Usability 2.0: Trends in User Centered Design You Can't Ignore July 21, 2005

What is the future of User-Centered Design and Human-Computer Interaction? Where will we take it?
Renowned gurus Jared and Ben, who have been working in HCI since before it had a name, join us for a very special event on Thursday, July 21st. In what looks to be an entertaining and interesting evening, they will each discuss their thoughts on the future of HCI and the challenges we will face.

Ben, who has been a driving force in the growth of the HCI field for the last thirty years, will speak from the perspective of having helped it mature. Now, the successes of consumer products, from cell phones to digital cameras to digital music players, have been increasingly tied to their user interfaces. Ben will build on this foundation and look to the future. He will challenge the audience--and the industry--to address such needs as comprehensible security management, creativity support tools, and spam-free email. The audience will be invited to discuss potential novel approaches to these and other emerging challenges.

Jared will bring his perspective in producing usable designs and products since the late 1970s to the discussion. Like Ben, Jared has witnessed and participated in the improvements in the quality of products and user experiences using HCI practices. But is the current toolbox sufficient for the challenges we will face? The thinking behind today's HCI tools, such as usability testing, field research, and user-centered design, has remained basically stagnant for the last 20 years. In the meantime, technology has continued to increase in complexity. Jared will discuss how the tools have showed their age, and what new areas of research are needed to plug the ever-growing holes in our knowledge. Come join us for an exciting evening of discussion and debate about the future of HCI.

Speaker's Bio: Ben Shneiderman
A professor at the University of Maryland whose contributions to the field of Human-Computer Interaction have been so numerous and diverse that he was awarded the ACM CHI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.

Jared Spool
Founder of the leading usability research and consulting firm, User Interface Engineering, Jared is a top-rated speaker who communicates his ideas with clarity and enthusiasm (some might say "glee").

http://www.acm.org/chapters/pssigchi/html/meetings/07_21_2005.html