Sessions at WebVisions Portland 2012 about Happiness

Friday 18th May 2012

• Happiness Machines

  by Andrew Hinton

  It's the 21st century. By now, technology was supposed to have become so smart, convenient and delightful that we hardly had to think about it. It was just going to be there when we needed it, doing what we expected. Or according to some, at this point technology was supposed to have taken over the planet and made us its slaves.
  If you're like me, some days you wish it would pick one side or the other and stick with it.

  Instead, we seem trapped in a tension between technology's ability to make us happy by attending to our needs, and making us sad and angry, by costing us even more time, effort and tears than we would've spent without it. The Happiness Machines keep turning into Unhappiness Machines. But why? And what can we do about it?

  In this presentation, we'll explore how factors like the way we work together and an org's cultural biases get in the way of better design. We'll look at why assumptions about user context, cognition and behavior are behind some of our biggest mistakes. And we'll get at the heart of why User Experience design "is a thing" to begin with, and how, no matter what you call it, it's all about making the machinery of software and services more humane.

  • Happiness
  • User Experience

  At 11:15am to 12:00pm, Friday 18th May

  In D137/138, Oregon Convention Center