Palo Alto, California, USA -- Thirty two short courses on designing user interfaces to computers and to the world wide web will be offered at this year's CHI 97 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Among the highlights of the tutorials are courses on user interface design for the World Wide Web (WWW), activity theory, drawing on the right side of the brain, and story-telling and gaming on the World Wide Web.
In a tutorial on user interface design for the WWW Jakob Nielsen, a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, will teach attendees how to design compelling, easy to use, well-structured and attractive web sites, as well as simple and efficient methods for testing web sites for usability. Nielsen is the author of Multimedia and Hypertext: The Internet and Beyond and Usability Engineering, and he is responsible for the design of Sun Microsystems' Web site.
Activity Theory, a unifying theoretical framework covering many methods of studying users and the context of their work, will be presented by Victor Kaptelinin, a Research Associate at the Department of Informatics, Ume University; and Bonnie Nardi, an anthropologist in the Apple Research Laboratories. Nardi is the author of Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction and A Small Matter of Programming: Perspectives on End User Computing.
Betty Edwards, author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, will teach visual and perceptual modes of thinking to tutorial participants. Edwards is Professor Emeritus at California State University, a Creativity Consultant to industry, and an invited speaker at last year's CHI conference.
A practicing artist who works in both digital and analog media will present a course on digital storytelling and computer game design. This tutorial, given by Thom Gillespie, will include opportunities for hands-on computer use as well as lectures and demonstrations.
The CHI conference features a full program of presentations, tutorials and vendor exhibits. Participants come from both academia and industry, from around the world. This annual conference is the premier worldwide forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of how people interact with computers. CHI conferences are sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM)'s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI).
The theme for 1997 is "Looking to the Future." Approximately 2,500 user interface designers, managers, researchers, designers, educators, artists, writers and students will join to look into human-computer interaction from March 22-27, 1997 in Atlanta, GA at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta Hotel.
The CHI conference is traditionally supported by industry organizations. The CHI 97 corporate sponsors are: Andersen Consulting, Apple Computer, AT&T, Bell South, IBM, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, NCR, NYNEX, Oracle, Philips, Rent-a-Computer, Sun Microsystems and Unisys.
For more information, contact the CHI 97 Conference office at +1 410 263 5382, send e-mail to CHI97-help@acm.org or look at the CHI 97 home page at: https://chi1997.acm.org/