WUD - Sustainability

[carl myhill]

Hi All

After all the spam from sexy Helga et al I wonder if we should have some serious thoughts.

Who is doing anything for WUD 2009 - topic is sustainability. What sorts of things are you doing? We're wondering what to do in cambridge (UK).

Carl

--
User Experience Design
(http://www.userexperiencedesign.co.uk)

[John C Thomas]

I'm giving a (remote) talk on Thursday, November 12,  at noon EST.

I think it will be open to the public.  I'll post when I know more about how people can get access externally.

Title: The People Side of Designing Smarter Cities.

Abstract: The vast majority of scientists agree that significant changes will be necessary in this century to avoid ecological disasters.  One important aspect of this from IBM's perspective is to focus on building "Smarter Cities" where human activity is more effective and efficient.  There are many technologies and algorithms that can help, but in this talk we focus on the people side of Smarter Cities.  Designing for Smarter Cities requires a balance between learning and describing what generally works across engagements and individualizing solutions to the specifics of a city's history, culture, language, and geography.  Pattern languages and narrative techniques offer useful tools here, especially on the human side.  Usability design challenges exist in at least three areas: 1. Designing systems that allow people to do what they already do more efficiently; for instance, designing still usable thermostats with much more functionality.  2. Designing systems that tend to modify what people do.  This can be done, for instance, by making people aware of information that is now largely unavailable (energy costs of food); by motivating people through financial and social incentives (reducing insurance costs to drivers who drive less erratically), 3. Designing completely new systems that incorporate both new technologies such as ubiquitous sensors and human abilities; e.g., reporting accidents.  In designing such systems, social factors are often of particular importance.  For example, most people do not car-pool.  A system to facilitate such behavior may need to take into account numerous factors; negotiating activities during driving, acceptable driving behavior, fall-back transportation, acceptable schedule slippages, social and other vetting mechanisms to make riding with strangers feel safe and equitable cost-sharing. Such a system has to do this in a socially sensitive manner; e.g., you may not want to have your work colleague know that it is their aggressive driving or taste in music that makes ride-sharing with them unacceptable for you. The confluence of a compelling social benefit and the necessity to design new systems with complex and subtle social effects makes this an exciting and challenging new area for usability.        

John C. Thomas
1S-A14, IBM T. J. Watson Research
PO Box 704 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
(non-US Post Office: 19 Skyline Drive, Hawthorne, NY 10532)
www.truthtable.com
jcth...@us.ibm.com
(01)-914-784-7561
T/L 863-7561

From:	carl myhill <carl....@gmail.com>
To:	sustain...@googlegroups.com
Date:	09/18/2009 11:11 AM
Subject:	WUD - Sustainability
Sent by:	sustain...@googlegroups.com

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[Jon Froehlich]

Hi John,

Any more info on whether this talk will be open to the public via a remote feed?

Thanks,

Jon

--
Jon Froehlich
PhD Candidate
Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/jfroehli
http://sustain.cs.washington.edu/blog/

[Fred Sampson]

John--

The event is open to the public, see the Facebook event page at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169749231931&ref=mf

I already rescheduled a conflicting meeting so IBMers at Silicon Valley Lab can listen to you.

-Fred

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:00 PM, John C Thomas <jcth...@us.ibm.com> wrote:

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>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>
Fred Sampson
fred.s...@gmail.com
@fsampson

[John C Thomas]

I have gotten a few questions about whether this will be recorded and how people on the outside can get access.  

Yes, it will be recorded and available for replay on our UXD site (internally) and our Facebook page (externally).  External access information is posted on our Facebook Fan page at http://www.facebook.com/ibmdesign#/event.php?eid=169749231931&ref=mf