Page History

Topic

Calm Technology 

Program

This month, the CCSQ HCD Community of Practice discussed the concept of calm technology, a method for smoothly capturing a user’s attention only when necessary, while calmly remaining in the background most of the time. 

Calm technology describes a state of technological maturity where a user’s primary task is not computing, but being human. The idea behind Calm Technology is to have smarter people, not things. Technology shouldn’t require all of our attention, just some of it, and only when necessary. The terms calm computing and calm technology were coined in 1995 by PARC Researchers Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown in reaction to the increasing complexities that information technologies were creating.

Amber discussed:

• How can we design technologies that become part of a life and not a distraction from it?
• Technologies that respect human time instead of deterring from it? 

Amber Case studies the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way cultures think, act, and understand their worlds.

• Internationally recognized design advocate and speaker and author. 
• Fellow at MIT’s Center for Civic Media and Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
• Her TED Talk, We Are All Cyborgs Now has over 2 million views.
• Named one of Inc. Magazine’s 30 under 30 and Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology.
• Named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2012.
• Received the Claude Shannon Innovation Award from Bell Labs.
• Co-founder and CEO of Geoloqi, a location-based software company acquired by Esri.
• Co-founder of EverCharge, acquired SK E&S in 2022. 

Case currently works on next generational governance tools at DAO. You can follow her work on Medium: https://medium.com/@caseorganic and Twitter: https://twitter.com/caseorganic.

Resources

• Recording

• Deck

• Amber's works: 
  •  Calm Technology 
  • A Kids Book About Technology
  • An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology 
• 99% Invisible Podcast hosted by Roman Mars
• The Cyborg Handbook by Chris Gray

What's Next

• HCD Community of Practice on Thursday, September 29 at 1 PM EST. 
• Please tell us about your experience with the HCD Community of Practice by completing a brief survey.

• Registration is now open for the course: Customer Empathy Through Journey Mapping .