the state of mexico's hci: an overview

The State of Mexico’s HCI: an OverviewMario A Moreno Rocha

UsaLab UTMMexico

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

“the always interesting story of Human Computer-Interaction and usability in Mexico is at its peak”

- multiple academic efforts- important number of labs and institutions- growing market and professionals- the best moment for HCI in Mexico

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SIGCHI-LA Workshop

The unfriendly 80s


“usability started in the 80s hidden into Software Engineering as a ‘new tests to be made on products of software’”

- input of another areas of knowledge was unheard of- engineers just didn’t considered the users as an important part of the development

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SIGCHI-LA Workshop

The crisis of the 90s


“during the bonanza years of the early 90s, the Mexican government granted a record number of scholarships to Mexican students, many of them were exposed to the study of HCI”

- the economic crash of 1994- students started to came back - spreading the word of User Centered Design

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SIGCHI-LA Workshop

HCI in the newmillennium


“the Develop Consortium of the 2001 ACM SIGCHI Conference (Seattle) was devoted to Latin America, creating momentum for the Mexican HCI community”

- formalised the Mexican SIGCHI Chapter- next step to incorporate HCI studies into school’s curricula and proper facilities- HCI courses, quest for labs, increased number of Mexican HCI students

SIGCHI-LA Workshop5

History of today

SIGCHI-LA Workshop


“since then, the study of HCI and the practice of usability has come to age”

- usability as an educational agenda turned into an industrial activity when our alumni became active- new software development companies started to grow and multinationals eyed Mexico - new professionals incorporated into HCI: translators, anthropologists, graphical designers, etc

undergraduate and graduate studies

an usability industry

conferences and meetings

groups and associations

SIGCHI-LA Workshop


Challenges and opportunities

SIGCHI-LA Workshop


“HCI is not free from problems and challenges, but those are nothing but opportunities to turn our communities strong and better prepared”

- fell short of a critical mass to secure a place on the Mexican computing community

practitioners and markets

communication, involvement and collaboration

research and studies

SIGCHI-LA Workshop


- research and studies (turn HCI into a career option for every student)- practitioners and markets (bigger and international markets; a robust and more professional practitioners)- communication, involvement and collaboration (better communities)

SIGCHI and our community

SIGCHI-LA Workshop


“being SIGCHI our role model of any HCI community, it’s really important to understand the extent of these resources”

- cultural and language aspects (first, second generations trained abroad, third and fourth in Mexico)- technology are here to change the pace of the game, theory cannot cope with the speedy thech changes, so we have to excel in order to attract younger audiences

SIGCHI-LA Workshop

The next20 years


“the development of Human Computer-Interaction and usability in Mexico is a comprising labour in which we all have a place”

- started in academia, turned into a practice- laboratories, academic programmes started to appear, triumph of international competitions turned the attention of the industry and the demand of easy to use apps started to appear- researchers and practitioners created momentum


“the last 20 years created the foundations of HCI in Mexico, the next 20 years will see its consolidation”

the state of mexico's hci: an overview

Education