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ATLAS

Assistive
Technology 
Laboratory
at
Stanford

 
 
Technology and design benefitting individuals with disabilities and seniors in the local community
January 13, 2012  
Welcome to this edition of  Perspectives,  the e-newsletter of the Stanford course, Perspectives in Assistive Technology.

What is the course? - Perspectives in Assistive Technology is a Winter Quarter course at Stanford that explores issues surrounding the design, development, and use of assistive technology benefitting people with disabilities and seniors. More information can be found on the course website.

Invitation to attend - You are invited to attend all class lectures. They will be held in Building 530, Classroom 127 on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at 4:15 to 5:30pm and are free and open to the public.

Next lecture - Tuesday, January 17th at 4:15pm:

photo of Gayle Curtis


Need Finding for Assistive Technologies
Gayle Curtis
Design Consultant

Abstract: When we look at the drivers of innovation we see two complementary themes emerging: new technologies or methods that open the way to new solutions, and new insights or experiences that bring a better understanding of the problem. With a design thinking approach, we first look to build empathy with the user and the situation, then we use ideation, prototyping and iteration to explore, formulate, and test solutions.

In this class session we will go into more depth with the candidate projects and build our understanding of the problem areas. We want to learn more about the user needs, goals, and values around the problem, as well as the constraints and requirements of the situation itself. One goal for this session is for you to identify a set of questions that you want to address through interview and observation with real users of assistive technologies, as well as some good ideas about people that your team might talk to and work with to inspire both innovation and relevance for your project.

Biosketch: Gayle Curtis is a design consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in user interface architecture and design strategy for online ventures and interactive products. Recently he was Principal Interaction Designer at Yahoo! Earlier he was Creative Director for Information Architecture at Vivid Studios / ModemMedia, and he has led the interaction design and user experience architecture for several startup ventures. At Stanford he has taught courses in Product and HCI Design, and he is most recently part of the teaching team at the d.school. At Yahoo! he developed a practice area in strategic ideation and disseminated it through workshops in the US and Asia.

Future class sessions:



Do you have a question or comment? - David L. Jaffe, MS, the course instructor, can be reached by email or at 650/892-4464.

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