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Journalist Interviews Aaron Marcus about CHI 2013 on Austrian Radio

Mariann Unterluggauer, Viennese journalist, interviewed Aaron Marcus and others at CHI 2013, Paris, about their views of the conference. The broadcast took place on Austrian radio on 19 May 2013, 22:30 AT time, http://oe1.orf.at/programm/337710. The broadcast was available on demand for 7 more days at: http://oe1.orf.at/konsole?show=ondemand.

German Radio Carries Interview with Aaron Marcus at CHI 2013 in Paris

Mariann Unterluggauer, Viennese journalist, interviewed Aaron Marcus at CHI 2013 in Paris on 2 May 2013. The interview was broadcast on German Radio:

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishes LoCoS Book

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has posted  LoCoS: Visual Language for Global Communication, co-authored by Yukio Ota, Cecilia Macaulay, and Aaron Marcus. The long-awaited, 295-page English translation of the guide to the LoCoS universal sign language invented by first-author Yukio Ota in 1964. KDP Select published the book at the Kindle Store. Readers may purchase the book  at http: www.amazon.com/dp/B00AUW0QFC.

Locos Cover

AM+A’s Learning Machine is Posted for CHI 2013/Paris Workshop:

CHI 2013 will take place in Paris, 27 April to 2 May 2013. The Workshop on Third Places, 27-28 April 2013,  has posted AM+A’s workshop paper about the Learning Machine:  http://hci3p.com/accepted-submissions/. The paper describes the development of this conceptual prototype for tablets that is intended to assist learning behavior change in any environment, including third places (that is, not home, work, or traditional academic setting) through the combination of persuasion design with information design in a user-centered user-experience development process.

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User Experience (UX) Call for Authors

(Bloomingdale, IL: February 2013)

The theme of User Experience Professionals Association’s UX Magazine for the 3rd quarter of 2013 is Collaboration, to align with this summer’s UXPA conference and World Usability Day. We are now accepting proposals for this issue, and we would love to hear from you!

“Collaboration” is a phenomenon that appears on myriad levels, every day, around the world. How does it impact and contribute to the user experience? Do you have an experience you’d like to share, a relevant case study, or an example of how you’ve employed collaboration to improve the user experience? Articles may come from a broad range of perspectives and include collaboration in different contexts, countries and across domains. Be creative with your submission ideas– we look forward to receiving them!

The issue schedule is:
• April 29, 2013: Article proposals (short summaries of the key points in your article) due
• August 12, 2013: Final articles due
• November 2013: Issue published

UX Magazine is a quarterly professional magazine; it is not a technical or academic journal. There are no literature surveys or footnotes. Articles are practical in nature and are written in an active, personal voice. They are typically between 750 and 2000 words. Once an article is accepted, an editor is assigned to work closely with the author to prepare their article for publication. UX Magazine editorial guidelines are available on the UXPA website.

Please contact Managing Editor JO Bugental (jobugental@gmail.com) or Associate Managing Editor Mindy Maxwell (mlmaxwell73@gmail.com) if you would like to submit a proposal for this issue.

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DeTao Masters Academy, Beijing, launches Aaron Marcus Website in Chinese.

De Tao Masters Academy, Beijing, has launched the Chinese Website for DTMA Master Aaron Marcus:  http://www.detaoma.com/maairong. The Website will track news of his major DTMA-related accomplishments.

DeTao

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ACM Interactions Magazine to publis Aaron Marcus’ article about science fiction and human-computer interaction.

The Editors of Interactions Magazine have accepted Aaron Marcus’ article “The History of the Future: Sci-Fi Movies and HCI” for publication in the July/August 2013 issue, 20:3,  of Interactions, the member publication of ACM SIGCHI, the largest user-interface design professional organization in the world. The ariicle reviews briefly some of the sci-fi movies of the last hundred years of science-fiction, which have depicted detailed views of future human-computer interaction (HCI) in order to convey a compelling scene and to move the plot forward. This essay explores some of the themes that emerge from examining this body of work and concludes that HCI professionals can learn something from sci-fi media, and sci-fi media producers could learn more from HCI professionals in order to show smarter views of the future.

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Aaron Marcus will edit User Experience Special issue about UX in Science-Fiction.

 

On about 1April, User Experience Magazine, the member publication of the User-Experience Professionals Association, will publish a special issue, the theme of which is UX and Science Fiction. Aaron Marcus, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, of UX will be the guest co-Editor with Chris Koster, UX Managing Editor. The issue will be availale in an online edition. The issue will feature an interviews with science-fiction authors Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker. The entire issue will enlarge upon tthemes established in a recently published free, downloadeable  AM+A ebook, The Past 100 Years of the Future: Human-Computer Interaction in Science-Fiction Movies and Television, which AM+A published in 2012: https://bamanda.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/AM+A.SciFI+HCI.eBook_.LM10Oct12.pdf.  Aaron Marcus later published a short article on this theme in UX Vol 11, No. 3, pp. 30-31,  “Back to the Future: UX in the Past 100 Years of Science Fiction”, another of Aaron Marcus’ On the Edge column’s essays. That article is viewable and downloadable for members at the UXPA Website: http://usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/user_experience/past_issues/2012-3.html.

