PITTSBURGH-Computers can store more information and the Internet can transmit that information faster than humans can comprehend, so meshing the computer's capabilities with human needs has long been a concern of Carnegie Mellon University scientists.

In recognition of these challenges and the broader issues of how people use telephones, appliances and other increasingly complex technologies, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) was founded in 1994. To mark this anniversary, the institute is hosting a one-day symposium on April 20, featuring distinguished speakers and a panel that will ponder the future of the discipline.

The event takes place in conjunction with CS50, a celebration of 50 years of computer science at Carnegie Mellon hosted by the School of Computer Science, April 19-22.

Symposium speakers include alumnus Stuart Card, senior research fellow at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center; Dan R. Olsen Jr., founding director of the HCII now at Brigham Young University; and C. Suzanne Iacono, acting director of the National Science Foundation's Information and Intelligent Systems Division. The panel discussion will include leaders of human-computer interaction efforts at such universities as the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan, as well as Microsoft Research and Intel Research Seattle.

Research at the institute will be highlighted with more than 40 posters and 10 demonstrations.

Card, fellow alumnus Tom Moran and the late Allen Newell coined the field's name in their 1983 book, "The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction." Carnegie Mellon has been at the forefront of the field since its inception. It was the first university to establish an institute for human-computer interaction and the first university to offer a Ph.D. in the field.

For more information and to register, visit www.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/HCII_Anniversary