SIGCHI US Public Policy Committee

This group within SIGCHI aims to educate and advocate for HCI-related issues as they relate to public policy in the United States and to help raise awareness of HCI-related issues. The committee members are:

• Jonathan Lazar, Towson University (committee chair)
• Janet Davis, Grinnell College
• Harry Hochheiser, Towson University
• Jeff Johnson, UI Wizards
• Clare-Marie Karat, IBM Research

Charter

The use of computer technology in a wide range of critical aspects of American life makes their design an important policy issue. The quality of human-computer interaction (HCI) has become a crucial factor in endeavors such as voting, electronic commerce, online government, and telecommunications.

The SIGCHI US Public Policy Committee provides a voice for SIGCHI in addressing HCI issues in US public policy. This function includes:

• Providing perspective and guidance to SIGCHI on public policy matters;
• Supporting SIGCHI and its members in providing HCI experts when and where needed to inform public policy in the U.S.;
• Educating technology professionals, the public, the press, and policymakers about the importance of assuring that technology is usable and useful, and the vital role that CHI professionals can play in achieving greater usability;
• Coordinating with the USACM policy committee and public policy committees of non-ACM organizations (e.g., UPA, HFES, IEEE-USA).

Focus

While our focus is on the USA (as required by our charter and ACM rules), we hope to be a model for world-wide groups that might form to advocate for HCI-related issues everywhere.

If you have thoughts about what you would like our committee to do for SIGCHI, or ideas about how you want to help, let us know!

Activities

• Wrote a white paper titled The Need for Usability of Electronic Voting Systems: Questions for Voters and Policy Makers, in response to a call for input from the National Academy of Sciences
• We coordinated the first CHI Social Impact Award, given in 2005 to Gregg Vanderheiden
• Held a SIG meeting at CHI 2005 in Portland, on the topic of Making an Impact in Your Community: HCI and US Public Policy note: the link goes to the ACM Digital Library, which requires a subscription
• Published a short paper in Interactions on the topic of Policy at the Interface: HCI and Public Policy (link to ACM DL)
• Published a fact sheet on the Election Incident Reporting System by Jeff Johnson
• Held a workshop on Public Policy at CHI 2006 in Montreal. Position papers and detailed information are available from the workshop. The workshop extended abstract is also available from ACM DL.
• The SIGCHI US Public Policy Committee authored a Policy Statement on Universal Internet Accessibility which was approved by SIGCHI-EC on February 20, 2007
. A revised version of the policy statement was approved by the entire USACM in 2008.
• The SIGCHI Public Policy Committee held a panel on the topic of CHI Policy Issues Around the World at CHI 2008 in Florence, Italy. A copy of the extended abstract is available from the ACM Digital Library.

Other Documents

• 1999 Briefing to Congress by Austin Henderson

Last updated January 7, 2009

Contact us at: sigchi-ac-uspolicy@acm.org