters available at the booth to discuss their contributions and UX-related topics with attendees. Don't forget to drop in at booth 10 and check out the schedule.

 

Conference Motto: It's the Experience!

As you probably know, the CHI conference is an ACM conference organized by the SIGCHI and is one of the largest conferences in the HCI field. This year's motto – "It's the experience!" – differs significantly from last year's all-inclusive motto stating that the conference "focuses on leveraging our diversity and connecting people, cultures, technologies, experiences, and ideas". This looked like an attempt to include nearly everything – which, of course, somehow befits an event as broad as the CHI conference.

Christine Ronnewinkel and Michelle Clary at the SAP booth at CHI 2011 in Vancouver, Canada

Figure 4: Christine Ronnewinkel (left) and Michelle Clary (right) at the SAP booth at CHI 2011 in Vancouver, Canada

Focusing on experience looks more specific to us, but it remains to be seen whose experience the creators of the motto are referring to – the users', the designers', and, last but not least, the conference attendees'. We are confident, that regardless of whether they had the attendees in mind or not, CHI will definitely offer an exciting experience to them. And SAP User Experience is prepared to play its part. See you at the SAP booth at CHI 2012!

 

Austin, Texas, and the SAP Design Guild...

It's a long time since Gerd, one of our authors, visited Austin, but he did so twice in one year back in 1999. On both occasions, he worked with frogdesign. First, in the spring, on list colors, and later, in the fall, on – guess what? – the beginnings of the SAP Design Guild Website. For two weeks, he and his colleagues Peer Hilgers and Heinz Willumeit discussed the content structure and design of the Website with designers from frogdesign, proudly returning home with a CD containing an initial prototype of the Website (see Figure 5; you may also want to look at the SAP Design Guild Design History in screen shots).

Design prototype of the SAP Design Guild by frogdesign based on frames and fixed layout cells from October/November 1999

Figure 5: Design prototype of the SAP Design Guild by frogdesign based on frames and fixed layout cells from October/November 1999

By the way, Gerd also visited the Texas State Capitol in 1999.

 

References

CHI and Austin, Texas

CHI Reports

CHI Editorials

 

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