Presentations at CHI

Your presentation format at CHI will depend on your submission category. There are special requirements for tutorials, workshops, design and usability, papers, demonstrations and panels that will be communicated to you by your area chairs via the conference office. This guide is a general guide for all presenters.

As a presenter, you are required to meet all deadlines regarding published materials for the conference and to liaise with your session chair. At the conference, you are asked to attend the Monday evening Speaker Reception. We strongly encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to meet your session chair, discuss how you will be introduced, receive critical information on session arrangements, and meet fellow presenters for your session.

Please note that it is very important your presentation fit within the allotted time in your submission category; in particular, it is not ok to use some of the question period to extend your speaking time - the dialog between presenters and the audience is a critical part of CHI.

Although you have your session date and time, this information may be subject to change. Please arrange your travel to be at CHI 2003 from Tuesday to Thursday for all the timetabled sessions. If you may be unable to attend the whole of the main conference (Tuesday through Thursday), please contact the conference office for advice as soon as you are aware of any limitations.

General Guidelines For Being Well-Understood

When you are preparing to present at the CHI 2003 conference, please keep the following objectives in mind:

• Be sure that your presentation is easy to understand for the entire audience, especially non-native English speaking attendees;
• Communicate the main points of your accepted submission;
• Make the presentation interesting and valuable to the audience.

You will have 1 or 2 screens available for your use. Try to use each one for only one type of visual aid in order to avoid transitions between mediums, which can be disrupting to the audience. A common mistake made by presenters is trying to use too many different visual aids. Our advice is that you should stick to one format, e.g., PowerPoint presentation, unless a second format is absolutely necessary.

The basic rule for visual aids is: Keep it Simple.

For your convenience, we have samples of portions of past successful CHI presentations. Please take some time to review some of these presentations prior to creating your own.

Producing Your Visual Aids

Step 1: Review Successful Samples from Previous CHI Conferences

Click below to see suggested formats, based on actual presentations from previous CHI conferences.

Papers

Taking Email to Task (pdf)

Demonstrations

SHriMP views: an interactive environment for information visualization and navigation (pdf)
Interaction in a Collaborative Augmented Reality Environment (pdf)

Design & Usability

Tangibly Simple, Architecturally Complex: Evaluating a Tangible Presentation Aid
Paper: (pdf) Presentation Slides: (pdf)
The Sound of One Hand: A Wrist-Mounted Bio-acoustic Fingertip Gesture Interface
Paper: (pdf) Presentation Slides: (ppt)
Transparent Hearing
Paper: (pdf) Presentation Slides: (ppt)

Panels

New Issues in Teaching HCI: Pinning a Tail on a Moving Donkey (pdf)
CHI@20: Fighting our Way from Marginality to Power (pdf)

Step 2: Review the Available Audio-Visual Support

As stated in the Call for Participation, a standard AV set will be provided for your session. Find your session type below to be reminded of the AV support.

For Demonstrations, Panels, Papers, Design and Usability, and Tutorials:

• 1 PC with CD-ROM and Zip Drive;
• 1 Mac with CD-ROM and Zip Drive;
• Specific operating systems available on PC and Mac computers are listed on Page 4;
• Clip-on, podium, or table mike for each presenter;
• Connection from computer sound output to the room audio;
• NTSC or PAL (VHS) (Note: If you require a PAL machine, please inform Sarah Grigg at the CHI 2003 office (sarah_grigg@sba.com) by Friday, January 30.);
• Projection of Computer displays with resolution up to 1024x768 pixels.

For Workshops:

• Projection of computer displays with resolution up to 1024x768 pixels. Important: organizers and participants must provide laptops for use with the projector.

The Call for Participation information also gave you the opportunity to request additional AV support for consideration. If you specifically requested an exception on your submission form, you should have already received a response to your request. To verify the status of special requests, please contact Sarah Grigg at CHI 2003 Office at sarah_grigg@sba.com or +1 312-673-5749.

