Student Design Competition

Quick Facts

CHI 2023 is structured as a hybrid conference from April 23-28, 2023 in Hamburg, Germany.

Important Dates

All times are in Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone. When the deadline is day D, the last time to submit is when D ends AoE. Check your local time in AoE.

Submission deadline: January 19, 2023
Notification: February 09, 2023
e-rights completion deadline: February 13, 2023
initial upload to TAPS deadline: February 17, 2023
Publication-ready, TAPS completion, deadline: February 27, 2023

Submission Details

Online submission: PCS Submission System
Template: ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column)
Submission format:
- submissions must be up to 8 pages long (including references) following the ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column)
- a 5-minute video clip (check technical requirements for video content at CHI)
- a poster in one standard letter page size
- proof of all team members’ student status
- List of up to 2 supervisors/advisors with affiliation
For this venue, references DO count towards page length.
Submissions are not anonymous and should include all author names, affiliations, and contact information.
Publications in the Student Design Competition track are non archival.

Selection Process

Reviewed

At the Conference

Accepted submissions will participate in an interactive poster/demo session. Four teams will then be chosen to advance to the next round which will involve giving a short presentation.

After the Conference

Accepted submissions will appear as Extended Abstract proceedings in the ACM Digital Library.

Message from the Student Design Competition Chairs

This is the 19th year of the CHI Student Design Competition (SDC), which has grown into a premiere venue for students to demonstrate their skills in Interaction Design and User Experience. The SDC poses a real-world challenge and demands that teams of students use a myriad of approaches (design research, brainstorming, prototyping, implementation, and evaluation, for starters) to develop their submissions. Each year, this competition has received approximately 60 submissions from 15 countries. With your entry, we hope to grow these numbers and increase the quality of submissions while continuing to offer students and instructors the most hands-on, engaging, and significant design experience we can. The competition always draws a large audience at CHI and also serves as a fantastic opportunity to identify the field’s most talented students.

What is the Student Design Competition at CHI 2023?

The Student Design Competition is aimed at meeting three goals:

Provide an opportunity for students from a variety of backgrounds (e.g., computer science, HCI, industrial design, product design, visual design, interaction design, etc.) to participate in CHI and demonstrate their problem solving and design skills in an international competition with their peers.
Provide an opportunity for students presenting at the design competition to meet with the CHI community, get an opportunity to network with experienced HCI and Design professionals, and build their portfolio as a designer.
Provide CHI attendees with refreshing perspectives on how design teams from different disciplines and different parts of the world approach a common design problem.

The Design Brief: Appropriate Solutions for All

At the Student Design Competition, we ask you to contribute to one (or several) of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations:

No Poverty
Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well-being
Quality Education
Gender Equality
Clean Water and Sanitation
Affordable and Clean Energy
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Reduced Inequality
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action
Life Below Water
Life on Land
Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Partnerships for the Goals

The scope of this brief is deliberately broad to provide the opportunity to participate to as many students worldwide as possible. Your solution has to be clearly linked to one (or several) of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

You may adopt design strategies such as participatory design, co-creation and co-design, service design, design for social innovation, inclusive design and open innovation. You may adopt a participatory design and co-creation approach using existing technologies or you may find opportunity in contemporary developments in technology, such as 3D printing, digital fabrication, citizen sensing, the maker movement, the sharing economy, big data, social networks, IoT, gamification, new sensors and actuators, and Augmented/ Virtual Reality, to name just a few. Remember, though, that sometimes the best design solution or approach may flow from simple yet sharp insights uncovered from research, and might require only minimal technology – what is important is that your solution should be appropriate for the particular goal you are focusing on.

For this year’s design challenge, we particularly encourage that the following criteria be considered as guidelines:

Is your design clearly linked to one of the Sustainable Development Goals?
Does your design specify and solve a relevant and “burning” problem?
Does your design use technology in an appropriate and novel way?
Was the design well-crafted and effectively presented?
Was the design validated in an appropriate and valid way to demonstrate the fulfillment of your design goal?
Was relevant prior work properly identified and cited?
Were analysis, synthesis, design, and evaluation systematic and sufficient?
Was the design developed far enough to demonstrate the key ideas?
Were genuine stakeholders involved in the process of research, development, and evaluation?
Were the research process and the involvement of stakeholders ethically appropriate (e.g., were institutional guidelines followed)?
Did the team explore the entire ecosystem of stakeholders, conditions, and contexts?