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Dragon Design Foundation, Beijing, Post Information about Aaron Marcus.


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HCII 2013 in Las Vegas selects AM+A Tutorials bout Mobile Persuasion, Mobile Trends, and Sci-Fi.

The organizers of the Human-Computer Interaction International (HCII) 2013 conference, to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada,  20-25 July  2013, have selected  AM+A’s tutorials about computer-human interaction in science-fiction movies and television, mobile persuasion design, and mobile user-experience trends for its courses program.  Mr. Aaron Marcus has presented recent versions of these lectures in China,, India, Israel, Japan, and the US.
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 Aaron Marcus named to CHI-Third Places Workshop Program Committee for CHI 2013 in Paris.

The organizers of the CHI-Third Places Workshop to be held at CHI 2013, Paris, France, 27-28 April 2013, have named Aaron Marcus to the Workshop Program Committee. He is the only non-PhD member of the ten-person committee. “Third places” are neither work or home; rather, they are places such as coffee shops and bars, where playful conversation shapes the social links that tie communities together. Emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) have introduced new ways to interact with such third places – i.e. geo-tagging, crowd-sourcing and passive sensing – changing how we interact with other people, and how contemporary communities are shaped.
The objective of the first Workshop on Human Computer Interaction in Third Places (HCI-3P) is to better understand, through academic discussion and a field activity, the best approaches to designing ICT for third places. The outcomes of the workshop will be a research agenda, collaborative research proposals and the initiation of a recurring workshop on the topic.The first day will be dedicated to discussing the state of current research, while the second day will promote research collaboration through a field activity taking place on several Parisian third places. Papers presented will  describe ongoing research on novel interfaces, research methodologies, or research positions on human computer interaction for third places.
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CHI 2013 in Paris to feature Tutorial by Aaron Marcus about user-Experience Design in Science-Fiction and Television.

The CHI 2013 Website is now live with information about the course to be given by Aaron Marcus on1 May 2013 in Paris, France:
Following is the course description:
Sci-Fi and CHI in Movies and Television will summarize and analyze the past 100 years of human-computer interaction as incorporated into science-fiction cinema and video, beginning with the advent of movies in the early 1900s (Melies’ “A Trip to the Moon,” which was recently referenced in the movie “Hugo”).For many decades movies have shown technology in advance of its commercialization (for example, video phones and wall-sized television displays, hand-gesture systems, and virtual reality displays). In some cases mistaken views about what is usable, useful, and appealing seem to be adopted, perhaps because of their cinematic benefits. In any case these media have served as informal “test-beds” for new technologies of human-computer interaction and communication.The course will explore issues of what is “futuristic” and what is not, gender-role differences, optimism/pessimism, and user-centered design characteristics in more than about two dozen films and a half-dozen television shows. Examples from China, India, and Japan also will be referenced.Participants will be quizzed informally about their recognition of the media examples shown. Discussion with participants throughout the presentation will be encouraged.

China Top Brands Publishes Exclusive Interview with Aaron Marcus

China Top Brands, a premier publication of the China Xinhua News Agency, interviewed Aaron Marcus during a visit to Beijing in early 2012.  The exclusive interview appeared in the 7 May 2012 issue and is titled “The Influence of Design to Change ‘Made in China” Brand.’ The interview discusses the growing influence of design on products and servies in China.

The link is http://chinatopbrands.org/news.aspx?id=2618.

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 AIGA Geospatial Graphics invites Aaron Marcus to Lecture about Trasnationl Design, Sustainability, and Mobile UX Design.

 

The AIGA Educators Conference “Geospatial Graphics” 2012 invited Aaron Marcus to present a paper and lecture, “Visualizing Energy Relations: Designing Transnational Educational Visual Communication,” at the East-West Center, Honolulu, on 14 December 2012, which included references to a project he led at the East-West Center more than 30 years ago about global energy interrelatonships and to a recent project about mobile persuasion design called the Green Machine.
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Aaron Marcus presents “Visualizing Global, Interdependencies” at East-West Center.

At the East-West Center (EWC), Honolulu, Hawaii, Aaron Marcus presented “Visualizing Global Interdependencies” again after 32 years to an enthusiastic audience on14 December 2012, as part of the AIGA Geographics conference being held at the EWC. Mr. Marcus was a Research Fellow at the EWC in 1978 and led an international team of graphic designers and visual communicators to design a non-verbal, cross-cultural, information-visualization storytelling presentation about global energy interdependence, which he has since presented worldwide.
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University of Hawaii invites Aaron Marcus to Lecture about Mobile UX Design.

The Department of Information and Computer Sciences, the College of Natural Sciences,  and Pacific New Media, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Manoa Campus, and ParWinr, Inc., Honolulu, invited Aaron Marcus to lecture at the University about mobile user-experience design on 14 December 2012.
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Reducing the US Deficit: Hello Kitty Kash to the Rescue

Mr. Aaron Marcus, President

We are near the edge of the Fiscal Cliff. Both Congress and the White House are deadlocked in their attempts to find solutions to cutting government spending and/or increasing revenue through tax changes. What are we to do?

A simple change in our “money policies” could increase significantly US Treasury revenues and significantly reduce our deficit. Here’s how. We could issue Hello Kitty Kash!

