Speakers Kathleen Brandenburg   Partner, IA Collaborative Tim Brown President & CEO, IDEO Chris Conley Assistant Professor, Institute of Design, IIT Jim Euchner Vice President, Advanced Technology, Pitney Bowes Austin Henderson Director, Systems Lab, Advanced Concepts & Technology Group, Pitney Bowes Larry Keeley President, Doblin Inc. Anjali Kelkar, Alex Kinnebrew Institute of Design, IIT Vijay Kumar Associate Professor, Institute of Design, IIT Grace Lo Senior Manager, Business Development, Gold Peak Industries Tom MacTavish VP and Director, Human Interface Laboratories, Motorola Labs Don Norman Professor of Computer Science, Northwestern University; co-founder, Nielsen Norman Group Bruce Nussbaum Editorial Page Editor, Business Week Sam Pitroda Chairman and CEO, WorldTel and C-SAM Inc. Paul Siebert Director of WorkSpace Futures, Steelcase Inc. Patrick Whitney Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor and Director, Institute of Design, IIT Stephen Wilcox Principal and founder, Design Science Yin-jia Yao General Manager, Industrial Design Center, Lenovo Kathleen Brandenburg Partner, IA Collaborative "Bridging the Need Gap" As digital technology becomes less expensive and more readily available, companies are imbedding greater interactivity into media, products and services. Too often the technology is more impressive than the need it fulfills. By employing user-centered research and design methodologies, interaction designers can close this gap between what's possible, and what's desirable. Through processes and recent case studies, Kathleen Brandenburg will demonstrate the business value of interaction design in the creation of human-centered products and services. Kathleen Brandenburg fuses strategic planning with social science research as a way to develop new messages, products, and services. As a strategic design planner, Kathleen’s role is based on user insights, design capabilities, and business objectives, and making sure all concepts and design are heavily based on user experience and context, as well as business opportunities. Her most recent clients include Nike, 3Com, Accenture, and The Chicago Symphony Orchestra among others. Tim Brown President & CEO, IDEO "Interaction Design - the business of prototypes" The development and delivery of interactive experiences is a vastly different enterprise than developing highly resolved, mass manufactured products with relatively long life cycles. Competitive pressures for innovation require interactive experiences to be rapidly reconfigured at the point of service. Constant changes in delivery technology require constant iteration of physical artifacts. And ongoing shifts in cultural taste mean that the essential emotional components of an experience need to evolve over time. This environment of continual flux requires that we think of designing experiences as a prototyping activity: an activity where constant change is a component of the business model, not a challenge to it, and where rapid iteration is supported by new approaches to organization and methodology. Tim Brown is President and CEO of IDEO. Throughout a career based in the U.S. and Europe, he has been involved in interaction design and design strategy, working for clients including Sony, Seiko Epson, Texas Instruments, Deutsche Telekom, Shell International and Prada. He has lectured at the Royal College of Art, Cranbrook, Domus Academy and Stanford. Chris Conley Assistant Professor, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology "Networked Products" A new opportunity for interaction and business Lost in the rise and fall of the Internet boom is the emergence of a ubiquitous network accessible by almost any product or service. Varying levels of physical networks combined with open network protocols (HTTP, XML, VOIP) are setting the stage for unprecedented capabilities, services, and value chains. While the technology is already in place, little value is being derived compared to the network's potential. Will this be just another infrastructure that we make use of incrementally over the coming century? Are there any ways to think about it that lead to more significant shifts in business and society? This presentation will open a dialog on specific human, interaction, and strategy issues presented by networked products. Chris Conley is an assistant professor and director of the product design track at the Institute of Design. Chris has been involved in researching, teaching and applying design methods for his entire career. He specializes in methods and approaches for new product definition -- the step in the development process before an organization knows what it is going to make. Clients include the ID student body, Brunswick, Fortune Brands, Fiskars, Motorola, and Zebra Technologies. Jim Euchner Vice President, Advanced Technology, Pitney Bowes "Alignment for Innovation" This talk will consider the issues of organizational alignment needed to develop a capacity for new product and business innovation in an existing enterprise. Customer-centeredness can help achieve alignment, in part by raising issues that often lay dormant in technology-centered approaches. What is the strategic question to be addressed? Who can legitimately talk with customers to address it? What data about customers is valid? What are reasonable time frames for initiatives? How can intellectual property be protected? What constraints are implied by existing organizational capabilities? In short: What does it mean to collaborate around innovation? Jim Euchner is Vice President, Advanced Technology at Pitney Bowes, Inc. He is responsible for developing new product and business concepts and exploring emerging technologies, including cryptography, Internet, advanced software methodologies, network security, digital printing, and the role of paper in a networked world. Jim is particularly interested in the innovation process and in user-centered design. Prior to his current position, Jim was Vice President, Network Systems Advanced Technology at Bell