FW: Celebrate World Usability Day on Thursday November 12
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Kaleem
Nov 12, 2009, 1:43:49 PM11/12/09
to UXIrregulars, uxb...@googlegroups.com
Today is World Usability Day. This year's theme is "Designing for a
Sustainable World". TorCHI will host a WUD presentation tonight.
Details follow.
-K
--
From: ToRCHI Events [mailto:eve...@torchi.org]
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 11:32 PM
Subject: Celebrate World Usability Day on Thursday November 12
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
1 - November 12, 2009 - "Usable Climate Science" by Steve
Easterbrook
2 - Affiliate announcement: KMDI Lecture Series III also on
November 12
3 - December 2009 - "Sprint Zero" by Lynn Miller (Autodesk)
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
---------------------------------------------------
1 - November 12, 2009 - "Usable Climate Science" by Steve Easterbrook
---------------------------------------------------
Celebrate World Usability Day 2009's theme of Designing for a
Sustainable World!
Date: Thursday November 12, 2009
Time: Registration/Refreshments at 7:00pm; Presentation starts at
7:15pm
Location: Bahen Room 1220 (main floor)
40 St. George Street
Cost: Free for everyone (though we encourage you to join for $20/year)
ABSTRACT (http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=910)
Sustainability is usually defined as "the ability to meet present
needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs". The current interest in sustainability derives partly
from a general concern about environmental degradation and resource
depletion, and partly from an awareness of the threat of climate
change. But to many people, climate change is only a vague problem,
and to some people (e.g. about half the US population) it isn't
regarded as a problem at all. There is a widespread lack of
understanding of the core scientific results of climate science, and
the methodology by which those results are obtained - which in turn
means that the public discourse is dominated by ignorance,
polarization, and political point scoring. In this environment,
lobbyists can propagate misinformation on behalf of various vested
interests, and people decide what to believe based on their political
worldviews, rather than what the scientific evidence actually says.
The chances of getting sound, effective policy in such an environment
are slim.
In this talk, I will argue that we cannot properly address the
challenge of climate change unless this situation is fixed.
Furthermore, I'll argue that the core problem is a usability
challenge: how do we make the science itself accessible to the general
public? The numerical simulations of climate developed by
climatologists are usable only by people with PhDs in climatology. The
infographics used to explain climate change in the popular press tend
to be high design and low information. What is missing is a concerted
attempt to get the core science across to a general audience using
software tools and visualizations in which usability is the primary
design principle. In short, how do we make climate science usable?
Unless we do this, journalists, politicians and the public will be
unable to judge whether proposed policy solutions are viable, and
unable to distinguish sound science from misinformation. I will
illustrate the talk with some suggestions of how we might meet this
goal.
SPEAKER BIO
Steve Easterbrook is a Professor of Computer Science at the University
of Toronto, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Computing from Imperial
College in London (UK), in 1991, on the topic of requirements
negotiation for complex socio-technical systems analysis. His first
faculty position was at the School of Cognitive and Computing Science,
University of Sussex, where he co-designed and was the first course
director for a new degree program in Human-Centered Software Design.
In 1995 he moved to the US to lead the research team at NASA´s
Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in West
Virginia, where he investigated software verification on the Space
Shuttle Flight Software, the International Space Station, the Earth
Observation System, and several planetary probes. He moved to the
University of Toronto in 1999, where he now teaches courses in
empirical research methods, software engineering, and requirements
analysis.
Steve's research interests range from modelling and analysis of
complex software software systems to the socio-cognitive aspects of
team interaction, including communication, coordination, and shared
understanding in large software teams. His research contributions
include formal modeling of disagreement and inconsistency, including
work on non-classical logics for reasoning about inconsistency;
conceptual modeling of multiple viewpoints, and empirical research
methodology in software engineering. Since 2006, he has been
developing a new research program in Climate Change Informatics, to
explore how ideas from systems analysis and computational thinking can
be applied to meet the many challenges posed by global warming.
Steve has served on the program committees for many conferences and
workshops in Requirements Engineering and Software Engineering. He was
general chair for the IEEE International Conference on Requirements
Engineering in 2001, and program chair for IEEE International
Conference on Automated Software Engineering in 2006. In the summer of
2008, he was a visiting scientist at the UK Met Office Hadley Centre.