The US Treasury could decide next week that it is perfectly legal, financially advantageous, and nearly required to achieve fiduciary and ethical responsibilities, to enable all people and companies that wish to have their own personal or corporate images appear on the face of our one-dollar bills and their organizational or corporate logos to appear on the back. I mention this denomination in particular, because recently proposals have been made to eliminate this bill, and to issue one-dollaray coins instead, thereby saving abut four to five  billon dollars (over 30 years!). But this action completely overlooks the public relations and design value of this familiar and much loved cultural artifact, our most “populist” denomination.Persons or groups wishing to buy “FaceSpace” on one-dollar bills, would have to pay $100 million per image, or $200 million per set of sides.There are about three billion one-dollar bills in circulation, the most of any denomination. These bills last about 21 months, which means that every two years, the Treasury could issue new editions. If there were only 500 sponsors of these images/logos  (there are 400 billionaires in the USA alone), the US Government could quickly raise $50 billion over a two-year cycle. In ten cycles, this translates to $500 billion, or one-half of the current national deficit.Using a design-thinking approach to innovation, the one-dollar bill is a valuable medium of communication, one that has significant  cultural and media value. Think about it. Sanrio might sponsor Hello Kitty Kash. Hello Kitty now exceeds Mickey Mouse in the number of image results on a Google search. Disney might sponsor Mickey. There many  companies and organizations that would line up to see their favorite person, persona, or symbol conveyed worldwide in a way that has become acceptable in other media. Even hotel plastic door-key cards contain ads for Macy’s, for example. People, characters, and companies/organizations within and outside the US might contribute to the cost of these FaceBucks, thereby enabling wealthy individuals or groups to contribute to the reduction of the US deficit.Our US currency has been undergoing significant graphic redesign. Now is the perfect time to make this historic change in “outside funding” of our currency. The cost of printing and detecting such bills would not be prohibitively expensive. These FaceBucks might become highly desirable outside the US as well, much like our movie production, which might bring further sponsor contributions and collectibles desirability. Perhaps the US Post Offices could handle distribution, just as they do with commorative stamps, thereby adding economic value to these established buldings and people, which are now threatened by being de-commisioned as economically non-viable.While people complain about money spent to buy elections, wasted on porkbarrel projects, or debatable entitlements, let’s make a radical shift in thinking.  FaceBucks enables people to buy FaceSpace. Taxing the wealthiest corporations and individuals is always challenging.This simple suggestion gives sponsors with wealth a tangible benefit in return for their funds: something desirable, valuable, and noteworthy. FaceBucks also recognizes that our currency is one of our valuable remaining iconic worldwide communication “products.” FaceBucks would allow the US government to use money to make money. The Fiscal Cliff is almost here. We can’t ignore this opportunity.______________________________Figure Caption: Hello Kitty dollar, or Hello Kitty Kash.Author:Mr. Aaron Marcus, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.Berkeley, CaliforniaVersion: 16 December 2012.May be reprinted in whole or edited form, with citation. Hello Kitty image is copyright and trademarked by Sanrio, Inc., and appears under fair-use practice for educational and artistic/design usage.

 

China Visual Publishes Interview with Aaron Marcus
China Visual, a leading online design publication in China, interviewed Aaron Marcus, President of AM+A, while he was in Beijing, China, to give a keynote lecture and workshops at the UPA/User Friendly 2012 conference in November 2012.  Ms. Zhao Nana interviewed Mr. Marcus, Her interview was published on 12 Novembr 2012 and is located at http://shijue.me/show_text/50a0a3808ddf8723a00002bb.
Dragon Design Foundation, Beijing, China, Names Aaron Marcus International Advisor  
On 12 November  2012, Ms. Junna Yang, Director, International Cooperation Department, Dragon Design Foundation (DDF),  Beijing, China, presented Aaron Marcus with a certificate naming him an  International Advisor to the DDF. The DDF is the primary organization officially sanctioned by the government of China to promote the Designed in China Brand. The DDF sponsors several programs including the Dragon Design Festival,  Top 10 Designers of China Competition, the World Green Design Forum, and the Design Valley area near Shanghai. Mr. Marcus will assist in these activities and in promotiing exchanges between the DDF and leading design organizations, schools, firms, leaders, conferences, publications, and events in North America.
User Friendly 2012, Beijing, Invites Aaron Marcus to Give Keynote Lecture about UX in Science Fiction Movies and TV
On 10 November  2012, at the User Friendly 2012 conference in Beijing, Mr. Aaron Marcus presented “The Past 100 Years of the Future: User-Experience Design in Science-Fiction Movies and Televsion” as a keynote lecture of the conference to about 600 participants. (Cartoon image created by audience member Xuwan Fang during the lecture and used with permission.)
User Friendly 2012 Beijing, Invites Aaron Marcus to Speak on Mobile Internet Panel
On 8 November  2012, at the User Friendly 2012 conference in Beijing, Mr. Aaron Marcus participated in a panel session “Mobile Internet Trends” discussiing current and future technology.
Chinese Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, Invites Aaron Marcus to Lecture about Mobile Persuasion Design
On 9 November 2012, at the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China, the Digital Media Department invited Aaron Marcus to present a lecture about mobile persuasion design to about 50 students. The lecture summarizes AM+A’s R+D projects to develop conceptual designs of mobile applications that combine information design and persuasion design.
User Friendly 2012, Beijing, Invites Aaron Marcus to give Workshops about Mobile Persuasion Design and Mobile UX Trends
On 9 and 11 November  2012, at the User Friendly 2012 conference in Beijing, Mr. Aaron Marcus presented two workshops, the first about mobile persuasion design that summarizes AM+A’s R+D projects to develop conceptual designs of mobile applications that combine information design and persuasion design, and the second about current mobile user-experience trends. Approximately 35 and 50 participants signed up for the tutorials.
AM+A Publishes Two e-Books by Aaron Marcus about Conceptual Art, Computer Graphics and Experimental Typography
On 26 November  2012, AM+A published at its Website Volumes 1 and 2 of Soft Where, Inc., two monographss about the conceptual symbol/sign art, computer graphics artwork, and experimental visible language of Aaron Marcus that were originally published in 1976 and 1982. With the permission of the publisher, these two classics are now available online as free, downloadable publications. Mr. Marcus is a SIGGRAPH Pioneer of Computer Graphics and the first graphic designer in the world to work full-time with computers.