Atlantic. Austin Henderson Director, Systems Lab, Advanced Concepts & Technology Group, Pitney Bowes "Designing for Evolution" We live in a changing world. Therefore the systems we employ in interacting with this world must be adjustable to address these changes. Although some of this adjustment can be left outside the technology to be handled by the users, as designers of technology we should challenge ourselves to create technology that can aid in helping people evolve their systems to track the world. This talk will address some issues and possible solutions arising from designing and living with evolving systems. Austin Henderson's 40-year career in Human-Computer Interaction includes user interface research and architecture at Bolt Beranek and Newman, Xerox research (both PARC and EuroPARC) and Apple Computer, and strategic industrial design with Fitch. He has run his own company, Rivendel Consulting & Design, and is a principal in Pliant Research, a research effort on overcoming formality in computing. He has participated in ACM SIGCHI for over 20 years, including serving as Chair. Currently, Austin is Director of the Systems Laboratory in the Advanced Concepts & Technology group of Pitney Bowes, where he is developing technology in use in collaboration with the business units and users. Larry Keeley President, Doblin Inc. "Amplifying Innovation" Understanding and creating the hits that catch fire in a connected world Forty years into a digital revolution, one unintended consequence overshadows all the others: we are now in a connected economy that throbs, pulses, and teems with new life forms of its own. Larry Keeley will provide a perspective on the new imperatives for discerning user needs and fashioning deep innovations that are embraced--and then improved by--communities of users. This brief presentation will focus especially on the design of platforms that cut across multiple enterprises and user groups, and the emerging techniques for growing optimal futures 'in silico'. Larry Keeley is president and co-founder of Doblin Inc, an innovation strategy firm known for pioneering comprehensive innovation systems that materially improve innovation success rates. He has worked with, among others, Aetna, Amoco, Apple, Citigroup, Diageo, Hallmark, McDonald’s, Monsanto, Motorola, Pfizer, Shell, Steelcase, Texas Instruments, Whirlpool, and Zurich Financial Services. His new book on innovation, The Taming of the New, will be published in early 2004 by Harvard Business School Press. Anjali Kelkar and Alex Kinnebrew Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology "The Urban Opportunity Project" The proportion of the world's urban population living in poor areas is projected to increase from 33% today, to 45% in 2025. Slum areas in cities like Mumbai, India, with their associated problems of housing, water, sanitation, health and employment, will soon outgrow the cities they are a part of. By understanding the patterns, needs and values of daily life in these areas, and using them to guide development of new innovations, human-centered design can bring a fresh perspective to the problem of global urban poverty -- with solutions that do not depend on charity alone, but instead are based on the energy of for-profit private investment, both outside and inside the slums. Anjali Kelkar is from Mumbai, India. She received her graduate degree from the Institute of Design and her undergraduate degree from Parsons School of Design, New York. Prior to ID she worked in Singapore as a lecturer at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and as founder of a design company doing illustration-based ad campaigns for major agencies. Alex Kinnebrew will complete her Masters Degree in Design Planning at the Institute of Design in 2004. She is particularly interested in how design can create value for customers and organizations and help companies succeed in culturally diverse markets. Prior to ID, Alex received a B.A. from Amherst College, and was the Picture Editor at Town & Country magazine in New York. Vijay Kumar Associate Professor, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology "The Innovation Toolkit" The success of innovations for interactive systems depends considerably on the underlying process used to conceive them. To ensure success, innovators of such systems need to apply a disciplined process to create concepts that support easy interaction. Reliable tools are needed at every step of this process. Research tools are needed to understand user's behaviors and needs. Analytic tools help understand the business and technology contexts within which interactive systems work. Thinking support tools are required to generate fitting concepts. Planning tools help create product /service strategies. Prototyping tools ensure the positive usability of interactive systems. By and large, an efficient and reliable toolkit for innovating interactive systems is in order. This presentation will explore possible components for assembling such an innovation toolkit. Vijay Kumar is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Design. His teaching and research focus on strategic innovation, innovation methods, information structuring, and human-centered product/communication systems. He has over 22 years of experience in teaching, research, and consulting for companies such as Alamo, Amoco Oil, Cummins Engine, Hallmark, Lenscrafters, McDonald’s, Monsanto, Motorola, Perot Systems, Pfizer, Royal Dutch Shell, SAS Airlines, Steelcase, Texas Instruments, Weirton Steel, and Wells Fargo. Grace Lo Senior Manager, Business Development, Gold Peak Industries "New forms of lighting controls" The installation of lighting controls poses an interesting challenge for homeowners. Because of the need for setting up electrical wirings, decisions on the location and quantity of controls you need often precede the actual occupation of the space. Moreover, once the initial setup is done, reconfiguration is often troublesome and costly. What if lighting controls could be installed