World Usability Day - Thursday 12th November 2009

Come and join the UK UPA to celebrate this year's World Usability Day.

This year's theme is Designing for a Sustainable World. The theme looks at how our products and services impact our world. We look at all products and services, whether they are buildings, roads, consumer products, business, services or healthcare systems; throughout their life cycle.

Speakers include Meriel Lenfestey, founder of Flow Interactive, Tory Dunn & Franco Papeschi from Vodafone and Debra Lilley from Loughborough University's CALEBRE (Consumer-Appealing Low Energy Technologies for Building Retrofitting) Project.

How can you get involved?

To help us make the most of our event, we want to hear about projects which you are doing, which you have heard of and projects which promote these aims within our community. We want to showcase work; you can come and tell us about it in person, or you can simply send in material which we can put up for others to look at, or point us at someone you would like to get involved. We're also open to lots of new ideas on what you would like to see. Simply send us an email on events@ukupa.org.co.uk. 

Find out more about World Usability Day and what others are doing via http://www.worldusabilityday.org/

This event will be covered by New Media Age http://www.nma.co.uk/

Talks on the evening:

Social Enterprise Online: Ecomodo - Meriel Lenfestey

Meriel will be talking us through a social enterprise project she has been working on which brings together her professional interest in UX design and her personal interest in sustainability. Ecomodo is a new online service (launching before the end of the year) which will bring responsible consumerism to the masses. The talk will focus on the way UX design is being used to drive behaviour change for the common good, as opposed to capitalising on existing behaviours.
The site will soon be available at: http://www.ecomodo.com/

Bio:
Meriel  Lenfestey is founder and CEO of Flow, a London based User Experience and usability company http://www.flowinteractive.com. In her 12 years with Flow she has played an active part in evangelising and demonstrating  the benefits of usability and UCD to all kinds of client organisations. Prior to Flow she worked as a designer at the BBC and at Microsoft. She has an MA in Interaction Design from the RCA and a degree in Graphic Information Design from the University of Westminster. She is a committee member of her local sustainability group and is particularly interested in the power of design to support sustainable living across society.

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Open and activate: design thinking, environmental sustainability and human behaviours - Tory Dunn and Franco Papeschi

As part of the Vodafone User Experience team, Franco Papeschi and Tory Dunn have recently carried out several projects on design and sustainability. These explored potential mobile/web tools and services aimed at helping people understand their impact on the environment and act upon it.
The session will focus on some of the design challenges encountered in this area, such as: making people aware of the impact of their actions; fostering adoption of new behaviours; making progress visible and achievable; keeping people motivated; spreading knowledge and interest in the topic through the collaboration with experts, activists, start ups and developers.
 
Bios:
Tory Dunn's work as a user experience and service designer has ranged from the visual and interaction design of applications through the experience design of exhibitions and physical spaces. In recent years, her work has moved into strategic design, including pilot services and projects that explore the relationship between design, public services and policy. She has been working with Vodafone since January 2009 on future concept projects, particularly in the area of sustainability and social enterprise.
 
Franco Papeschi is a human being, curious about the way we act and think, especially when technologies have an effect on it. He works in the User Experience team of Vodafone Group, using user-centred design techniques to envision meaningful experiences.

Prior to this, Franco has worked for design agencies in Italy and UK as a Human Factors and User Experience consultant, leading projects for web sites and applications, mobile services, IPTV, change and knowledge management.

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Reducing Household Energy Use  - Considerations for developing design interventions to encourage more sustainable behaviour - Debra Lilley

Domestic energy use in the UK is rising. Increased use of energy-intensive appliances, the rise in single-occupancy households and disposable income, institutional factors (e.g. government policies, grants and incentives) and cultural developments such as increasing mobility of women, home-working and '24/7' living have increased energy consumption, despite efficiency gains in other areas. To reduce domestic energy use, we need to engage with occupants in meaningful and effective ways to prompt more sustainable behaviour.

Carbon, Control and Comfort is a three-year collaborative research project aiming to engage users in the design of control systems that they like, that allow them to create the comfort conditions they want and which, through using the technology and fabric of their homes more effectively, reduces their energy use. This presentation will discuss how occupants' comfort practices impact upon energy use and the socio-technical, usability, design and ethical factors which could inform the development of new devices or systems that enhance and promote energy reducing comfort practices.

Bio:

Dr Debra Lilley, Research Associate, Design & Technology / Ergonomics and Safety Research Institute (ESRI). Loughborough University, UK

Debra has been actively involved in the field of Sustainable Design since 2002.  She holds a Masters of Research in Manufacturing, Sustainability and Design, a PhD in Design for Sustainable Behaviour and is the author of Design-Behaviour (http://www.design-behaviour.co.uk), a web-based resource supporting academics and practitioners in exploring how design (in its broadest sense) can influence user behaviour to reduce the social and environmental impacts of products during use.

Debra is a senior member of Loughborough University's Sustainable Design Research Group; co-convenor of the Product Lifespans Behaviour Change group and Sustainable Design Network (http://sustainabledesignnet.ning.com) administrator. Her core research interests lie in identifying behavioural and psychological drivers for consumption, exploring the social and environmental impacts of product use, conducting user-centred research, developing design for sustainable behaviour strategies and exploring ethical issues in design practice.

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Date: Thursday 12th November 2009
Time: 6.30pm for 7pm start
Location: LBi, Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London, E1 6RU

Details also on our website http://ukupa.org.uk/events/

There is no charge for this event.http://ukupaeventworldusabilityday2009.eventbrite.com

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