Presidential FaceBucks After the Election of 2012:A Simple Suggestion to Reduce the Deficit

Version: 31 October 2012.

© Copyright 2012 by AM+A. May be reprinted in whole or edited form, with citation. Obama image credit: public domain. Romney image credit: Gage Skidmore

The Election Campaign of 2012 between Democratic incumbent President Obama and Republican candidate Governor Mitt Romney is almost over. Meanwhile,  Congress has been unable to pass sufficient legislation to curb the increasing US deficit (currently about $1.1 trillion) and the US debt (currently about $16.2 trillion).

The US is heading towards a fiscal crisis. A simple change in our “money policies” could increase significantly US Treasury revenues and help reduce our deficit.

The US Treasury could have decided before the beginning of the 2012 campaign that it was perfectly legal and fiscally advantageous to let all those who wished to support the winner of the Elections for President to have the winning candidate’s image appear on a limited number (say, 1 million) of $100 US currency bills…provided they paid $100 million for that “edition” with the image. If they wanted to “buy more FaceBucks,” they could. Organizations would put in money and get some public relations value for their donations. They might even be able to distribute a certain number of them in desired locations, provided they actually paid for their face value; otherwise, they would be released randomly by the US Government at appropriate times and places.

If the sponsors preferred to have a more “populist” denomination, they could buy FaceSpace on $1 bills, which have less monetary value but greater circulation. $100 million per image might put the candidate’s face on 100 million bills per set. The sponsors would be allowed to purchase some of the bills for communication purposes and give them away, sell them at higher cost as keepsakes, or trade them for “non-denominational” versions of currency.

For example, there are about three billion one-dollar bills in circulation, the most of any denomination, and these bils last about 21 months, well within the four-year period of a Presidency. That means, if there were only 600 sponsors of images, the US Government could quickly raise $60 billion over a two-year typical circulation cycle, and perhaps raise another round during the second two years of a Presidency. This Campaign to Fund Facebucks could be the start of a movement to put new faces on our currency and to raise $600 billion if 6,000 sponsors can be found worldwide over a four-year period. This large sum would do much to lessen the US deficit.

Had the US Treasury implemented this strategy four years ago, these new designs would have allowed the first non-Caucasian to appear on our US currency. In the future, if a woman were elected, we would see the second occasion of a woman to appear on US currency (Martha Washington was the first in the nineteenth century). Even people and companies/organizations outside the US might contribute to the cost of Presidential FaceBucks, thereby enabling other wealthy individuals or groups to contribute to the celebration of the winner.

Our US currency has been undergoing graphic redesign, with new images of past Presidents, more colors, new typography, and additional anti-counterfeiting techniques. Now is the perfect time to make this historic change in “outside funding” of our currency. The cost of printing and detecting such bills would not be prohibitively expensive. These FaceBucks might become highly desirable outside the US as well, much like our movie production, which might bring further sponsor contributions.

Taxing the wealthiest individuals and companies is always challenging. This simple suggestion gives sponsors with wealth a tangible benefit in return for their funds: something desirable, valuable, and noteworthy. Some people complain about money spent to buy elections. FaceBucks enables people to buy FaceSpace, but not necessarily to buy elections. FaceBucks also recognizes that our currency is one of our valuable remaining iconic worldwide communication “products.” FaceBucks allows the US government to use money to make money.

It may be too late for the Election of 2008 and 2012. This opportunity should not be ignored as we prepare for the next national election.

 

AM+A Publishes two New eBooks: Republishes Aaron Marcus’ Conceptual Visual Language Artwork of the 1970s and 1980s

AM+A has received permission from the Editor of West Coast Poetry Review to republish as eBooks two monogaphs that Aaron Marcus published in 1975 and 1982: Soft Where, Inc., Volumes 1 and 2. Mr. Marcus, who founded AM+A in 1982, had been the first graphic designer in the world to work with computers in 1967 and one of the world’s pioneering computer graphics artists. He also experimented with visible language poetry and design and conceptual art works that were exhibited and published worldwide in the 1970s and 80s. These two monographs contain case studies and exemplary materials from this body of work, including one of the first virtual environments designed by a professional designer, and environmental art works that are the size of the entire earth. The publications are available as complimentary downloadable files  from AM+A’s Website.
AM.SoftWhereInc.Vol2.Pgs1-92.Opt101212

 

U.X 13.2: US and SciFi: Wowee, Zowee, and Beyond!