Specific Information on Available AV Equipment:

• Data Projector: This data projector will allow you to project images from your computer to the screen in the room. Resolution will be up to 1024x 768 pixels. If you are planning to bring your own computer hardware and wish to display the screen to the audience, please let Sarah Grigg (sarah_grigg@sba.com) know your hardware and its needs by Friday, January 30.
• Videotape Player: The conference standard for videotape is NTSC VHS. If necessary, however, we can also accommodate PAL formats. Please let Sarah Grigg (sarah_grigg@sba.com) know by Friday, January 30 if you will need a PAL machine. Videotape players will be connected to displays appropriate for the size of the room; smaller rooms may be equipped with some number of 63 cm (25 inch) color monitors on tall stands; video projectors will be used in the larger rooms.
• Wired Clip-on Microphone: We will equip all rooms with (1) one (lapel) microphone and one podium. (Speakers should use the wired lapel microphone and leave the podium microphone free for the session chair.) A wired (or lapel) clip-on is a small, light microphone that can be attached to the front of your clothing with a clip. It provides freedom to walk around on the stage if you desire. If you cannot wear a clip-on microphone, we will try our best to accommodate your special needs if you inform Sarah Grigg by January 30, 2003. Multiple speakers will need to share this microphone.
• Computers: The international nature of this conference introduces many logistical challenges regarding the use of computer equipment. We strongly suggest that whenever possible you should record (on videotape or on digital media) any demonstrations of computer systems that you wish to show as this will give you better control over the content and reliability of your presentation. We have, however, taken great efforts to provide some standard computer systems that you can request. We will provide the following two standard configurations:

  Macintosh	PC
  Power Macintosh G4/350 MHz	Pentium III 600 MHz
  128 Mb	128 Mb
  6 GB	6 GB
  Zip Drive	Zip Drive
  CD-ROM	CD-ROM
  Ethernet	Ethernet
  MacOS 10	Windows 2000
  Office Viewers*	Office Viewers*
  Netscape	Netscape
  Internet Explorer 6.0	Internet Explorer 6.0

  *Computers provided to session rooms will have Office viewers only. These are compatible with Office 97 and 2000 for PC, as well as Office 98 for Mac. A viewer will allow you to view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, however no changes can be made. You will have to make all changes prior to your session on either your own laptop or in the Speaker Preparation Room.
  
  We will arrange for the computer’s monitor to be displayed for audience viewing, using equipment appropriate to the size of the room so that all attendees can see clearly.
  
  We will also supply operating system and virus-detection software. If you require non-standard software, you must supply your own laptop with this software. If you need more information, please contact the conference office as soon as possible.

Step 3: Choose Your AV Format(s)

When choosing the format for producing your visual aids, please keep the following in mind: Standard Presentation Software is the easiest to use and can deliver a highly professional look. We will provide MS PowerPoint. If you would like to use an alternate presentation software of your choice, you must bring your own laptop and run data projection directly from it. Keep in mind that the Microsoft PowerPoint we provide will not have any special fonts. Please be prepared to install any special fonts you use in your presentation or use your own laptop.

Step 4: Create Your Visual Aids

Create a presentation that you can deliver comfortably within the time available (20 minutes for Papers and Demonstrations, 15 minutes for Design and Usability, consult your workshop organizer or panel moderator for workshops and panels).

Here are some general suggestions for your Presentation:

1. Use text sparingly: Keep your points in short, concise, outline form. This will inform the viewer about the topic and will also help you remember your key points for discussion. There is no real need to write in full sentences, as this will unnecessarily clutter your slides. Use action keywords to point out the important topics of your discussion.
2. Wording should be clear and legible: Text should be large enough to be legible from all areas of the room. Slides should not have more than 5 bullets and each bullet should be no longer than two lines.
3. Slide Titles: Keep your slide titles to one or two lines.
4. Number of Slides: A typical rule-of-thumb is to have one slide for each minute of the speaking portion of your presentation (not including the Q&A time.) Stick to one topic per slide. You can have multiple slides per topic. In this case, the same title should be used on each slide, with the word “cont’d” at the end of the title in all instances after the first use.
5. Visually Appealing: Use other sources of information besides text in your presentation. Pictures and visual effects can add to the attractiveness of a presentation if used correctly. However, be careful that these don’t override the information you are trying to convey.
6. Colors: Do not use more than four colors in your presentation. Avoid red letters, which are difficult for some people to read. The best readability comes from high contrast of intensity rather than by clashes of color.
7. Alignment: All type is upper and lower case, flush left, ragged right.
8. Slide Backgrounds: If you use backgrounds in your slides, use light colors.
9. Consistency throughout Presentation: Be consistent in presenting information in a organized, logical manner.
10. Trademarks: Copyright and trademark items on the first occurrence in a presentation, should appear using a symbol (©, ®, ™). The footnotes for trademark information (item and company name) are listed on one slide, which must be shown at the end of the presentation. List trademarks alphabetically.

