Human-Machine Interaction in Digital and Intelligent Manufacturing – Meeting with Donald Norman

A graduate of MIT in electrical engineering and specializing in psychology, Donald Norman has been called an anthropologist of modern life. He is the author of numerous books on design and is known for his theories on “human-centered design”. Business Week recently mentioned him among the 27 most influential designers in the world. Among his most successful essays we can mention The Psychology of Everyday Things from 1988 (translated into Italian with the title “La caffettiera del masochista”) and “The design of the future” of 2007. His latest book, “Living with Complexity “, deals with the issue of” sociable design “and states that good design can” tame “complexity, which is also presented as an element that necessarily marks our world.

Donald Norman was vice president of Apple Computer’s advanced technology research group, a director at Hewlett Packard and U Next. In 1998, together with Jacob Nielsen, he founded the Nielsen Norman Group, an internationally renowned consulting company specialized in the design of the human interface of products and services.

Norman taught psychology and cognitive sciences at the most prestigious American universities, was one of the founders of the Cognitive Science Society and has long directed the Segal Design Institute of Northwestern University. At the beginning of 2006 he was awarded the “Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science”. Norman is also the promoter of the concept of pervasive computing, presented in the book “The Invisible Computer”: “The best technology is the one that is not seen, because it is so simple to use that it becomes” transparent “”.

Norman’s intervention will focus on issues related to the Man-Machine interaction in Digital and Intelligent Manufacturing. Part of the day will be devoted to questions and insights with the speaker; we invite those who wish to submit matters of their own interest to do so as soon as possible, so as to orient the intervention and the discussion and organize the meeting in the best possible way.

The seminar, organized in collaboration with BSDesign, will be held in English.

Further links on Donald Norman: http://www.jnd.org/