SIGCHI Italy: The Italian Path to Improving Human-Computer Interaction
Maria Francesca Costabile & Fabio Paterno
May-June 2001 Local SIGs column
This issue's column, authored by Maria Francesca Costabile and Fabio Paterno, describes the birth and growth of SIGCHI Italy. (Richard I Anderson, Editor and Local SIGs Chair)
In recent years, interest in human-computer interaction (HCI) has increased in Italy, in accordance with a worldwide trend. The first research groups in this area appeared in the late eighties-early nineties. Every year, a growing number of universities offer courses in HCI in various degrees (computer science, computer engineering, psychology, and communication science; a list is available at http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/sigchi/HCIcourses.htm). To support this growing interest, a number of Italian researchers applied for setting up an Italian chapter of SIGCHI in 1995. This group included the organisers of the international conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI) that has been held regularly every two years since 1992 with a large number of participants from many countries in the world (descriptions of these events have been published in the October 1994, January 1997, and October 1998 issues of SIGCHI Bulletin). AVI conferences are an important activity in Italy in the field of HCI, and ACM has recognised their quality by choosing to be a cooperating association and by publishing the proceedings since the second conference that was held in Bari in 1994.
ACM SIGCHI promptly accepted the request to build the Italian chapter, called SIGCHI Italy, which was officially chartered on April 24, 1996. The chapter's purpose is to promote and increase knowledge and interest in the science and technology of HCI in Italy. To this end, the chapter organises meetings, conferences, discussion groups, and workshops involving people from both academia and industry.
SIGCHI Italy represented an innovation for ACM SIGCHI: it was the first local chapter covering the area of an entire country. Before this, local chapters served more limited areas. The group has grown rapidly from the initial dozen members and now involves about 140 people. In the membership, we have two levels: members, who do not have to pay any registration fee -- they just have to subscribe to our mailing list (hcitaly@cnuce.cnr.it), and voting members, who also have to be members of ACM SIGCHI. Consequently, the chapter has no budget, and we look for sponsors whenever we organise events.
After SIGCHI Italy was chartered, other requests were submitted to create national chapters (e.g., SIGCHI.NL in the Nederlands and BulSIGCHI in Bulgaria). Having a national chapter has a number of practical consequences. Members are located in towns far from each other, and thus it is not possible to have frequent meetings. Usually meetings are held every three months, often in Roma, because of its central position, and they last from 12 pm to 17 pm to allow people who have to travel for some hours to go back home the same day. Lunch is part of the meeting, and it provides a good opportunity for informal contacts. Currently, the chapter web site, where all information is provided, is at http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/sigchi/.
SIGCHI is managed completely by volunteers. Maria Francesca Costabile had been the President for the first four years. Currently, Fabio Patern˜ is the President. Members contribute in many ways: proposing thematic meetings, participating in the organization of meetings or events, advertising the activities, and creating links with other organisations.
It is worth noting that, since the beginning, people working in industry have been actively involved in the chapter. In the initial phase, SOGEI contributed to the organisation and funding of some events. One of these events was a one-day workshop in 1996 promoted by AIPA (the Italian Association for Informatics in the Public Administration) on the theme "Usability in Information System in Public Administration" that attracted a large audience. Another Italian company active in the HCI field and supporting the chapter was Etnoteam, which in 1997 organised a one-day special session during the conference CQS'97 that addressed topics related to the design and development of software systems; particular topics considered during the day were software usability and the design and development of multimedia systems.
We soon started to have regular meetings in conjunction with visits to industrial laboratories. In 1997, we had a meeting at Fondazione Ugo Bordoni (FUB). The researchers at FUB presented their work on design and evaluation of vocal interfaces and teleconferences, and showed their usability laboratory. In 1998, one meeting was at the Department of Psychology of University of Trieste, which provided an interesting opportunity to involve people from North-East of Italy. The meeting we had in June 2000 at CSELT, the research centre of Telecom, gave another interesting opportunity to see new prototypes for vocal interfaces, interfaces for third-generation cellular phones with UMTS support, and another usability laboratory. The next meeting is planned for March 23 at the FIAT Research Centre where a group of people is working on interfaces for car devices.
Over the summer of 1998, SIGCHI Italy also had the pleasure of hosting a meeting with the SIGCHI Executive Board in Roma. The meeting was held in one of the nice halls in Campidoglio, the important historical building where the Roma City Council is located.
Other groups are active in Italy on topics related to HCI, and SIGCHI Italy aims to keep contacts with them as well. For example, there is the Italian Society of Ergonomics, the Italian association of computer science (AICA), and the Italian Association of Artificial Intelligence (AIIA); the latter includes a working group of people particularly interested in adaptive, agent-based interfaces.
To further encourage the growth of the Italian community, we have also organised an Italian Symposium on HCI. The first edition was held in Roma in 1999. Given the great deal of interest that it raised, we are now organising the second symposium that will be held in Firenze, this year, in conjunction with the conference of the Italian Society of Ergonomics (information available at http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/hcitaly01.html).
We are looking forward to increasing our cooperation with other SIGCHIs, primarily those located in Europe, in order to strengthen efforts for promoting the fascinating discipline that HCI is.