Student Team Requirements

Teams must consist of at least two and no more than five students. There is no limit to the number of teams that may compete from any given university or organization. However, one student cannot be part of multiple teams.

Submissions are invited from students at all stages of their university careers, from undergraduate to postgraduate level. While not a mandatory requirement, it is strongly encouraged that the teams put forward a multidisciplinary and/or multi-national team.

The Student Design Competition is for students. Submit proof of student status by sending a note signed by your academic supervisor verifying the following information:

Your university
Whether you were a graduate (i.e., Masters or Doctoral level) or undergraduate (i.e., Bachelor level) when the work was done, or confirm that you are either currently registered in an academic program full-time, or will return to be a student in the upcoming semester.

Each team must provide one proof package – a single file containing a scanned proof document for each team member – together with their project submission.

Preparing and Submitting your Student Design Competition Submission

Student Design Competition submissions must be submitted via the PCS Submission System by January 19th, 2023. The submission must have the following four components, and meet the accessibility requirements at ACM. If you have any questions or concerns about creating accessible submissions, please contact the Accessibility Chairs at [email protected].

Paper submission: Teams will submit a non-anonymized manuscript, up to 8 pages long (including references) following the ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column). Submissions not meeting the page limit or formatting requirements will be disqualified. This document should be submitted as a single PDF and the file must be no larger than 10 Mb in size. The Paper should include:
- A description of your chosen design focus and proposed solution, with a summary of the approaches taken within your design process, the real life problems that you are solving, and your main claims for your proposed solution with evaluation results
- Reference to design principles, sources of inspiration, and HCI theory where appropriate and relevant. Please refer to the guidelines above in the “The Design Brief: Appropriate Solutions for All” section.
- Acknowledgement of partial or incomplete solutions
- Acknowledgement of any assistance drawn from outside the student team (e.g., advisors, domain experts, existing solutions, users)
Poster: The poster size should be reduced to one standard letter page and submitted in PDF format. The file must be no larger than 10 Mb in size and must include:
- Proposed solution’s name, team name, academic affiliation
- Chosen sustainable development goal(s)
- Perspective taken to address the design brief. Please refer to the guidelines above in the “The Design Brief: Appropriate Solutions for All” section.
- Concise description of the proposed solution
- Clear illustrations of key aspects of your proposed solution
- Compelling, effective visual design
- Name and affiliation of mentor/supervisor (if relevant)
Video Presentation: Teams must provide a video presentation (max 5-minute — check technical and accessibility requirements for video content at CHI), with a file-size no larger than 100Mb. The video may illustrate how your solution fits the lives of the users with the help of scenarios, or addresses human aspects of the chosen sustainable development goals. It may also illustrate some details of the interface and the information presented. The Video may include:
- Examples of significant contextual data and its analysis (primary, secondary research, or both)
- Key creative sources of design inspiration (existing designs and systems)
- Sketches of the evolving solution
- Scenarios depicting how the solution fits in the life of users and solves problems / engages or entertains users
- Details of the interface and information design where relevant
- Highlights of significant evaluation results
Proof Package of Student Status: submit a single file confirming the status of each student on the team.
- This can be a proof of affiliation or a note signed by your academic supervisor verifying all of the following information:
- Transcripts or scanned IDs will not be accepted as a proof.

The Competition Structure

The competition follows a three-round process. Each team’s short paper submission will be reviewed by both academic and professional design and usability experts. Each round focuses on communicating the team’s ideas through a different mode.

Round One: Paper Submission, Poster and Video

Expert reviewers will evaluate submissions of paper, video, and poster. A maximum of 12 teams will be selected to attend the CHI conference.
All submissions must be in English and must include title and author information, including affiliations. Please ensure that submissions do not contain proprietary or confidential material and do not cite proprietary or confidential publications. Student Design Competition authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by email along with instructions on how to submit the publication-ready version of their Paper, Poster, and Video.

Round Two: Poster Presentation

Submissions selected for round two of the competition will be evaluated during a poster session at CHI 2023. A scheduled poster presentation event will take place during the conference. At least one member of the accepted teams is expected to attend the conference to present their poster online/hybrid, outline their design, and discuss their proposed solution with a panel of Student Design Competition Judges. Based on the results from the poster session, the judges will select four teams to present their proposed solutions orally during a scheduled presentation session named “Student Design Competition Final”. Teams will be provided space in the convention center to display posters and discuss their proposed solutions with the CHI 2023 attendees.

