Instead of making everyone wait around for a few months after the fact, the CHI 2008 committee apparently has settled on the problem for the student design competition next year in Italy.
A home is one’s castle, yet not all of the citizens of the planet can claim the kingdom. The UN Human Settlements Programme estimates that there are 3 million homeless in the EU, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development reference close to three quarters of a million homeless in the US. Some are temporarily homeless by environmental circumstance, while some are born into poverty; some even elect a nomadic lifestyle rather than participate in the culturally accepted norms of society. Whatever the reason, these people often depend on public services and support for food, shelter, medicine, and other forms of necessary assistance and guidance.
Design an object, interface, system, or service intended to support the state of living without a house. Use methods of ethnography and contextual research to understand the problem space, and develop user-centered design solutions to support, assist, enhance or otherwise benefit your target audience. Your solution could address the environmental state of being without a house, including issues of physical sustenance and safety, or it could investigate the emotional, social and cultural needs of this group of people.
This is more relevant to me than the problems the past two years, so I am likely going to explore the problem and do a submission. Anything to help get me to Italy.
Jon Kolko of the Savannah College of Art and Design is the chair of SDC next year. Savannah had an undergraduate team land in the finals with us two years ago in Portland.
1 reply on “Already? … CHI 2008 SDC challenge is out”
Very cool. The early critics who were worried about IRB and ethical issues were clearly heard, but not at the expense of this project. This was recently added to the description details of next year’s competition: