About Us
An Introduction to GatewayCHI - St. Louis User Experience Group (StLUX)
What is User Experience
User experience (UX) is about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership, but it also includes a person’s perceptions of the practical aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency of the system. User experience is subjective in nature, because it is about an individual’s feelings and thoughts about the system. User experience is dynamic, because it changes over time as the circumstances change.
ISO 9241-210 defines user experience as "a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service". So, user experience is subjective and focuses on the use.
What is CHI?
CHI refers to Computer-Human Interactions. Computer professionals working in the field of computer-human interactions typically are trying to improve computer screen design, but their work also impacts documentation, online help, or anything that people use directly in using their computers.
Why have this kind of organization in St. Louis?
Most systems and software in the industry have a huge opportunity to improve computer-human interactions. In many cases, organizations will assume that project teams or programmers will design adequate interfaces without directly involving the true end-users as early as possible. When they introduce the final product, inevitably the users require significant training and find that the software lacks an important piece of functionality. Methods such as usability testing, contextual inquiry, and paper prototyping have provided dramatic improvements not only to the usability of software, but to the overall costs of product development and support.
Across the United States, thousands of people participate in societies devoted to improving the user interfaces of systems and software. SIGCHI acts as one of the largest organizations of this kind. The local chapters in Boston and San Francisco each have over 500 members.
GatewayCHI endeavors to spread the word about the methods and practices for improving user interfaces, and to support any efforts for our membership to incorporate such practices at their own workplaces.
Who should join?
In short, anyone interested. User Experience professionals, Interaction Designers, Human Computer Interaction Research and Academic professionals, Marketing, Interactive Design Agencies, Advertising, software developers, technical writers, software engineers, systems analysts, web designers, trainers, (insert your job title here!) Anybody with an interest in seeing software satisfy end-users, should join.
What is SIGCHI?
ACM (the Association of Computing Machinery) has a Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interactions. SIGCHI keeps its membership up-to-date on the latest technologies and methods that improve the quality of interactions between people and computers.
Besides having a large annual conference, SIGCHI has local chapters around the world. GatewayCHI membership has recently agreed that we are ready to move forward and become an official SIGCHI chapter.
How can I get involved?
If you would like to be on the membership list, receive notice of society activities, or wish help out, please contact the GatewayCHI at GatewayCHI Contact. Membership for the annual year is $100 Corporate Membership, $20 Individual Membership, $10 Student Membership. Membership in ACM is not necessary.