CHItaly 2011

The ninth edition of the biennial conference organised by the Italian chapter of ACM SIGCHI (Association for Computer Machinery – Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) will be held in Alghero in collaboration with the Department of Architecture, Design and Planning – University of Sassari.
These conferences address issues in Human Computer Interaction. Each conference deals with themes of great relevance to this research area.
At the CHItaly2011 conference, the focus will be on how to face the complexity of interaction with new objects and technological systems, following the theme of Donald A. Norman’s latest book. The paradigm of simplicity will be questioned, as it often makes problems look banal and not transparent to the point of obscuring the complexity of human-computer systems. The risk is to make interaction unmanageable, in that complexity can appear suddenly, catching people by surprise.
The theme Facing Complexity will be explored in the main areas in which human-computer interaction play a role: from socio-technical complex systems (rail, sea road and air transportation systems, energy production and distribution, manufacturing industries, health, logistics, learning, services for citizens, for government and for participation), to intelligent machines (cars, robots, machinery), to urban systems and the building industry to social networks online, to entertainment and information systems to automation in our homes. We will discuss how to make all systems, environments and additional tools able to bring out peoples different skills.
Thanks to the interdisciplinary characteristics of this sector we expect the conference to become a meeting point to exchange ideas to which many can contribute: computer scientists, engineers, cognitive scientists and ergonomists, anthropologists, doctors, designers, architects, creative producers, people with backgrounds in either research or production (from fashion to ships), the service industry or consulting.

Official website of the Conference: www.architettura.uniss.it/chitaly2011