Step 5: Receive Feedback About Your Visual Aids

Review of Visual Aids:

Expect to have your Session or Area Chairs ask to review the visual aids you will be using in your presentation. Feedback will be provided to you regarding your materials. Our goal is to help you give the best possible presentation.

Biography

Your session chair will introduce you to the audience before your presentation. Please write a short (2-6) line description of yourself to help them. The shorter your description, the more time you have for your talk!

On-Site Support

The Speaker Preparation/Rehearsal Room

For your convenience, there will be a Speaker Preparation and Rehearsal Room available to aid you in any final preparations for your presentation. When in the Speaker Preparation Room, please be aware of other speakers who may have urgent needs for equipment in the room.

You will find that most of the equipment found in the Session Rooms is available in this room, including:

• PCs and Macs with CD-ROM and Zip Drive and the following operating systems:

  Macintosh	PC
  Power Macintosh G4/350 MHz	Pentium III 600 MHz
  128 Mb	128 Mb
  6 GB	6 GB
  Zip Drive	Zip Drive
  CD-ROM	CD-ROM
  Ethernet	Ethernet
  MacOS 10	Windows 2000
  Microsoft Office	Microsoft Office
  Netscape	Netscape
  Internet Explorer 6.0	Internet Explorer 6.0

• Microphones
• Connection from computer sound output to the room audio
• Overhead projectors
• Data projectors
• NTSC and PAL video (VHS) machines
• Computer displays with resolution up to 1024x768 pixels.

If you are using the speaker prep room for last-minute materials preparation and need special software, you must use your own laptop. No special applications will be pre-loaded on the computers supplied in the room.

The following are the location and operating hours of the Speaker Preparation Room for CHI 2003.

Speaker Reception

There will be a Speaker Reception the evening of Monday, April 7, 2003 at 20:00, immediately preceding the networking reception which will begin at 21:00. The reception is a chance to meet your session chairs and fellow presenters from your session. There will be light hors d’oeuvres and a complimentary drink ticket. Further information will be sent to you in February.

For those who cannot attend, there will be a short briefing Tuesday morning at 8:00. Please let your chairs know if you will be attending Tuesday’s briefing.

Your Session

Check your final program to confirm when and where you will be presenting. You should arrive 30 minutes (and certainly no less than 20 minutes) before your session starts. You can use this time to arrange your materials, meet the student volunteer who will assist you, try all of the audio-visual and computer equipment, learn the stage layout and clarify how your session chair will introduce you (so bring your 2-6 line biography to the session).

Late arrivals cause real difficulties, especially if special arrangements require last minute attention. Please support your session chair by arriving well before the start of your session.

Throughout your session, a CHI student volunteer will be present to assist you with equipment operation and to help solve any problems that might arise. They can help you with the microphone and set up, test and operate the equipment in the room or liaison with the professional staff on duty. Remember to arrive early enough to complete activities before the session begins.

In all but the smallest session rooms, there will be a stage. For safety reasons, please use the stairs to ascend and descend from the stage.

If approved, all your requested audio-visual and computer equipment will be in the room. It is possible that other equipment will also be in the room, for use by other speakers sharing that room throughout the day. Please do not try to operate any equipment in the room that you did not specifically request as other equipment may have already been specially set up.

There will normally be one projection screen in the room, set off to one side of the stage. If you will have more than one type of visual aid, please inform Sarah Grigg (sarah_grigg@sba.com) prior to the conference.

Please do not hesitate to contact Sarah Grigg in the conference office with any questions at +1 312.673.5749 or sarah_grigg@sba.com.

We look forward to your presentation!