newsletter, issue 1 (13) 2011

board

USInet Team 2010

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USInet team currently consists of five officers: Prina Bajracharya, Daniel Tetteroo, Sasha Pozdnyakova, Tanya Zavialova and Xinyu Ma. The organization is divided in committees and Prina serves as the General Chair that oversees all committees. Tanya operates as the financial officer of USInet. Sasha serves as secretary and also chairs the events committee together with Prina. Daniel, the vice chair, chairs the Public Relations committee and Xinyu is responsible for managing the website and the newsletter. Many other members help with different aspects of USInet, including Duy Le who is USInets in-house photographer.

Dear Reader!
In USInet summer newsletter 2011 we will bring you closer to the most recent USI life. The newsletter consists of five major parts. In USInet Event, we will bring you back to the events organised by USInet in the past six months. USInet tradition tells you about the USI traditions that generation kept and invented. The new USIs, USI generation 2010 will be presented to you in part of USInet People. There you will also find the interview with Maddy, who retired as USI director in last February and another interview with Thomaso USI 2009 about his experience at USI and now at Hong Kong Phillips. Last but not least, we will present you our partners who have been great support for USInet. Hope you enjoy reading this newsletter!

Acknowledgments
Special thanks to all the USIs 2010 for taking nice pictures and proofreading the articles, to Xinyu and Daniel for taking part as chief editors, to Sasha for nice illustrations, to Tanya for putting everything together and to Prina for the support and inspiration!

www.usinet.nl

info@usinet.nl

traditions

Through the Year

Graduation Ceremony
Marks the beginning and the end of the USI life. For the new generation the ceremony is the very first USInet event. Come over to say Hello!

Graduation Gift
The one year old generation USIs surprise the graduating generation with a token that reminds them of their time spent at USI and wishes them good luck for their future ventures.

Halloween Party
At the end of October USInet throws a Halloween Party. All the USIs dress up for this event.

Pot Lucks
To enhance cultural exchange the USIs cook something traditional from their homecountry or just something yummy and bring it for the party.

Internship Gift
At the end of December, when the one year old generation is ready to leave the USI office for the Each of the USIs Internship, current USIs from generation 2009 was granted with a prepare some small gifts.

Secret Santa
USIs celebrate Secret Santa after Christmas holidays by exchanging surprise gifts using a lottery system. Along with gifts, the USI composes a handwritten poem in Dutch tradition for the person they are supposed to give a gift to.

Suit-Up Day
In the middle of the semester, guys come in suit and girls dress up for one working day.

piece of wooden cake to remember all the pleasant moments together.

Conference Outfit
Each year before the conference, USIs design the t-shirt that contains the USI logo and promotes the program. USIs wearing t-shirts perform a group photo session during the conference and send the awesome pictures to Mia.

Non-Shaving February
9 USIs managed to keep their beard growing for the whole month in February.

USI Moms Birthdays

There are two important people in USIs life also known as the USIs Moms: Mia and Lucille. USIs always remember that on January 29 it is Mias birthday and October 29 is Lucilles, and contribute in getting some nice presents.

With Love from Berli

End-of-year BBQ
To celebrate the end of a productive year the end-of-year BBQ takes place on the last week before USIs official summer vacation.

Day-by-Day
Cleaning Day
Inspiring Tuesday USI Birthdays

traditions

One of the most pleasant of USIs duties. Each day one of the USIs is responsible to take clean dishes out of the dishwasher and put them in the cupboard. At the end of the day, the same USI needs to collect and put dirty cups and dishes in the dishwasher, turn it on and clean the sink. The USIs schedule the cleaning day themselves.

On Tuesday at 16:00 one of the USIs gives a talk to their colleagues. The topic can be anything that the USI want to explore. Last year it was substituted with Animation Tuesday.

Cookie Wednesday

Coffee Corner

Birthdays are an important part of USI life, and there are several steps that have to be done. First of all, there is the cake. The USI who has a birthday brings it and share it with all the USIs. And last but not least there is a birthday gift that is arranged by the USI who had his/her the birthday before this one.

