HFI wants to give you a Kindle™!
Announcing... the contest winners!
Amy Harvey's Essay
People, in general, are creatures of habit. We like our routines, and we don't like change. Most of us know about global warming, that we "should" be doing more to combat it. So what stops us? Someone once told me that "a person will NOT change until the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of change." In other words, either the "status quo" has to be really painful, or the "change" has to be really easy. How can we apply this concept when we are trying to convince more people to act in small ways that will impact the sustainability of our populations on Earth? We cannot always control the "pain level" of staying the same, but we as User Experience professionals can most definitely control how easy it is for people to adopt the changes we want them to make.
As we have seen from the popularity of Apple's iPod, a well-designed user interface can be a leading factor in how well consumers adopt new technologies. If our ultimate goal is to increase the adoption of sustainable practices, first, we must convince people of the value, but second, we have to make it as effortless as possible. Luckily, we are experts on making processes effortless! And we can contribute on many levels, depending on our expertise. Ergonomics specialists could design curbside recycle bins that are easier to handle, so that more people would use them. Teams working on devices like the Kindle could make future products even easier to use, so that more people would buy them. If we want the world to become sustainable, then we, the experts in making things "easy," must make the "sustainable" systems, devices, and processes easy enough so that, quite simply, it is easier to use them than not.
Read Tim's essay | Read Dave's essay
Read Amy's essay | Read Arpana's essay | Read Brian's essay | Read Guiomar's essay
Read Leina's essay | Read Marisa's essay | Read Premjit's essay | Read Rhys's essay
Read Scott's essay | Read Tara's essay | Read Jimmy's essay
Return to contest page
*Kindle is a trademark of Amazon.com
|
|
CEO Eric Schaffer keynotes at EISE 09 in London Oct. 30.
"Sorry Engineers, but Sustainability Means Lifestyle Change
(And only the psychologists can save us)" |
Go to...User Experience for a Better World 