---------------------------------------------------
2 - Affiliate announcement: KMDI Lecture Series III on November 12
(from 4pm to 6pm BEFORE WUD presentation)
---------------------------------------------------
Supporting Visual Thinking and Creativity
Date: Thursday November 12, 2009
Time: 4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location: Bissel Room 728 (Robarts Library)
140 St. George Street
Cost: Free
Details: http://kmdiat13.utoronto.ca/event/supporting-visual-thinking-and-creativity
Local Climate Change Visualization and Decision-making
John Danahy - Architecture, Landscape and Design
How can citizens and decision-makers think creatively about the
challenges of adapting our cities to address the issues of climate
change? This talk will address the issue by highlighting two case
studies involving the use of visualization media that analyze and
explore alternative strategies mandated by Federal, Provincial and
Local Government climate change policies. One is a bottom up project
aimed at giving citizens in the Lakeview community the tools to plan
for reducing car dependence and creating a more liveable and compact
community as a way to adapt community form in a way that reduces their
impact on the climate. The other is a transdisciplinary collaborative
project that is part of the GEOIDE National Centre of Excellence that
begins top down from a macro remote sensing scale and seeks to
identify ways to adapt the City’s urban design to mitigate urban heat
island effects as part of the City of Toronto’s Green Standard policy.
Data in Public & Data Visualization in Art
Nina Czegledy - KMDI Senior Fellow
Data visualization is usually considered an expert field reserved for
computer science or specialists in various scientific sectors. In
contrast to this traditional belief data visualization is a rapidly
growing field in the arts including socio-political projects. The
exchange of concepts and practice from an interdisciplinary
(scientific and art data visualization) environment forms the base for
potential collaboration in research and/or educational contexts. The
lecture will be illustrated by a variety of international art projects
based on data visualization.
---------------------------------------------------
3 - December 2009 - "Sprint Zero" by Lynn Miller (Autodesk)
---------------------------------------------------
ToRCHI's December presenter will be Lynn Miller of Autodesk (formerly
known as Alias Wavefront). Lynn will introduce "Sprint Zero" and
discuss what it is, why it is essential, and how to do it.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
Mailing list enquiries to: eve...@torchi.org
http://torchi.org
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
Sustainable World". TorCHI will host a WUD presentation tonight.
Details follow.
-K
--
From: ToRCHI Events [mailto:eve...@torchi.org]
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 11:32 PM
Subject: Celebrate World Usability Day on Thursday November 12
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
1 - November 12, 2009 - "Usable Climate Science" by Steve
Easterbrook
2 - Affiliate announcement: KMDI Lecture Series III also on
November 12
3 - December 2009 - "Sprint Zero" by Lynn Miller (Autodesk)
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
---------------------------------------------------
1 - November 12, 2009 - "Usable Climate Science" by Steve Easterbrook
---------------------------------------------------
Celebrate World Usability Day 2009's theme of Designing for a
Sustainable World!
Date: Thursday November 12, 2009
Time: Registration/Refreshments at 7:00pm; Presentation starts at
7:15pm
Location: Bahen Room 1220 (main floor)
40 St. George Street
Cost: Free for everyone (though we encourage you to join for $20/year)
ABSTRACT (http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=910)
Sustainability is usually defined as "the ability to meet present
needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs". The current interest in sustainability derives partly
from a general concern about environmental degradation and resource
depletion, and partly from an awareness of the threat of climate
change. But to many people, climate change is only a vague problem,
and to some people (e.g. about half the US population) it isn't
regarded as a problem at all. There is a widespread lack of
understanding of the core scientific results of climate science, and
the methodology by which those results are obtained - which in turn
means that the public discourse is dominated by ignorance,
polarization, and political point scoring. In this environment,
lobbyists can propagate misinformation on behalf of various vested
interests, and people decide what to believe based on their political
worldviews, rather than what the scientific evidence actually says.
The chances of getting sound, effective policy in such an environment
are slim.
In this talk, I will argue that we cannot properly address the
challenge of climate change unless this situation is fixed.
