Keyword: HCI Day, industrial talk, student activities
Author: Farhan Mohamed and Masitah Ghazali
UTM HCI Day, which has been a tradition since 2016, is an event for computing students to share their ideas, prototypes, and to showcase the best UI/UX projects from all sections. It is also where the stage is shared with industrial speakers for the students to keep abreast of what’s out there. The best of the best is prized as the winner of HCI Day of the year.
This year, the event was organised by the School of Computing UTM, on the 20th December 2019 at Kejora Hall, N28a. About 200 students participated in this event with the presence of all lecturers who taught the subject throughout the semester: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Masitah Ghazali (also the course coordinator), Dr Nur Zuraifah Syazrah Othman, Ms Nor Anita Fairos Ismail, Dr Farhan Mohamed and Assoc. Prof. Dr Nor Azman Ismail.
The event lined up two special guest speakers; Mr Abdul Hafiz Abdul Rajak, from TM Berhad, and Dr Azrina Kamaruddin from myHCI-UX. We also had the privilege of an invited judge from myHCI-UX, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fariza Hanis Abdul Razak.
An eye-opening talk entitled ‘Designing for Future Customers’ was delivered by Mr Abdul Hafiz, which provides insights into how the industry applies UI/UX in meeting the needs of their customers. While Dr Azrina delivered a talk that would give better ideas for students on how to apply UX to final year projects.
The highlight of the HCI day is the project prototypes exhibition. Students were able to share their creativity and experience in developing their HCI group project prototypes. Many exciting projects were presented to the guests and fellow students, such as new mobile applications and interfaces, IoT devices, to public-space HCI applications.
The day was concluded with video competition. There was a total of 7 videos previewed throughout the event and judged by the invited juries. The best project goes to ‘Sign Language App’ who received RM200 cash prize. ‘Smart Luggage’ and ‘Smart Handrail’ won second and third place respectively with cash prizes of RM150 and RM100 each. While consolation prizes of RM50 were given to each competing groups. Dr Fariza Hanis also gave some words of encouragement at the end of the program.
The program could not be realised without the support of hardworking students committee, dedicated lecturers, reputable guests, and sponsorship from both School of Computing and myHCI-UX (Kuala Lumpur ACM SIGCHI Local Chapter)