Seminar on Human Computer Interactions

Wednesday is a day of freedom for us. There is only one real class and that too is rather light. After that we have a seminar on a few days in the late afternoon. This time we had an associate professor of the prestigious Lund University by the name of Jagtosh Santap. I will be writing live, while attending the seminar itself.

Method of presenting is very traditional. Very much of a monologue though well researched. He takes great pains to go into substantial detail but fails to make it clear why it is important for him to speak in front of us. That I believe is the primary goal of a speaker. One needs to sell his point of view. He shows us what he does, but not why he does it. Very soon the audience is busy dozing off and wishing the seminar to be over as soon as possible. This is very expected if the speaker does not engage the audience or simply refuses to feel the pulse of the people he is speaking to.

I also notice the colors used in the slides are also like the speech itself. Black and white. There is absolutely no other color used, no text is in bold, italics or anything. It probably was the most unattractive presentation I had seen so far.

After about ten to twelve slides he finally tells why engineering design is so necessary today and why his work is important. He should have started with this, as this was precisely the purpose of the seminar in the first place. Unfortunately, he goes into the history of design in engineering even though it is absolutely no relevance to the matter at hand. But I am patient. So I wait and listen.

So it's over and I must admit that it was one of the most boring presentations I have seen till date. But that's all there was to it.