The theme of UXPA’s UX Magazine for the second quarter of 2013 is UX and SciFi, edited by Special Guest Editor Aaron Marcus.

 

Proposals are now being accepted from the UX community. Sci-Fi authors and cinema/media professionals are also being contacted to contribute to the issue.

 

Articles may reflect topical issues from one’s own career experiences, advice for film/media professionals, the storytelling techniques of scifi and how they can be used in UX design, emerging UX roles in film/media development, the future envisioned for UX. These topics are only suggestions.

 

The schedule is the following:

 

1 November 2012: Article proposals due. (Short summaries of the key points in your article)

7 January 2013: Final articles due

April 2013: Issue published

 

UX Magazine articles are typically between 750 and 2000 words (depending in part on the number and size of figures). They are practical in nature and are written in an active, personal voice. There are no literature surveys or footnotes. Also, authors work closely with a member of the Editorial Board to prepare their articles for publication.

 

More information about UX Magazine editorial guidelines is available at: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/user_experience/editorial.

 

Please submit informal proposals that let us understand the main points you want to make, not just the topics you will cover.

 

Send your proposals to the Managing and Guest Editors:

 

J O Bugental (jobugental@gmail.com)

Aaron Marcus (aaron.marcus@bamanda.com)

 

Thanks in advance for your contributions!

AM+A Publishes Illustrated eBook about HCI in Sci-Fi

On 24 August 2012, AM+A published its first ebook, The Past 100 Years of the Future: Human-Computer Interaction in Science-Fiction Movies and Television. On 5 October 2012, AM+A published a revised edition of the fully illustrated downloadable-for-free book at the AM+A Website. The book is a work in progress and shows many images from well-known and some not-so-well-known movies, including references to science-fiction movies in China and India. AM+A hopes readers enjoy the current fully-illustrated version, and thanks readers in advance for their patience and for coming back to download this revised version. Reader comments are welcomed and may be posted.

[Download this book]


UX Magazine publishes Aaron Marcus’ article about Science Fiction and UX Design

In User Experience Magazine, the flagship publication of the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA), Vol 11, No. 3, pp. 30-31, UX magazine published “Back to the Future: UX in the Past 100 Years of Science Fiction”, another of Aaron Marcus’ On the Edge column’s essays, this one focusing on the state of UX design in science-fiction movies and television over the past century. The article is viewable (and downloadable for members) at the UXPA Website:  http://usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/user_experience/past_issues/2012-3.html#edge.
 


Tang Education, Shanghai, invites Aaron Marcus to join its roster of Workshop Presenters in China

On 6 September 2012, Mr. Jason  Huang, CEO of Tang Education, a subsidiary of Tang Consulting, Shanghai, concluded an agreement with Aaron Marcus, President of AM+A, Berkeley, to present three days of workshops about user-experience (UX) design in 2013 in Beijing and/or Shanghai. Tang Education offers workshops to UX designers, product owners/managers, and software engineers at companies in China.


DTMA Masters Hartmut Eslinger and Aaron Marcus meet in Shanghai

On 6 September 2012, Mr. Hartmut Esslinger, Founder and CEO of Frog Design, met with Aaron Marcus, President of AM+A at Esslinger’s studio in the  DTMA CCIC Buiilding on the SIVA campus in Shanghai. Both are Masters of the De Tao Masters Academy, Beijing, Aaron Marcus is preparing to open his own studio in the builidng in early 2013 and to offer a UX Design course as part of his User-Experience (UX) Center’s activities. Mr. Marcus toured the building and reviewed the exhibits of Masters and their works.


UPA/User Friendly 2012, Beijing, invites Aaron Marcus to present tutorials


On 6 September 2012, Mr. Jason Huang, President of UPA/Shanghai, invited Aaron Marcus to present two half-day tutorials at User Friendly 2012, 8-11 November 2012, Beijing. User Friendly is a major conference attended by usabilty, user experience, and design professionals in China and from abroad..
Aaron Marcus presents Lecture about Mobile Persuasion Design at IXDA Shanghai
On 5 September 2012, the Interaction Design Association of Shanghai (IXDA) invited Aaron Marcus to present a lecture about mobile persuasion design featuring case studies of some of AM+A’s projects that combine information design with persuasion design. Attendees at the lecture, which took place at Autodesk Shanghai,  inclluded interaction designers and UX designers from Autodesk, Honeywell, and other firms in China.


Aaron Marcus presents Workshops at SAP Labs, Shanghai


On 3-5 September, Aaron Marcus presented a two-day workshop to senior UX designers and a one-day workhop to UX-oriented software engineers at SAP Labs, Shanghai. Approximately 100 people took part in the workshops. The workshops are part of a series being provided to SAP UX designers and software developers worldwide during the second half of 2012.


