Fialho, who has a background in computer science, did his Master’s with an emphasis on multimedia and hypermedia web applications at PUC University, Rio de Janeiro. “I didn’t want to become an academic”, he states as his reason for applying at USI. That was also a major reason for Curtis to apply at USI. She has got a Master’s degree in cognitive psychology. “I studied visual attention and memory. And then I started a PhD on memory and attention processes over the life span. The kind of research that I was doing was very basic. I didn’t want to give up on it, but finally I decided to move on and try something different. One of my professors recommended that I apply to USI.”

“After a year of practical workshops in all kinds of relevant subjects, we get a list of options for the industrial assignment”, explains Fialho. “I was lucky to get my first-choice assignment at Philips Research, on IPTV: a television which is Internet enabled. It really fit with my background, where I did a lot of hypermedia application modeling and development. I also worked with interface animation and on how to model it. I like to work with graphically rich, dynamic interfaces. So Internet TV is a good medium for me, as a lot is going on on the screen.”

User testing
At CCS a lot of user testing is going to be done addressing multiple concurrent applications on TV. “For example, what information is grabbing the user’s attention, which service on IPTV is valued most, and of course on the interaction aspects of the interface itself”, Fialho explains. “It’s a tradition within Philips to hire USI’s”, according to Fialho. “And they like to have a former USI to train a new one. I have a former USI student as a coach as well. It’s easy to talk with each other when you have the same background.”

Fialho feels “it’s a really creative environment, especially for this project. You are given a lot of space.” Curtis thinks the same of her project at the Telematica Institute. She is working on a project called ‘Future workspaces’. “They look at the future of work practices and environment”, says Curtis. “Especially for people who are highly mobile, like knowledge workers and consultants.” Researchers distinguish several obstacles for a really efficient and productive mobile worker. Two of them are ‘being in synch’ and ‘in touch’. “If you are not in synch with your colleagues, you don’t know what they are working on and vice versa”, Curtis explains. “You can also feel detached from your colleagues and even get isolated. I investigate whether these two concepts are really valid. And try to identify solutions for these obstacles.”

Inspiring
Curtis thinks it is a really good assignment for someone with a psychological background like her. “The concepts they came up with are psychological constructs”, she says. “A ‘feeling of connectedness’ and ‘knowledge sharing’ are psychological notions. It makes me feel I can really get into it and think about it in a slightly new way. It will be fun to look into the literature and see what different areas are doing.” Curtis is very positive on the atmosphere at Telematica. “It’s the first place I came across where it appears that people really like their job and that’s inspiring.”

And more general on working in the Netherlands, she adds: “The approach to work and life is more balanced here. I think that is very good. For example, it gives you the opportunity to travel, which is a wonderful benefit of course.”/.

The USI program begins in October of every year. Every year there are two generations of USI students active. The second generation, counting sixteen students this year, started on a nine-month industrial assignment one month ago.
“Students know what they will get started on about one month in advance”, says drs. Mia Jelsma, coordinator of the USI program. “This is preceded by a great deal of acquisition work.” Early in September contact persons within companies are approached by USI staff members. The companies involved may be Philips, Océ Technologies, Vodafone, Dräger medical, Alcatel and various others. The contact persons discuss matters internally and come up with a project proposal. The clients inspect the resumes of all USI students and decide which ones they want to interview. At the same time, the USI students indicate their preferences. “Usually this results in a fairly good match”, says Jelsma. “When you are enthusiastic about a certain project, you are also quite motivated. And you radiate that.” Subsequently the interviews take place and the companies select suitable candidates. They pay thirty thousand euros for an assignment. “There is increasing interest in this program”, Jelsma explains. “Companies realize that research into user system interaction pays off. It may be a costly affair if a new product is put onto the market if, for instance, it has not been tested whether it is user-friendly or not.”

An industrial assignment may yield different results, such as a prototype, an evaluation based on user tests or a patent application. Jelsma: “Over the past ten years we have noticed that USI’s often get invitations to keep working for the companies where they carried out their assignments. And that former USI’s working for a company supervise new USI’s with the lapse of time.”