Round Three: Final Presentation

The four teams selected by the judges following the Poster Presentation will present their design process and solution in a session, open to all CHI attendees pending circumstances/logistics. During this final round, students will give a short presentation of their research (more details to follow in future) followed by a question and answer period, which will be evaluated by a panel of judges.

Final presentations must include:

The design process that was followed
A concise description of the proposed solution
Reference to design principles and theory where appropriate
Acknowledgement of partial or incomplete solutions

All finalists earn a Certificate of Recognition. The winning entry will be recognized during the closing plenary session of the CHI 2023 conference. Winners will be announced together with their mentors/supervisors during the closing plenary. In addition, all teams will be mentioned on the conference website.

Student Design Competition Selection Criteria

Each team’s initial submission will be reviewed by both academics and practitioners.

Round one, the written submission, will be reviewed based on:

Short description of how your proposed design fits with this year’s design prompt
Use of appropriate design methods
Clarity and credibility of design focus, problem, purpose, and solution relative to the chosen sustainable development goal(s)
Originality and quality of the design solution, including claims, and their supporting evidence, based on the guidelines above in the “The Design Brief: Appropriate Solutions for All” section.
Innovation within the design process
Quality of design management
Clarity of the submission and supplementary material
Meeting the accessibility requirements of CHI 2023

Round two, the poster submission, will be judged based on:

Clear communication of key aspects of problem and solution
Clear communication of design approaches
Clear communication of arguments for proposed solution
Craft quality of the solution

Round three, the presentation, will be judged based on:

Clarity and organization of the oral presentation
Relevance and clarity of presentation material (e.g., slides, video)
Quality of argument used to justify why the solution is worthy of consideration
Quality, originality, and relevance of design solution

Submissions should NOT be anonymous. However, confidentiality of submissions will be maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference, with the exception of title and author information, which will be published on the website prior to the conference.

Upon Acceptance of your Submission

The corresponding author of a conditionally accepted submission has to follow the instructions on preparing and submitting a final version by the Publication-Ready Deadline. If the authors cannot meet these requirements by the Publication-Ready deadline, the venue chairs will be notified and may be required to remove the paper from the program. The publication-ready version has to follow the LaTeX and Word templates from ACM. Should you need technical assistance, please direct your technical query to: [email protected]. Furthermore, the corresponding authors will also receive information about registration and attending the conference.

List of selected Posters

Yun Ma, Ya-Chi Chang, Zhuoyi Cui, Dylan Rothwell, Anna Bykoriz, University College London (UK), Blooming: Changing Laundry Habits and Opening Windows to Brighter Cities
Aidan Puse, Lillian Knothe, Brooklyn Tanovic, Shiraz Center, University of Sydney (Australia), Synthium: Mushrooms to facilitate the transition to the Post-Anthropocene
Liang-Cheng Lin, Yi-Chun Lai, Wei-Chien Chang, Hsin-Lun Chiu, Tzu-Yu Chen, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (Taiwan), UniCompass: Helping High School Students Find the Right College Major
Simone Ooms, Jay Kolvenbag, Charlotte a.j. Bording, Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), Lighting up Well-being with Bulb
Tianhui Huang, Fangya Shi, Tianming Ke, Xinyu Zhang, Yuyang Lin, University College London (UK), Green Home: A Reflection on the Relationship between Human and Furniture
Chuma Makalima, Yolanda Gwala, Lutho Makasi, Anam Baza, Andile Michael Lwanga, Walter Sisulu University (South Africa), Co-designing an Integrated Digital Education Portal for the Eastern Cape Rural Learners
Hoi Yau Rosalyn Chun, Yunhan Gao, Rahma Khairunisa Nursalamah, Conor Michael O’Keeffe, Haeji Shin, University College London (UK), CO2LLAB: Creating an Eco-Conscious Community through Habit Tracking and Augmented Reality Visualization
Alexandra Meyers, Ali McCaleb, Laura Bessellieu, Ellen Palmiere, James Madison University (USA), Buddy: Helping School-age Children to Combat Bullying
Nadia Jiménez; Belen Hernández, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca (Mexico), ROBOTE: Interactive Educational Tool To Teach Basic Education Children To Classify And Collect Waste In Their School Environment
An-Ting Hsieh, Chih-Ching Hsiao, Hsinhua Tsai, Hung-Hsuan Chen, Jui-Chun Liu, National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), FOODwell
Ningning Xu, Jiachen Liang, Kexiang Shuai, Yuwen Li, Jiaqi Yan, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China), HeritageSite AR: An Exploration Game for Quality Education and Sustainable Cultural Heritage
Xiao Yuan Huang, Emma West, Sai Samba Karthikeya, University of Michigan & University of Texas (USA), Crowdsourcing Data for Safer Travel Experiences for Women in India/li>
Isaac Makosa, Clemens Nuunyango, Kinglsley Chidozie Uchezuba, Namibia University of Science and Technology (Namibia), Build a Smart Sustainable Windhoek: An AR game
Meiyin Chang, Gabriel Cañarte, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (Ecuador), Agapet: Supporting A Responsible Adoption Process for Stray and Abandoned Pets in Urban Areas
Aketzali De la Cruz Villarreal, Gerardo Neftali Alavez Santiago, Ángel Martínez Castro, Eunice Lucero Baltazar Hernández, Juan Carlos López Pérez, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca (Mexico), SAM: Interface Design Of a Mobile Application for Women in Risk Situations
Chujin Hu, Clarissa Chong, Yihan Kang, Yiran Li, Yujie Chen, University College London (UK), Financial Decision Buddy: A Decision-support Tool to Bridge the Gaps in Financial Education