Aaron Marcus presents Tutorial about Sci-Fi and HCI at APCHI 2012 in Japan

On 28 August 2012, at APCHI 2012, Matsue, Shimashe, Japan, Aaron Marcus presented a tutorial on the human-computer interaction as shown in science-fiction movies and television over the past 100 years. Approximately 50 persons attended, including participants from Japan, China, Denmark, and Thailand. Mr. Marcus invited Prof. Masaaki Kurosu, Open University of Japan, to add comments about science-fiction social and political themes based on his own research. An hour-long previous version of this lecture is available on Youtube at this URL:

http://uebermedien.org/retrospektive/video-keynote-aaron-marcus/

Mr. Marcus’ recently published ebook on this topic is available at this URL:

See: https://bamanda.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/AM+A.SciFi+HCI.eBook.17Aug12.pdffr44


 

 


IXDA, Bangalore, India, Holds a Discussion with Aaron Marcus and UX Designers

 

On 24 August 2012, IXDA, Bangalore, India, invited Aaron Marcus to meet with UX designsers from major corporations, startups, and schools, to discuss the history of UX, the history of AM+A, current design issues, and the future of UX. The session took place in the offices of Yahoo!, Bangalore.

 


 

 


Sapient Nitro, Bangalore, India, invites Aaron Marcus to lecture about Mobile Persuasion Design and the Work of AM+A

 

On 24 August 2012, Saprient Nitro, Bangalore, India, a major branding and Web e-commerce design firm,  invited Aaron Marcus to lecture about the history of his firm and AM+A’s concept designs involving mobile persuasion design. The lecture took place on a day celebrating the Onam holiday of the Kerala state, for which intricate designs are created with flowers and colored materials as pictured.


National Institute of Design invites Aaron marcus to Lecture about Mobile Persuasion Design

 

On 23 August 2012, about 60  HCI/CHI/UX students assembled at the National Institue of Design in Banaglore, India,  to hear Aaron Marcus present “Mobile Persuasion Design” in which Mr. Marcus reviews the rationale and results of four mobile UX-design projects that combine information design with persuasion design: the Green Machine, the Health Machine, the Money Machine, and the Story Machine.


SAP invites Aaron Marcus to Deliver UX Design Workshops at SAP Labs in Bangalore, India

 

On 21-23 August 2012, Aaron Marcus provided two workshops to UX designers and UX software engineers in SAP Labs, Banagalore, India. The two-day workshop for senior UX desigers covered advanced topics such as cross-cultural UX design, mobile UX trends, information visualization, and aspects of design thinking and innovation. The one-day workhshop for software engineers covered UX development basics, such as personas and use scenarios, as well as working UX into Agile software development.

 


AM+A Publishes eBook about HCI in Sci-Fi


On 24 August 2012, AM+A published its first ebook, The Past 100 Years of the Future: HCI in Science-Fiction Movies and Television. The book, downloadable at the AM+A Website, is a work in progress, because movie studios have demanded extremely high publication permission rights, as high as $4500 per image, for individual images for some of the many films cited in the book. This cost  seems prohibitively expensive, especially when the publication is being issued as a not-for profit, non-commercial, but downloadable publication. Consequently, the book appears without these images. As rights are secured, revised versions will be published. AM+A hopes readers enjoy the current version, and thanks readers in advance for their patience and for coming back for later versions.

 

AM+A.SciFi+HCI.eBook.17Aug12

 

AM+A Celebrates 30th Anniversary

On 19 August 2012, AM+A celebrated its 30th year of designing intelligent user experiences. AM+A has worked on approximately 600 client projects in that time for major corporations, organizations, and startups. AM+A began with a three-year DARPA-funded research project to design improved conventions for the appearance of C-code and designed one of the first commercial graphical user-interfaces, for Intran’s Metaform, which appeared about one month before the Apple Lisa. AM+A helped to design the user interfaces of the first versions of AOL, Travelocity, and Livescribe’s SmartPen. See AM+A’s Website (www.bamanda.com) for a selection of past clients, projects, awards, and publications.

 

Aaron Marcus gives Tutorial at SIGGRAPH Asia in Hong Kong

Aaron Marcus gave several tutorials/workshops in Hong Kong on a recent visit to China, including a tutorial at  the SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 conference on 14 December 2011.

SIGGRAPH is the world’s largest computer graphics conference. Mr. Marcus gave the opening plenary panel lecture at SIGGRAPH 1980 in Seattle, USA, introducing the concept of graphic design to the world’s future software developers for films, games, and productivity applications. His tutorials on user-interface design at SIGGRAPH 1992-97 were among the longest-lasting tutorials at the conference series. At SIGGRAPH 2003, Los Angeles, USA, more than 300 people attended his tutorial about cross-cultural user-experience design. The same popularity was shown at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, Seoul, South Korea, where more than 200 people attended. Prof. Marcus presented this tutorial again on 14 December 2011  at SIGGRAPH Asia 2011, Hong Kong, China. Mr. Marcus is scheduling further presentations of this topic in China and abroad in 2012.

Aaron Marcus gives Tutorial at Hong Kong Design Institute in Hong Kong

Aaron Marcus gave several tutorials/workshops in Hong Kong on a recent visit to China, including a workshop at the Hong Kong Design Instittute on 16 December 2011.