anywhere in your home independent of electrical wiring set-up? Would that change how people place and use lighting controls at home? At Clipsal, we have recently introduced a new concept, ULTI, which attempts to provide a user-friendly wireless lighting control system for homeowners, commercial and hotel operators alike. An initial attempt to provide a single-room wireless lighting control solution has begun to turn into something that can go a lot beyond the objectives set two and a half years ago. This presentation will share with you the initial product strategy of ULTI and opportunities ahead of us. Grace Lo is Senior Business Development Manager at Gold Peak Industries (Holdings) Limited, the holding company of an Asian multinational group which has established a leadership position in Asia for most of its product categories. Grace is responsible for the brand-building of CLIPSAL electrical wiring devices and GP Batteries in the region, in particular China. She also plays an important role in the product development efforts of ULTI lighting control and home automation system. Before joining Gold Peak, Grace was involved in the development of interactive television and ecommerce ventures at Hongkong Telecom and SUNeVision respectively. Tom MacTavish Vice President and Director, Human Interface Laboratories, Motorola Labs "Understanding Business and Technology" While mastering design includes the formidable tasks of integrating design skills, understanding users, and envisioning the future, these are only the initial steps required to create successful products. Too many great concepts are casualties of politics, processes, and pitfalls. What strategies can we employ to overcome organizational barriers to innovative design? How can we ensure greater business impact and a higher introduction rate of new concepts? Is there a designer ecosystem" that can be identified and exploited? How much should designers know about the limits and capabilities of technology? We need to understand what knowledge and factors will lead to commercially successful design in today's business and technology environment. Tom MacTavish is Vice President and Director of Motorola Labs' Human Interface Laboratory (HIL). The HIL focuses on creating next generation user experience solutions for Motorola products by applying user-centered design principles and appropriate multi-modal interaction technologies including voice dialogue, tactile, vision, and intelligent systems. MacTavish joined Motorola in June 1999 following more than 20 years of research and development experience with NCR Corporation. Don Norman Professor of Computer Science, Northwestern University; co-founder, Nielsen Norman Group "Getting Our Acts Together: Making Design Successful Within the Constraints of Business" The design profession is abundant with societies, ideas, journals and meetings -- sometimes too abundant. The result can be fragmentation, with most design societies working in isolation from one another, and complaining that no one else takes their work seriously enough. It’s time to stop the fragmentation, and add a harmonizing business perspective: The goal of design should not be museum pieces or prizes, but rather successful products: products that help the company succeed, and cause enjoyment, pleasure and value to those who use of them. This harmony will require a deeper understanding in the design community of the ways and needs of business, and an appreciation of the art of compromise; for in many ways, the essence of good design is finding innovative, successful compromises among the many competing and conflicting requirements. Don Norman is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services. He is also Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at Northwestern University and Professor Emeritus of both Cognitive Science and Psychology at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of "The Design of Everyday Things," "Things That Make Us Smart" and most recently, "The Invisible Computer." His newest book "Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things" will be published in January, 2004. Bruce Nussbaum Editorial Page Editor, Business Week "Technology: Just Make It Simpler" A huge chunk of the electricity grid fails. The Internet clogs up and PCs crash. The space shuttle falls to the earth. Complex high-tech systems everywhere appear to be failing, and our society feels increasingly threatened. What is going on? Have we built a high-tech society that is doomed to crash again and again? Can we fix it? We may be making the problem worse by centralizing and standardizing systems, and by starving them of the resources needed to manage them safely. The answer is to use markets and the political process to design systems that give people adequate time to manage failure, and are diverse and flexible enough so that parts continue to operate when something goes down. Bruce Nussbaum is Business Week’s editorial page editor, a position he assumed in February 1993. He also edits the weekly Economic Viewpoint column and writes essays and commentaries for the magazine. Prior to Business Week, Mr. Nussbaum was a reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review and The American Banker. He is a recipient of awards from the Sigma Delta Chi Journalism Society, the Overseas Press Club and the West Point Society, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. is the author of two books: The World After Oil: The Shifting Axis of Power and Wealth and Good Intentions, a work analyzing AIDS research. Sam Pitroda Chairman and CEO, WorldTel and C-SAM Inc. "Humanizing Technology" A major contributor to the high-tech crash was the simple fact that executives did not pay enough attention to the experience of end users. Although every company says it is "customer centered", users found that most of the innovations of the "new, new thing" era actually made their lives more complicated, not less. Corporate leaders must overcome several barriers in order to increase the