#23 Dec 7 2017

Simon will discuss the ways digital technology can strengthen our connection to the world around us, and actually benefit our well-being. He’ll lift the lid on his research so far, share some experiential optimism, and outline ideas for ensuring the products we create have a positive influence on our lives.

About Simon

Simon is a designer based in Nottingham, now in his sixth year with product studio Fictive Kin. An early web standards advocate, he's written several design books, spoken at events all over the world, and organised the much-missed New Adventures events. Simon is currently exploring the ways digital technology can have a beneficial impact on our happiness, particularly where it encourages us to go outside, discover nature, and helps broaden our knowledge of the world around us.

What do an overnight 40% drop in road accidents, a night in on the sofa watching TV and a good night's sleep have to do with digital product design?

Humans only have limited mental capacity and no-one is ever operating at 100%.

We are all influenced by the world around us and by how our minds work. As designers we need to be able to understand this and design for it.

The power of 100 is a powerful way to understand the modern world we designing for. How your website or app will be used in real life and to design for how people live their lives today.

Combining psychology theory, the latest in UX techniques the power of 100 is a modern design framework that matches the modern complex world we and our users live in.

After all a designer who doesn’t understand psychology is going to be no more successful than an architect who doesn’t understand physics.

About Joe

Joe to his friends is the author of the book Psychology of Designers.  He sometimes writes for Smashing Magazine, Net Magazine and others about how to use psychology to improve the user experience.

A recovering neuroscientist, then a spell as a elementary school teacher, Joe started his UX career 13 years ago. He has worked with organisations like MoMa, Raspberry Pi, Disney, eBay and Marriott.

Joe is also Series Editor of Aspects of UX, a series of books on UX from SitePoint.com

The only comic books Laura read were Calvin and Hobbes, Asterix and Obelix, and the Beano. Until this year, she wouldn’t have been able to tell you which popular superheroes belonged to which Marvel/DC world (and she’s still learning). And her coding abilities extend to basic HTML for editing blog posts in WordPress.

But today, Laura finds herself working in a world of data at a software company, writing for a bunch of tech geeks who speak fluent JavaScript, in an office with a guy whose hobby is wielding a lightsaber while doing martial arts, and among friends who can pinpoint the very episode of any event in Dr. Who.

This is Laura’s non-geek’s guide to surviving in this new-found galaxy.

About Laura

After celebrating the completion of her MA in Endangered Languages and Linguistics (ask her about that life choice) with the words, “I’m so glad I’ll never have to write to deadlines again!” Laura fell into the role of Copywriter, a.k.a. writer to deadlines. It turns out she loves it and can indulge her inner research geek as she writes adverts and marketing content for techy brands. Laura is currently the Content Writer for Yellowfin, a global Business Intelligence and data analytics software company with over 3 million end users.

It's a debate as old as the Summer of Love: which band is best, Beatles or Rolling Stones? Now we have data science, we can give a definitive and entirely objective answer to this question.

About Neil

Dr Neil Smith is a senior lecturer in the School of Computing and Communications at The Open University. His interests are artificial intelligence, data science, and computer science education. He currently teaches a module on data analysis and management. He's run a Code Club at a local school for several years and is a co-founder of the Milton Keynes Hackathon.