At Hong Kong Design Institute, Hong Kong, China, on 16 December 2011, Prof. Marcus spoke to  students of visual  communication and animation about the work of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., and about mobile persuasion design. Mr. Marcus lectures about these topics worldwide and plans to lecture/tutor about these topics in China during 2012.

Prof. Marcus at Hong Kong Design Institute, Hong Kong, China, 16 December 2011, including a photo with HKDI faculty and staff.

Aaron Marcus gives Workshop on Games and Narratives at University of California at Berkeley’s Berkeley Institute of Design

Aaron Marcus gave a workshop at the University of California’s Berkelely Institute of Design (BID), Berkeley, California, USA, on 28 February 2012, at the invitation of Prof. Pablo Parades. The workshop is part of a semester course on games and narratives in healthcare software applications. Prof. Marcus presented lectures about the Health Machine and Story Machine, two concept design projects from Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., Berkeley, California, USA, which combine information design and persuasion design in mobile applications. Mr. Marcus has published a case study about the Health Machine in Information Design Journal and will present a paper about the Story Machine at a special worksop at the Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) Conference  in Austin, Texas, USA in May 2012.  Students in the BID workshop used the lectures as a basis for quick sketches of ideasa combining both machines and emphasizing gamelike aspects of possible future mobile software applications that change people’s behavior.

Prof. Marcus working with University of California’s Berkelely Institute of Design (BID), Berkeley, California, USA, on 28 February 2012

Design with India Publishes Interview with Aaron Marcus

Design With India, an online  resource for design professionals, educators, innovators, planners, and investors, has published an interview by Uday Dandavate, CEO of Sonic Rim, with Aaron Marcus, President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A). AM+A is an independent user-experience design, research, and consulting company in Berkeley, California, USA. Mr. Marcus discusses the idea of a Center for User-Experience Design in India, which would establish a harmonious combination of reearch, professional practice, and education. The Center would help India to  improve its nation, culture, and economy by emphasizing increassed user-centered design of products and services for an ever-increasing domestic marketplace, as well as for global markets. Aaron spoke to Design with India about his concept of Persuasive Design and his vision for creating East-West collaboration in India. Please visit http://design-with-india.com/Design_With_India/Home.html for the full interview. Mr. Marcus recently was invited to be a Master of the De Tao Masters Academy based in Beijing, China (http://www.detaoma.com). He is one of about 100 people selected from North America and Europe to share the “best of the West” with the “wisdom of the East.”

Aaron Marcus works with Designer/Analyst Interns on Innovation Machine

DTMA Master Aaron Marcus, President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.)  is working at AM+A with three AM+A R+D  Designer/Analyst Interns of Chinese and Indian background to develop the Innovation Machine: Ms. Megan Chiou, Mr. Chirag Narula, and Mr. Allan Yu (University of California at Berkeley, Cognitive Science Department). The Innovation Machine concept design combines information design and persuasion design in a mobile product (smartphone, tablet, and associated Web portal) that changes people’s behavior about innovation and design thinking when they are creating new products and services, whether they are a single innovator, a member of a startup, or a member of a corporate/organizational innovation team. By providing suitable dashboards, process models, focused social networking, filtered just-in-time knowledge, and appropriate challenges (games and competitions), the Innovation Machine seeks to change people’s behavior towards better, wiser, more effective, engaged, and successful practices. The Innovation Machine team is researching the subject matter of innovation theory and design thinking, conducting competitive product/service analysis, developing a suitable information architecture for user personas and use scenarios, and designing example screens of the planned product. These examples will be used for informal evaluation by potential users, which will inevitably lead to some design changs.  After about three months of research and development, they will produce a white paper and presentation about their achievements, which will be a basis for follow-on publication of a case study and professional article. This same approach has been followed in four previous machines, three of which have won design awards and one of which led to incorporation of its concepts into enterprise software development.

Prof. Marcus (standing, on right)  working with (right to left) Ms. Megan Chiou, Mr. Chirag Narula, and Mr. Allan Yu, AM+A Design/Analysis Interns, on the Innovation Machine, an advanced  mobile concept design that combines information design and persuasion design. [one photo may be selected as best, or more than one can be published. Photos are supplied by AM+A, which grants permission to publish without royalty or fee.]

Aaron Marcus to Give Two Tutorials at Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) Conference 2012

AHFE’s objective is to facilitate discussions and exchanges of applied areas of ergonomics, including, physical ergonomics, cognitive ergonomics, social and organizational ergonomics, cross-cultural aspects of decision making, ergonomics modeling and usability evaluation, human digital modeling, healthcare and special populations, safety and ergonomics in manufacturing, human factors in transportation, affective and pleasurable design, and human side of service engineering.

The five-day conference will start with tutorials beginning on July 21-22, 2012. Tutorials will be offered (both half-day and full-day) at introductory, intermediate, and advanced levels covering the entire spectrum of the conference.