acceptance of new technologies: Resisting the urge to make every product work for everyone, and start designing products that work better for specific users; defying the trend of piling more features onto products to expand market share, when it is this very complexity that is preventing the market from growing; and instead of making everyday products like cars and appliances as complicated as computers, making computers as simple and easy to use as cars and appliances. Sam Pitroda is Chairman of WorldTel, a company created by the International Telecommunications Union to develop and finance telecoms infrastructure in developing countries on a commercial basis. He holds over 50 worldwide patents, including the popular pocket electronic diary, and owns several high-tech companies. He was the Minister of National Technology Missions under Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and the first chairman of India’s Telecom Commission. Paul Siebert Director of WorkSpace Futures, Steelcase Inc. "Breaking & Borrowing Conventions" The story of BIX As we study user behavior in the workplace, it’s clear that quality social interaction is the key to effective group work. However, most conventional workspace applications have not evolved enough to effectively support the highly collaborative nature of today’s project-based work-life. This presentation will share the development process behind BIX, a successful seating platform inspired by research around informal group interaction. By borrowing from the familiar social experience of dining booths, a "group work-station" concept emerged. This example illustrates the importance of addressing not only physical comfort, but also social and cultural comfort in the workplace. Paul Siebert is Director of WorkSpace Futures for Steelcase Inc. He is responsible for developing perspectives and research concepts that address the future of work. His background in human-centered design includes a diversity of patents and design awards for seating, furniture systems, work tools, showrooms and marketing media. Paul is former Vice President of Design / Creative Director at Metro, a Steelcase company, and is an alumnus of the IIT Institute of Design. Patrick Whitney Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor, Director, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology Moderator and conference chair Professor Patrick Whitney is the Director of the Institute of Design, and the Steelcase / Robert C. Pew Professor of Design. He has published and lectured throughout the world about how to make technological innovations more humane, the link between design and business strategy, and methods of designing interactive communications and products. Whitney was program chair of the 1978 US Conference of the International Council on Graphic Design Associations (ICOGADA), which was the first major meeting about evaluating design from the perspective of users. He currently serves on the Distinguished Advisor Board of ACM SIGCHI. Stephen Wilcox Principal and founder, Design Science "Inclusive Design" Inclusive or universal design has not historically been at the core of the business strategy of most major corporations. However, the aging of the global "first world" population and improvements in medicine mean that an unprecedented and growing percentage of product users (for example, approximately 20% of the present US population) experience some form of disability, ranging from limited mobility or dexterity, to problems with vision, hearing, and/or cognitive abilities. The challenge this poses for the design of human interfaces is to accommodate as many people as possible without adopting design strategies that stigmatize the disabled user, or compromising the design from the point of view of the non-disabled user. There are a number of design strategies that can accomplish these goals. This talk will describe recent data on the demographics of disabilities, and their implications for business issues like market share, and discuss new strategies and tools for increasing the usability of products for a larger percentage of the population. Stephen B. Wilcox, Ph.D., is a Principal and the founder of Design Science, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm that focuses on the user interface of products. He is also a Vice President of IDSA and the Chair of the IDSA Human Factors Professional Interest Section. With 20 years of experience in product development, Dr. Wilcox has worked with many leading manufacturers, including Maytag, J&J, Guidant, Kohler, Baxter, Motorola, Texas Instruments, and Pfizer. Yin-jia Yao General Manager, Industrial Design Center, Lenovo (Legend Computer) "High-tech Products for the Chinese Customer" Ordinary Chinese customers have an increasing desire for high-tech products as a representation of their increasing quality life. But they also keep some distance from technology, afraid to use it because of their limited experience with it. To be successful, products should not only demonstrate a high-tech quality, but also be easy for people to use. We can bridge the distance between these two goals with design. Recently, as the PC has become more popular in the Chinese market, Lenovo has started doing research to find out how cultural backgrounds and living styles influence our customers’ buying mentality. As a result, our products are beginning to be designed more specifically for local markets within the country. As Lenovo pursues the global market, the central theme of our design will continue to be ease of use for our customers. Since 2001, Mr. Yao has been the General Manager of the Industrial Design Center at Lenovo (formerly Legend), maker of the best-selling desktop PC in China. He has led the development of pioneering ideas for products such as desktop PCs, notebooks, servers and Pocket PCs. In 2002, Lenovo’s Kai Tian 6800 PC won the Intel Innovative PC Award, the world’s only international desktop PC award. Back to HITS main page
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