The Research-Practice Interaction community is a bridge between research and practice in HCI, including all flavors thereof (user experience, usability, interaction design, information architecture, etc.etc.). We aim to promote the exchange of information between researchers and practitioners, such that research and its results are more accessible to practitioners and that practitioner information needs are conveyed to researchers.

This community arises from the work that several of us have been doing in this area over the last few years, in SIGCHI and elsewhere. We are concerned when we hear practitioners say that the CHI conference is not relevant to them, when we know that it offers rich opportunities for cross-fertilization and has much content that would clearly be relevant if it were easier to digest. We are concerned when we read research papers that use valid research methods but unrealistic examples or situations, when we know that using realistic examples would make them more relevant to practice and more solid as useful research.

At CHI2010 we held a workshop on this topic (see the recap). (Similar workshops were held at the 2010 Information Architecture Summit and the 2011 conference of the Usability Professionals Association.) We concluded that the research and practice communities are what they are, for reasons that support their internal needs; and rather than beating our heads against the walls trying to change them, we who have (or want to have) some understanding of both communities need to build bridges and information conduits between them.

Hence the SIGCHI Research-Practice Interaction Community.

ACM members can join the community as a full member. Nonmembers can sign up for a free acm.org account and join the community as an affiliate, to receive updates and information.

If you care about the flow of information between research and practice in the field of interaction between people and technology, join us in helping make it better!

If you asked me which community is the most important to me right now, I’d be hard pressed to answer. But if you asked me which one was the most important throughout my years of participation, my answer is clear.

The Circle is an online support group for people who love someone with prostate cancer, and for the men themselves. I found The Circle after my husband’s hormone therapy had stopped working, and I was searching the Web for resources and information. For almost four years the other Circlers and I shared information, support, and hope; and for the last six months of Antonio’s life I emailed them almost every day, sometimes several times a day. Even during the two weeks when I lived in his hospital room, I always took time during my occasional brief visits home to update them on how he was doing and how I was handling it. They were my online family, and they understood.

I shared our journey because doing so was keeping me sane… Yet it turns out that my sharing was a two-way street. After Antonio died, I received many emails letting me know how much meaning these people had found in reading our story — even people with whom I had hardly corresponded at all.

The mail from women struck a special chord. “Sometimes I dread reading your posts,” wrote one, “because I know that one day I will be traveling the same path, and it scares me tremendously. But seeing you walk that path gives me hope, because now I know that it can be done.”

And here I was, thinking they were keeping me sane. But their messages told me that I was giving to them equally… and that deepened our connection and facilitated my healing.

Antonio died in the spring of 2001, more than eight years ago (I write this post on our wedding anniversary), and I stayed with the Circle about a year afterward. Prostate cancer is no longer a part of my everyday life, and I don’t need that support any more. But that doesn’t change its importance for me, nor does it lessen the fondness with which I remember the friends I made there.

Would I have managed without this support group? Maybe. Probably. Would I have managed as well? Absolutely not. Without a doubt, the Circle has been the most meaningful online community in my life so far.

Part of this post was taken from a talk I gave in 2006 to my congregation. You can read the whole thing on my congregation’s web site (scroll down to see my talk; I was last).