List of selected Finalists

Meiyin Chang, Gabriel Cañarte, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (Ecuador), Agapet: Supporting A Responsible Adoption Process for Stray and Abandoned Pets in Urban Areas
Xiao Yuan Huang, Emma West, Sai Samba Karthikeya, University of Michigan & University of Texas (USA), Crowdsourcing Data for Safer Travel Experiences for Women in India
Simone Ooms, Jay Kolvenbag, Charlotte a.j. Bording, Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), Lighting up Well-being with Bulb
Nadia Jiménez; Belen Hernández, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca (Mexico), ROBOTE: Interactive Educational Tool To Teach Basic Education Children To Classify And Collect Waste In Their School Environment

Competition Reviewers and Judges

Sara Armouch, Open Lab, Newcastle University, UK
Madeline Balaam, KTH, Sweden
Andrea Bianchi, KAIST, South Korea
Eleanor Burgess, Elevance Health, USA
Elizabeth Churchill, Google, USA
Alan Dix, Cardiff Metropolitan University & Swansea University, UK
Ellen Do, Atlas, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
Allison Druin, Pratt Institute, USA
Augusto Esteves, Instituto Superior Técnico, Uni. of Lisbon, Portugal
Víctor García, BBVA UX, Mexico
Shikoh Gitau, Qhala, Kenya
Iliana Herrera Arellano, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Mexico
Linda Hirsch, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
Jun Kato, AIST, Japan
Matjaž Kljun, University of Primorska, Slovenia
Marion Koelle, OFFIS, Germany
Anastasia Kuzminykh, University of Toronto, Canada
Shaimaa Lazem, City for Scientific Research and Technological Applications, Egypt
Pedro Lopes, University of Chicago, USA
Jasmin Lu, University of Chicago, USA
Wendy Mackay, Inria & Université Paris Saclay, France
Nik Martelaro, CMU, USA
Josephina Mikka-Muntuumo, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Namibia
Leonel Morales Díaz, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala
Koya Narumi, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Helen Petrie, University of York, UK
Maria-Fernanda Puentes-Rodriguez, University of Roehampton, UK
Hawra Rabaan, Indiana University-Purdue University, USA
Stéphanie Rey, Berger Levrault, France
Cuauthémoc Rivera, Universidad Michoacana, Mexico
Alfredo Sánchez, UDLAP/LANIA, Mexico
Pedro Santana-Mancilla, Universidad de Colima, Mexico
Orit Shaer, Wellesley College, USA
John Tang, Microsoft, USA
Jacob Thebault-Spieker, University of Wisconsin, USA
Seçil Ugur Yavuz, Freie Universität Bozen, Italy

Funding

Participants are encouraged to apply to the SIGCHI’s Gary Marsden Travel Awards. More information can be found here.

Frequently asked questions

Can I submit to the Student Design Competition and submit the same work in parallel with other tracks (e.g., Late-breaking work)?
For each work, authors must choose only one track and submit their submissions to a single track. Any concurrent submissions must be declared and should follow ACM policies on Redundant Publication or Self-Plagiarism. Any duplicate submissions across tracks will be rejected.

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