USI Timeline
On Wednesday around 15:00 one of the USIs brings cookies or cakes for their fellows. The schedule is attached on the fridge. Coffee at the USI office isnt free. The chosen representative of the USI Coffee Corner Association (USICCA) is responsible for collecting money and getting supplies like coffee, tea, sugar, and milk for the coffee corner.

Thirsty Thursday

On Thursday after work USIs go out for a beer either at the TU/e campus or in the city center.

Generation 2010 has started a USI timeline, where along with the courses and conferences they write down important and fun happenings. Considering that USI life is full of those, it is always nice to look back at those shared pleasant moments.

3TU. School for Technological Design

STAN ACKERMANS INSTITUTE

User -System Interaction Post master program

Does your company need temporary an excellent User Experience trainee and you also prefer to have access to the supervision and support of the TU/e?
For more information please contact: Mia Jelsma 0031 40 2475230 or m.l.jelsma@tue.nl

events

USInet New Year Drink

was organised on 20th January, 2011 at Zwarte Doos at TU/E campus.

Around 40 USInet members met for the celebration of the New Year. In the event the new USInet committee was officially introduced to the USInet members. A guitar performance was provided at the beginning of the event and New Year gifts were distributed by means of lottery at the later stage.

Maddys Farewell Party

We got the chance to say farewell and show our appreciation to Maddy on 23rd February at De Zwarte Doos. Maddy gave us an inspiring speech in which she spoke words of wisdom about the dos and dont for USI alumni. A gift basket which contained the gifts from all over the world was prepared and given to Maddy by USI2010. In the event, the dean of Industrial Design also gave a speech in which Maddys great work and contribution at USI program was acknowledged.

events

CHI 2011 impressions

Id say, the fact that CHI 2011 took place in Vancouver is already something impressive about the conference.

All in all it was an inspiring experience on many different levels. The works presented ranged from fundamental to applied research and came from universities as well as industry. And then there were the talks that were neither fundamental or practical, such as human-cat interaction, which was great fun! CHI Madness, was the reason that we managed to get up that early...

CHI was a wonderful experience with some really nice talks! Most impressive was probably the Microsofts presentation Your Noise is My Command: Sensing Gestures Using the Body as an Antenna about how to turn any wall in the house into a touch-surface. I liked Japanese girl Emi Tamaki and her PossessedHand that controls the users fingers by applying electrical stimulus to the muscles around the forearm. Guys at University of California and Pixar animations developed a tool called Eden, which helps professional animators design virtual organic environments. The talk by Joe Marshall & Brandon Walker (University of Nottingham) on fear as basis or goal for interaction was very inspiring. Impressive in CHI 2011 was also the number of people that were interested in using things, and doing so in the interactive sessions.

events

Bill Buxton convincingly explained why it is important to look to the past when designing...

... and sometimes it was like a sneak peak into the future of the interactions and technology.

events

Interview with Jeff Johnson at CHI 2011

During CHI 2011 we were lucky to have a small talk with Jeff Johnson, President and Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc. development processes are being outsourced in many companies. And among all those developers there are numbers of people who have no idea about user interface design. So basically they should follow the same path, as we did with those big companies, to bring user centered design into small companies.

So, Mr. Johnson, what is your vision on the development of HCI field in the future? Jeff: The field of HCI exists for about 30 years and during that time we have been working hard to bring UserCentered design ideas into the field. And we succeed with major big companies. But within the last 10 years, a number of companies in the software developing business expanded enormously. Those who previously were producing toasters are now producing products that have complicated user interfaces. Many shops are going online and software

Thank you for sharing your vision. Jeff, in your opinion, what are the most important qualities for an Interaction Designer? Jeff: First of all everything you design should be usercentered, not usage-centered. We should focus on a users needs. Then you should always consider that the design process is iterative, so you shouldnt assume that youll

Jeff Johnson has worked in the field of HumanComputer Interaction since 1978 and his recent books Design with the Mind in Mind and GUI Bloopers 2.0 are well known and desirable among UX people. never come back. Design with that in mind! Also you should remember that it is not always a point to design something that is easy to learn, but make it easy to use and easy to learn as much as possible. Thanks for your time, mister Johnson!

