CHI 2006 was in Montreal, Quebec this year, and Mindjet was there to see the action.
I was excited to hear from many CHI attendees (both academics working on their masters or PhD’s and designers in industry) that they’ve heard of or use MindManager and love it.
I’m curious to know how many people who went to CHI this year also check out this blog? If you were in Montreal this year, let us know!
CHI 2007 will be in San Jose, CA for its 25th anniversary, and I want Mindjet to have a presence there by contributing via a presentation, a paper or maybe just having a booth. I think the community is ripe to explore mindmapping in a more serious way now that the concept has evolved and progressed here in the states.
Panels and papers at CHI touched on many issues that could apply to mindmapping and mapping software development in one way or another:
- Applying tags for better search and bookmark creation
- Mash-ups: i.e. embedding two or more different kinds of technologies to a website or application to build a more rich interface
- HOP UI: mixing halo and proxy viewing techniques to get a grasp of what lays beyond a user’s immediate display (works especially well for maps or for small displays like in PDAs)
- Agile Development pros and cons
These are just a few of the topics that caught my attention at CHI this year.
It was neat to see companies like Google, Yahoo!, Intuit, Sony and Microsoft there supporting User Centered design and the interaction design community as a whole. Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Stanford were among many schools represented as well.
Even though there is debate and varying points of view in this community, it’s great to see so many professionals and students in one place at the same time.
I’ll keep the Mindjet community posted on CHI participation in the future.