World Usability Day 2009 is being held on Thursday, November 12. The theme for the 5th year anniversary of this event, organized by the Usability Professionals Association, is Designing for a Sustainable World.
IBM is celebrating the event by holding a public webcast "Smarter Design for a Smarter Planet" and are excited to have guest speaker John Thomas from IBM Research, who will talk specifically about the usability challenges of building smarter cities. Here is a quick abstract of what John will be talking about.
The vast majority of scientists agree that significant changes will be necessary in this century to avoid ecological disasters. IBM believes we must focus on building "Smarter Cities" where human activities will be more effective and efficient. Designing for Smarter Cities requires a balance between learning what works and creating solutions based on the specifics of a city's history, culture, language, and geography. The need to design new systems with complex yet subtle social effects, and compelling social benefits, makes this an exciting and challenging new area for usability.
IBM will be using a LotusLive web conference for the event, which will be held November 12, 2009 from 12:00 pm - 1:30 EST. All the details of the event, including webcast URLs are on IBM’s Design Facebook page. So link to the Design@IBM Facebook page, and check it out.
For more information on World Usability Day, check out http://www.worldusabilityday.org.