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User Intelligence is a user experience consultancy. Our mission to bring user goals and business goals together by using interactive technology.

events

UXCamp Europe 2011

In early June more than 20 USIs spent a few great days in Berlin attending UXCamp Europe 2011. The main rule of the event is No spectators, just participants! That does not mean everybody has to do a session, but everybody should come prepared to participate in an active manner. UXCamp was full of the inspiring topics and engaging discussions. It was not a surprise that all the tickets were sold out on the very fist day of the registration. Turn on your reminders to reserve a ticket for the next year: www.uxcampeurope.org

CHI Sparks 2011

Some guerilla marketing was done in order to create some buzz around USInet For the first time USInet has been a proud partner of the CHI Sparks 2011 conference www.chi-sparks.nl held on 23th of June 2011 at the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen www.han.nl It has been a great event in which we met many former, current and possible future USIs. onnections have been made with people from industry and as well as from academia at the USInet conference booth.

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people

USI 10
People
This year we decided to present our generation - USI10 with a Tag Cloud that consists from words describing ourselves Daniel Tetteroo Dutch / German Masters: HMI @ University of Twente, Speciality: interactive installations Biyong Zhang Chinese Bachelor in ICT, MSc in Computer Science Engineer (specialised in Information Security) Prina Bajracharya Nepal BSc in Computer Engineering Bachelor: Computer Engineering at Nepal Engineering College (NEC) Masters: Information Management at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok Interest: Interaction Design, UX Design

player psychologist nice open opinion sleeping

wise queen relaxed

surprising

sweet team teaser pragmatic

worker

super

programmer technical

Xinyu Ma Chinese Bachelor of Industrial Design at BJFU China and Master of Strategic Product Design at TU Delft. Speciality: Product and Interaction Design Mariana Serras Pereira Born in Lisbon Master in Clinical Psychology from ISPA ; Post-graduation in Psychotherapy; Specialities: Psychology, Human development and behavior; Research, User research; Tin de Zeeuw Dutch Education/Work background: BSc in Computer Science, MSc in Human Media Interaction, freelance website design Specialities: the technical side of p rojects and keeping an overview / coordinating projects.

NIKolay Chupriyanov I am Russian. I have a degree in computer science with a double major in nuclear physics. Oddly enough, I have 5+ years of experience working as a graphic, web and user-experience designer. Matthijs Jan Zwinderman Dutch Work background: Artificial Intelligence, specialty computer vision and robotics Azadeh Shirzad Iranian Education: Bachelors in Software Engineering, Masters in Interaction Design Specialities: After Effects, C#, Photoshop, Flash

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diligent
easy going

calm clever code coffee fat father feisty friendly fun guy helvetica artist awesome
energetic
awesome beard baby

creative critical
jamon

designah drawer

laugh niam

people

huge humor

organiser peace specialist structured statistics

designer jokes knowledgeable

cool strong

Hans Sandberg Danish Neuropsychology and applied cognitive psychology Usability testing Thelxi Mamagkaki Greek Computer Engineering & Informatics (Polytechnic Faculty, University of Patras, Greece), Thesis on Game Development. Paul Lehouck Belgium Master Product Design Specialities: Combining Interaction/Industrial/Graphic design.For more info see www.paullehouck.be

Tanya Zavialova Originated from Ukraine. Engineer by education and way of thinking. Have been working as a GUI designer since 2007. Truly believes that user experience research is a good excuse for gaming. Glenn Veugen Belgian Masters: Communication & Multimediadesign Specialities: Interactive applications Frank Versteegh Dutch Education: Master Applied Cognitive Psychology at Leiden University Work: During my Masters I did an internship at the National Aerospace Laboratory on clutter in helmet mounted displays.