Furthermore, I'll argue that the core problem is a usability
challenge: how do we make the science itself accessible to the general
public? The numerical simulations of climate developed by
climatologists are usable only by people with PhDs in climatology. The
infographics used to explain climate change in the popular press tend
to be high design and low information. What is missing is a concerted
attempt to get the core science across to a general audience using
software tools and visualizations in which usability is the primary
design principle. In short, how do we make climate science usable?
Unless we do this, journalists, politicians and the public will be
unable to judge whether proposed policy solutions are viable, and
unable to distinguish sound science from misinformation. I will
illustrate the talk with some suggestions of how we might meet this
goal.
SPEAKER BIO
Steve Easterbrook is a Professor of Computer Science at the University
of Toronto, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Computing from Imperial
College in London (UK), in 1991, on the topic of requirements
negotiation for complex socio-technical systems analysis. His first
faculty position was at the School of Cognitive and Computing Science,
University of Sussex, where he co-designed and was the first course
director for a new degree program in Human-Centered Software Design.
In 1995 he moved to the US to lead the research team at NASA´s
Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in West
Virginia, where he investigated software verification on the Space
Shuttle Flight Software, the International Space Station, the Earth
Observation System, and several planetary probes. He moved to the
University of Toronto in 1999, where he now teaches courses in
empirical research methods, software engineering, and requirements
analysis.
Steve's research interests range from modelling and analysis of
complex software software systems to the socio-cognitive aspects of
team interaction, including communication, coordination, and shared
understanding in large software teams. His research contributions
include formal modeling of disagreement and inconsistency, including
work on non-classical logics for reasoning about inconsistency;
conceptual modeling of multiple viewpoints, and empirical research
methodology in software engineering. Since 2006, he has been
developing a new research program in Climate Change Informatics, to
explore how ideas from systems analysis and computational thinking can
be applied to meet the many challenges posed by global warming.
Steve has served on the program committees for many conferences and
workshops in Requirements Engineering and Software Engineering. He was
general chair for the IEEE International Conference on Requirements
Engineering in 2001, and program chair for IEEE International
Conference on Automated Software Engineering in 2006. In the summer of
2008, he was a visiting scientist at the UK Met Office Hadley Centre.
---------------------------------------------------
2 - Affiliate announcement: KMDI Lecture Series III on November 12
(from 4pm to 6pm BEFORE WUD presentation)
---------------------------------------------------
Supporting Visual Thinking and Creativity
Date: Thursday November 12, 2009
Time: 4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location: Bissel Room 728 (Robarts Library)
140 St. George Street
Cost: Free
Details: http://kmdiat13.utoronto.ca/event/supporting-visual-thinking-and-creativity
Local Climate Change Visualization and Decision-making
John Danahy - Architecture, Landscape and Design
How can citizens and decision-makers think creatively about the
challenges of adapting our cities to address the issues of climate
change? This talk will address the issue by highlighting two case
studies involving the use of visualization media that analyze and
explore alternative strategies mandated by Federal, Provincial and
Local Government climate change policies. One is a bottom up project
aimed at giving citizens in the Lakeview community the tools to plan
for reducing car dependence and creating a more liveable and compact
community as a way to adapt community form in a way that reduces their
impact on the climate. The other is a transdisciplinary collaborative
project that is part of the GEOIDE National Centre of Excellence that
begins top down from a macro remote sensing scale and seeks to
identify ways to adapt the City’s urban design to mitigate urban heat
island effects as part of the City of Toronto’s Green Standard policy.
Data in Public & Data Visualization in Art
Nina Czegledy - KMDI Senior Fellow
Data visualization is usually considered an expert field reserved for
computer science or specialists in various scientific sectors. In
contrast to this traditional belief data visualization is a rapidly
growing field in the arts including socio-political projects. The
exchange of concepts and practice from an interdisciplinary
(scientific and art data visualization) environment forms the base for
potential collaboration in research and/or educational contexts. The
lecture will be illustrated by a variety of international art projects
based on data visualization.
---------------------------------------------------
3 - December 2009 - "Sprint Zero" by Lynn Miller (Autodesk)
---------------------------------------------------
ToRCHI's December presenter will be Lynn Miller of Autodesk (formerly
known as Alias Wavefront). Lynn will introduce "Sprint Zero" and
discuss what it is, why it is essential, and how to do it.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
Mailing list enquiries to: eve...@torchi.org
http://torchi.org
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
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