SOCHI website

Check out the SOCHI website to see some of my blog posts and more details about our events this past year

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SOCHI Initiatives

The student group I help run, which has been very active and successful this year.

What we've done this year

SOCHI is the student group for HCI at the School of Information. Our main goal is to put on educational and social events to benefit HCI students. However, this past year, we stepped up our game and became the most active student SIGCHI chapter in the country, gaining national recognition for our events such as our design jams with Mozilla, which were featured on the Mozilla Labs blog.

In all, we held six design jams this past year: a series of three jams sponsored by Mozilla, in which we answered their call for participation to design the browser of the future, a design jam on designing for disabilities, and two company-sponsored design jams held with Zattoo and TechSmith. The general format of each design jam is the same; we start by defining the design problem, then break up into groups to brainstorm solutions. Each group sketches ideas on a whiteboard, and iteratively refines the idea based on feedback from others. In the end, we present our final ideas to the rest of the group, and pass them over to the company who sponsored the event for potential use in their products.

Besides design jams, SOCHI has also held several tech talks, including one I gave on how to use Axure prototyping software. We also hold numerous career-related events, such as peer reviews of portfolios and resumes, and advising sessions on how to get internships and jobs. Finally, SOCHI is active in networking with local UX professionals, and attending lectures and conferences where we liveblog the events to share knowledge with other students about what we learn.

Browse our Flickr photos from our events this year