Duy Le Grew up at Ho Chi Minh city, a southern part of Vietnam. Aeronautical Engineering major at Hochiminh university of technology, Cambridge Computer Science diploma, master in Mechanical Engineering & Product Design. A. Pozdnyakova Sasha from Russia. Graduated St Petersburg Polytechnic University. Specialities: Informational design and Multimedia. www. losha.ru Rinze Leenheer Dutch MSc Cognitive psychology, Ergonomics and Media (University of Twente), BSc Computer Science (University of Twente) Bridging between design and engineering

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people

Last February Maddy Janse retired as director of the USI programme. After serving USI for more than 13 years, she handed over her responsibilities to USIs new director Panos Markoupolos. On one of Maddys last days at USI, USInet looked back with her on this period.

Interview with Maddy

Maddy, youve been at USI for over 13 years. What made you decide to take the job in the first place? Maddy: The USI program was started in 1998 as a joined venture between Philips Research and TU/e. By the time USI was founded, I was working at Philips and Prof. Theo Bemelmans was the director of USI. He needed someone to setup up the program, which is where I came in. I was hired out by Philips to the TU/e to set up the program in just 2 days a week. The initial idea was to train people from the industry in the area of USI, but that turned out to be very difficult to arrange. Then the program was changed to what it is now, in which participants of the USI program are trained in a full time manner. So, how would you describe a typical USI student? What things did you consider during application interviews? Maddy: Initially, the USI student profile consisted of just behavioural scientists and engineers. Later we found that designers could be very useful as well, since they could help to fill the gap between technicians and psychologists. But regardless of their background, I think motivation and industrial interest are crucial for USI applicants. Regarding the interview procedure, did you know that we used to would fly in applicants from all over the world just for the interviews? Alternatively, we would also fly out to countries to interview participants there. Of course, with todays budgets, this would be unthinkable! What would you advise to your successor? Maddy: Your responsibility is to make sure that what is getting out matches intentions and goals of USIs as well as needs in industry. Also, keep extremely close contacts with industry and R&D departments. Keep an eye on current projects, so you can anticipate on the future: consider managing USI as a long term process. Finally, like your students from top till toe! What are your plans after USI? Maddy: Well, actually I dont have too many plans yet. Im still advising at Philips and also involved in EU projects as a reviewer. Besides work, I picked up the senior sport called golf. Haha, and I think I need to learn working with a Mac. Apparently the Mac is not as easy as people tell you it should be. Finally, whats your advice for USINET members? Maddy: Know what you DONT want to do. If you do, theres still a lot open and a lot of flexibility. And something I learned from my childhood hobby, sailing: if the tide and wind are against you, there is not much use in going against them. Lay down until one of them changes so you can go your way. Same holds for your life in general: make plans, set beacons, but dont forcefully pursue your goals. Thanks a lot Maddy, for this interview and your contributions to the USI programme! Maddy: Thank you too! And may I say that I couldnt have done the USI management without the hard work and commitment of a lot of people, especially the person who is in charge of the operational management, i.e., Mia or in previous years Patricia. Finally, I owe a lot to Panos and Jacques Terken, who are specialists in helping to find and coach USIs teachers. Read the interview with Panos Markoupolos in the next issue of USInet Newsletter

