New issues in teaching HCI: pinning a tail on a moving donkey

As technology changes, so does the area of human-computer interaction. HCI education must continuously change to meet the new challenges to user interaction. The World Wide Web and other distributed networks, hand-held devices, and embedded computing all present new challenges for user-centered design methods, usability testing, and other forms of evaluation. In addition, as more people use technology, the diversity of users increases, requiring increased attention to concepts such as accessibility and universal usability. This panel will address the challenges of keeping HCI education up-to-date and offer approaches that have been successfully used. The four major topics addressed by the panel will be 1) the challenge of rapidly changing technology, 2) new methods for user-centered design, 3) student involvement with users, and 4) balancing HCI theory and HCI practice.