The key questions here are ones that have come up over and over at panels, SIGs, and dinner tables throughout the week. As HCI grows and really comes into its own as an interdisciplinary field, it becomes more difficult to handle that interdisciplinarity in a way that doesn't splinter us apart. Each of the subdisciplines of HCI have their own questions, passions, and problems to hash out, and they need space with each other where they can really get down to business and figure out what needs to be done. But we also need channels of communication between the disciplines, which involves making an effort to both show our work to others and look at work that others are doing, even when it might not seem to apply at first glance.

Several of the participants in the Design SIG spoke to the power of CHI as a place to spur new ideas, build new collaborative relationships, and just generally step back and see what else is out there and what lights people up across the community. This sort of bridge building seems to be the strength of CHI, but for it to work, everyone needs to feel like they are able to bring their own work on their own terms and also get the feedback of their closer peers. There seems to be a fear on this front among designers - they feel like the hurdles for submitting to CHI are often too great, and that the guidelines are not well grounded in the reality of their work experience. As a result, designers are feeling nudged out of CHI even as design itself is becoming more of a central focus in conversations about the future of HCI. Some fears were expressed that, if CHI doesn't make more of an effort to reach out to a broader array of designers, including members of organizations like the IDSA, who may or may not even know that CHI exists, CHI will be in danger of becoming something of a dinosaur, tromping along without really acknowledging the realities of the work that has evolved from its earlier days. No one really seemed to prefer this outcome, but there was a rather pronounced air of uncertainty and confusion in the room.

David's main response was to encourage feedback to the conference committee. The calls for next year have not gone out yet, so designers who have suggestions for ways that their work might be better supported should contact the planning committee. A few ideas were thrown out, including a "Practitioner's Competition" in the spirit of the Student Design Competition, where practitioners are given a problem at the beginning of the conference and charged to come up with designs to present for review by the end. Something similar to this was apparently tried in 2000 or so, with mixed success. The idea seemed to strike a chord with the audience, however, so perhaps it is worth another chance. Another idea was to build in more support for something like a two-year submission cycle, where practitioners submit exciting work in a more deliverable-oriented form, and then researchers take up the opportunity to test some of the methods and ideas in papers for the following year. This collaborative spirit is something that David says that the Experience Reports are meant to encourage, but it is not yet clear whether that will happen without further inducement.

All in all, the issues raised in this SIG seem widely applicable to the community as a whole, as we all work to both refine our own practice and enlarge our field of vision by keeping up with the work that like-minded people are doing in other areas. Doing our best to make CHI a place where this kind of juggling act is facilitated, and perhaps even eased a bit, seems a daunting yet vital goal.