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Life After USI

A talk between Xinyu (USI 2010) and Tomaso (USI 2008) What was your background before USI? Tomaso: I took both my bachelor & master at the University of Padua (Italy) where I spent some of the best years of my life so far, exploring the amazing field of psychology from different angles. During those years as a student I visited first the University of Queensland (Australia) and then the Boston University (US) great experiences that have deeply contributed in broadening my horizons. Towards the end of my master I joined the Risk and Decision Research Centre at the University of Padua and then, as a freshgrad, I worked for a year at Synovate-Censydiam in Milan where I quickly dove into various consumer/user-centered research techniques. In the first years of my studies I was very enthusiastically into clinical psychology and my deep interest for human well being is actually something I try to bring into my daily work. I truly see technology as an extension of the human mind, therefore, from my point of view, it should work for improving our condition, on different levels. Doesnt matter if we are talking of an MP3 player or a pain-management system: we should unconditionally work with the human wellness in mind as final goal. How do you feel about USI life? Tomaso: The USI experience gave me a lot since I had the privilege to work on daily basis with very dedicated professionals and friends with whom I shared many successes and frustrations, always keeping the will to learn and improve. Just by working together, side-by-side I had the opportunity to learn from each of them and I thank them all for having shared those two years of their life with me. In November 2010 you moved to Hong Kong. How is your experience so far? Tomaso: So far the overall experience here in HK is great, as I am learning new things and testing myself on new challenges every day. At first I was a little concerned about the relative lack of personal space, especially while browsing around using public transportation. As you can imagine, HK is an extremely packed hub. Walking in the subway network in the first days made me feel like a tiny red blood cell pushed through vessel streams Soon I realized though that the overall transportation system is extremely well organized so after the first shocking impression I started to feel at my own ease. (Besides I have to say I am quite tall compared to HK natives, so I can easily keep a clear view on whats around me at any time:-) Hong Kong is an extremely vibrant and exciting place to be. As a financial and technological hotspot it attracts professionals from all over the world, therefore at night its easy to have interesting and diverse conversations on a semi-random basis. Very different if compared to Holland. You can easily get any kind of food from Asia and Europe, on the top of the delicious seafood dishes at the street markets. The only drawback I am sadly experiencing is the high level of pollution that affects the air that I breath every day. For the very first time in my life Im realizing how sustainable development and consumption is no more a matter of clever and sensitive people but an urgency for everyone. Could you please tell us something about Hong Kong Philips? Tomaso: The Innovation & development Philips Site of Hong Kong came to me as a fast growing reality, where engineers, designers and researchers are working together on different categories of products for delivering the best innovative solutions for serving the fastgrowing Asian market. Not only. Many products for western countries are also developed here from scratch, taking competitive advantage of the fact that many global technologic suppliers are located in the South China area. For professionals like us it means faster prototype iteration processes, more iterations, direct interaction with suppliers, closer look to prototyping details. Working for Product Research Centre here, is great to me since I have the possibility to take care of the perspective of the user/consumer throughout the product development process at different stages. In a few words, our role at PRC is to work closely with engineers, designers and marketing managers to provide them with indications on product development by designing & executing research on various products of Philips Consumer Lifestyle range. What suggestion do you have for the new USIs? Tomaso: I would like to wish all the best to the new USIs for taking the best they can from the privilege of being a USI. That means to me, being as active and reactive as possible in the TU/E innovative environment, to be humble and learn as much as you can from everyone around you. Thats a unique life/career experience!

people

in Philips Hong Kong

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fresh

Fresh: April, May 2011

www.usinet.nl/fresh FRESH is a new, monthly online magazine by USINET. It contains a selection of recent work done by the current USI generations, giving you a peek into the minds and ideas of current USIs. In case you missed all the fuzz, here are excerpts from the two latest editions. In FRESH_April 2011, you will find two USI projects done during the module of Information Visualization. optimise and visualize cooking process. The aim was also to create a visually pleasant recipe format that invites and encourages experienced cooks, as well as beginners, to prepare dishes and meals from simple to complex ones. For more information, please contact Daniel Tetteroo d.tetteroo@tue.nl the stock market for these new or hobby investors will be introduced. Because of the complicated nature of the stock market the visualization presented in this study focuses on the basic details. This will help the user to first get a basic understanding of the stock market before diving into a highly detailed informational environment. It is even possible that this detailed information remains unnecessary for a large group of users who are more than happy with the proposed structured, tiered presentation. For more information, please contact Xinyu Ma x.ma@tue.nl FRESH May_2011 brings you 4 projects done by current USIs in 3 modules which are: Qualitative Research Methods, Multimodal Perception and Video Prototyping. People who are new to the stock market are confronted with an overload of information. It is difficult to separate the information that matters from the information that is perhaps less useful. The usefulness of information is a very subjective measure as people employ a lot of different individual strategies which they personally think will lead to success. Visualizing information in a structured manner could help new or hobby investors in finding and understanding the information they are interested in more easily. In this study a visualization of

