Six leaders in the field review past developments and give us their opinions of the future. Don't miss these talks. They are some of the highlights of CHI97. ********************************************************* (Tues 2:30 - 4:00pm) Invited Speakers Session Chair Mary Beth Rosson Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University Stuart Card Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Working in a Place That Isn't There: The New HCI of Tasks, Work, and Technology A funny thing has been happening to Reality. It seems to be disappearing, gradually replaced by a growing virtuality. Virtualization will have a large effect on the nature of future work and HCI is central, since virtuality is by its nature machine-mediated. I want to talk about the new sorts of work and attempts to create interactive visual virtualities and understand how they work. Bill Buxton UI Research, Alias | Wavefront Inc. Silicon Graphics, Inc. Out From Behind the Glass and the Outside-In Squeeze Most user interface work takes the GUI as a given, and then tries to understand how to best work within those constraints. Relatively little work is expended establishing or working from other starting points. We argue in favour of the field pushing harder in this direction. Through the use of examples and case studies, we demonstrate that one way to accomplish this is to change the terminal of the system, itself, and not just the look and feel that lies behind the glass of the conventional CRT. The moral of our story is that the only good computer is an invisible computer. (Weds 4:30-6pm) Invited Speakers Session Chair Jenny Preece University of Maryland, Baltimore County Tora K. Bikson The Rand Corporation Unconnected: Implications of Networks and Gaps for the Information Society The well-publicized diffusion of information and communication technologies--including the Internet, whose host machines are multiplying at a rate of about 100% per year--may make it seem as though, if we've not yet entered the information age, the US must at least be making rapid and steady progress toward a fully interconnected society. But envisioning a strategy for getting from here to there requires a realistic picture of the present. How connected are US citizens by means of today's technologies? The talk will review data concerning information technologies and user populations and discuss implications of connections and gaps for the information society. Terry Winograd Stanford University The Design of Interaction The design of human-computer interaction is moving away from a concern with controlling the machine, towards a focus on the space of interactions enabled by the virtuality that designers and users jointly create. This will lead us to devise new methods that integrate traditional usability considerations with the broader perspective of traditional design disciplines. (Thurs 2:30-4pm) Invited Speakers Session Chairs Mary Beth Rosson Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Jenny Preece University of Maryland, Baltimore County Jeff Johnson UI Wizards, Inc. Universal Access to the Net: Requirements and Social Impact This talk will focus on: 1) where we are today with respect to achieving universal access to the Internet, 2) what will be required from an HCI standpoint to achieve universal access, and 3) what some of the social consequences of achieving it may be in the first decades of the 21st century. Johnson will provide attendees with a list of recommended readings on this important subject. Tim O'Shea The Open University A Typology of Educational Interfaces There has been a depressingly ironical contrast between the slow evolution of 'innovative' styles of computer use in education and the rapid evolution of interfaces for pedagogic software. Some important educational interface design problems have now been almost entirely finessed. I present an historical classification of approaches to interface design organised with respect to the ways they can support learners working both individually and in groups over extended periods of time. This typology supports cautious optimism when considering the educational potential of new styles of shared distributed learning environments.