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Mountains, exploration, education,
rich media & design
Wednesday September 23 2003 — 7:30 PM
For more info, visit:
www.billbuxton.com
Bill Buxton began his career in music, having done a Bachelor of Music degree at Queen's University He then studied and taught at the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht, Holland, for two years. After completing an M.Sc. in Computer Science on Computer Music at the University of Toronto, he joined the faculty as a lecturer. Designing and using computer-based tools for music composition and performance is what led him into the area of human-computer interaction. From 1994 until December 2002, he was Chief Scientist of Alias|Wavefront, and from 1995, its parent company SGI Inc. He is currently Principal of his own boutique design and consulting firm, Buxton Design.
Bill will be talking about some things that he feels passionateabout:mountains, exploration, history, learning and design. In particular, he will be talking about learning and understanding within our society, which is becoming increasingly difficult to function in, much less influence largely due to technology-induced complexity.
Bill believes that the objective of good design is to render the world more manageable, not less so. Bill believes that the more technology is developed apart from a social context, and specific problem domains, the less likely it will meet this test.
So Bill has chosen his domain: mountaineering and exploration in the area surrounding the Himalaya. Using examples, he wants to put forward the case that we have the potential to design tools that could have as much impact on education and learning tomorrow, as the introduction of the blackboard had when it was introduced.
Bill will also argue that doing so represents a proposition which is as hard to do as it is easy to say that is, it is a worthy 10 year project.
Bill believes that the current slump in the technology sector is a largely self-induced, and deserved consequence of bad design applied to poorly thought out problems. Through his examples, he will argue that there is a way out of this, and to point to a particular path. As he indicated: it's about exploration. So a good place to start is to establish some appropriate bearings.
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