Visual Recipe

Stockmarket
How to visualize a complex interactive process? was the initial triggering question the group wanted to investigate. In exploration of different processes from flying an airplane to medical charts in a hospital, cooking seemed to be an intriguing challenge. In fact, the group soon discovered that cooking with conventional recipes presented several challenges and that cooking itself is a surprisingly complex process with several variables, that could definitely benefit from new ideas. By using a complex and laborious, four course dinner as an example, the problems were investigated in detail. An alternative for the recipes was then designed to answer the most important challenges. The result is the Visual Recipe concept, an on-line application aiming to facilitate,

Save the Safe

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Two video prototypes were reverse-engineered from an existing outdoor childrens game created in a study by Iris Soute et al. in 2009. Purpose of the videos was to investigate the suitability of a video prototype in predicting the opinion of future users. Two

fresh

Fresh: April, May 2011

video prototypes were created for two versions of the game: game with the belt and game with the ball. Project by Daniel Tetteroo, Xinyu Ma, Frank Versteegh, Paul Lehouck, Duy Le and Hans Sandberg. users to a certain direction through manipulation of an audio signal. Sound based spatial navigation works by differences in the audio arrival time and relative intensities detected in both ears, out of which the human brain can calculate the perceived location of a sound source. Sound closer to one ear will sound louder at that ear, and will arrive slightly earlier there than at the other ear. There are other variables that also influence the way the sound arrives at the ears, like the shape of the human ear. The differences in perceived sound according to its source can be used to simulate stereo-audio that appears to come out of a predefined location. By giving an audio clue we can lead users to a certain location by having them follow the simulated fictional sound source. Project by Daniel Tetteroo, Matthijs Zwinderman, Tanya Zavialova & Paul Lehouck. Poster accepted for MobileHCI 2011 conference in Stockholm. of a university to visit the university library. Our concept tries to incorporate game elements into the library experience, hopefully inducing people to visit the library more frequently. Although the video prototype was meant to be not too serious, it shows the main idea behind the concept. Project by Daniel Tetteroo, Frank Versteegh, Glenn Veugen, Hans Sandberg & Duy Le

Oh Music where Art Thou?

Interactive Whiteboard

Most navigation systems currently on the market use visual cues to inform the user, as these can provide a large amount of information in an efficient way. A problem of using visual cues is that users have to shift their attention from the road to the designated screen, which distracts them from their main activity like driving a car or riding a bike. The problem can be reduced drastically or even eliminated completely when other senses are considered. Unlike vision in which focused attention is necessary, the human auditory system can detect signals from all directions simultaneously without the need to focus on one specific direction. The fact that focused attention is not necessary makes audio an ideal sense for navigation, making it more natural and intuitive. The human capability for detecting the direction of a sound source enables to possibility to lead

Library Quest

The concept of this Interactive Whiteboard is designed to improve group discussions. People can write on it with different colours or erase the content by simply using his/ her finger. Pictures and videos can also be easily uploaded to the interactive whiteboard. To add comments, people can write on a digital post-it and drag it to the place where the comment targets on. Project by Mariana Serras Pereira, Paul Lehouck, Sasha Pozdnyakova, Biyong Zhang and Xinyu Ma To be updated about latest USI projects, check FRESH regularly on the USInet website.

The goal of the concept presented in this video prototype is to motivate students and employees

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Upcoming Talks
Among other regular activities, this fall USInet plans to invite some interesting people to discuss freelance opportunities and ethical issues in the HCI field.
stay tuned: www.usinet.nl

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