Lecture WHAT: Donald A. Norman (Northwestern University and Nielsen Norman Group): "Emotion & Design" WHEN: Thursday, November 7, 2002, 11:30 AM EST WHERE: Bartos Theatre, MIT Media Lab (E15) SUMMARY: Human beings have evolved a rich and sophisticated set of processes for engaging with the world in which cognition and affect play two different but equally crucial roles. Cognition interprets and makes sense of the world. Affect evaluates and judges, modulating the operating parameters of cognition and providing warning of possible dangers. In this talk Norman will present a new, three-level theory of human processing, and then show how this work can be applied to : The design of products The development of autonomous machines The emphasis will be primarily upon product design, with a discussion of how affect serves as a computationally "weak method" that provides a useful, generalizable mechanism for dealing with the unexpected. Affect and emotion are useful — and necessary — for any autonomous, self-sustaining system, whether it is animal, human, or artificial (computer or robot). BIO: Don Norman is cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm, and Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Design of Everyday Things. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, where he also served as chair of both departments. He was Vice President of Advanced Technology at Apple Computer, and an executive at Hewlett Packard and UNext (an educational startup). He has an honorary degree from the University of Padova (Italy) and is a fellow of numerous societies, including the ACM, whose special interest group on Computer-Human Interaction has awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award. Norman says that he spends 1/2 his time at Northwestern, 1/2 consulting, 1/2 serving on non-profit and company advisory boards, and 1/2 on his new book Emotion & Design (to be published October, 2003). MIT Media Laboratory Home Page | Events Main Index