Mr. Marcus will present tutorials on the following days:

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Tutorial 6: Mobile User-Interface Design: Developing Effective User Experiences for Work Home, Play, and on the Way

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Tutorial 10: Cross-Cultural User-Experience Design

For more information on AHFE, and to register for this event, please visit http://ww.ahfe2012.org/

Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics Conference 2012

Hilton San Francisco

Union Square

San Francisco, California

21-25 July 2012

Aaron Marcus lectures about AM+A’s Four Machines

Aaron Marcus, President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A), Berkeley, California, lectured on 21 March 2012  at the Center for Information Technology and Research in the Interest of Society (http://www.citris.uc.org), UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, to about 100 participants plus online Web viewers. He reviewed the development of the Green Machine,  Health Machine, Money Machine, and Story Machine mobile application concept designs that seek to change behavior with user-centered, user-experience design combined with information design and persuasion design. You can view his talk here.

 

Computer Graphics World Publishes Online Interview with Aaron Marcus about Computer Graphics in Asia

Computer Graphics World, one of the computer industry’s leading publications worldwide, has published, on 20 March 2012, an  online interview with Aaron Marcus, President, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., Berkeley, California, and Master, De Taoma Masters Academy, Beijing. Mr. Marcus speaks about computer graphics in Asia, specifically China,  his personal history in Asia, and Asia’s  future in computer graphics and user-experience design. The online interview is available at tp://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/Online-Exclusives/2012/CG-In-Asia2.aspx.

Aaron Marcus presents Mobile Persuasion Course at CHI 2012

Aaron Marcus, President, AM+A, presented a course about mobile persuasion design to 26 participants from around the world on 10 May 2012 at CHI 2012, Austin, Texas, USA, the premiere computer-human interaction conference, attended by approximately 2,500 people. The course summarized AM+A’s work on the Green Machine, the Health Machine, the Money Machine, and the Story Machine, all of which mobile concept designs combine persuasion design with information design to change people’s behavior.

 

 

CHI 2012 Chair Invites Aaron Marcus to Speak about the Future of UX Design

CHI 2012 Program Chair Joe Konstan invited Aaron Marcus, President, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A), and two other industry leaders to discuss the future of user experience practice and the profession on 7 May 2012 in Austin, Texas, USA. Participants were (right to left): Aaron Marcus, President, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A); Joseph A. Konstan, (Panel Chair), Professor and Associate Head, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota; Karen Holtzblatt, CEO, InContext Design, and Eric M. Schaffer, PhD, CUA, CXA, CPE, CEO, Human Factors International, Inc. About 150 people attended the 90-minute panel session at the conference, which was attended by 2,500 people from around the world.

 

User Experience Magazine publishes Article about AM+A’s MoneyMachine

User Experience (UX) Magazine, the flagship publication of the Usability Professionals Association has published an article about AM+A’s Money Machine, a mobile application concept design that combines persuasion design with information design, to change retiring babyboomers’ behavior in regard to saving and spending. The article appears in  in issue 11:2. The article is available worldwide to members:

Marcus, Aaron (2012). “The Money Machine.” UX 11:2, Second Quarter, 2012, pp. 24-27. Copyright © UPA 2012. Reprinted from User Experience, http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/user_experience/past_issues/2012-2.html

 

Aaron Marcus presents Mobile User-Interface Design Tutorial at AHFE 2012

Aaron Marcus presented his tutorial about mobile user-interface design at the Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics 2012 Conference in San Francisco on 21 July 2012. Attendees included human factors and ergonomics, user-experience, and other professionals from Brazil, China, Finland, Japan, Russia, and the US.

SAP Invites Aaron Marcus to present UX Design Workshops in USA, Israel, and Canada

SAP, a leader in enterprise software development, invited Aaron Marcus to present three days of workshops about UX Design to several hundred UX Designers and UX-oriented software engineers in their development centers in Palo Alto, California, USA; Ra’anana, Israel; and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The workshops took place in June and July 2012.

UXPA Israel invites Aaron Marcus to present “Mobile Persuasion Design”

 

The User Experience Professionals Association of Israel invited Aaron Marcus, President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., to present  “Mobile Persuasion Design: Combining Information Design and Persuasion Designto Change Behavior” to approximately 120 Israeli usability, design, software engineering, business, and user-experience professionals in Ra’anana, Israel, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on 9 July 2012.

 

AT+T/R+D Israel invites Aaron Marcus to present “Mobile Persuasion Design”

The User Experience Professionals Association of Israel invited Aaron Marcus, President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., to present  “Mobile Persuasion Design: Combining Information Design and Persuasion Designto Change Behavior” to approximately 120 Israeli usability, design, software engineering, business, and user-experience professionals in Lod Airport City, Israel, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on 9 July 2012.

 

AM+A News AM+A Completes a Heuristic Evaluation for a Calamity Assistance User-Interface Design Developed in Saudi Arabia


Prof. Maysoon Abulkhair of King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, engaged AM+A to conduct a heuristic evaluation of their R+D project, a calamity assistance iPhone application (in English), called iCalamity Guide. The objective of the app is to assist university faculty, administrators, students, and visitors to find safe buildings and to avoid dangerous ones at times of natural disasters, such as floods or earthquakes, as well as terrorist or other similar social/political conditions. AM+A reviewed the screens for general users as well as security personnel and made recommendations based on AM+A’s User-Interface Design Heuristics. AM+A also redesigned six screens to show how recommended design improvements might be implemented to provide a superior user experience. The two example screens show AM+A redesigns that improved terminology and navigation consistency.