Serving Eastern Massachusetts
Society on Social Implications of Technology [SIT030]
Computer Society, Society on Social Implications of Technology and GBC/ACM
7:00 PM, Thursday, 21 June
Democracy is a design problem: How changes in design change the outcome of elections
Dana Chisnell
This is a story about how a simple change in type size on a commonly used form led to two major wars and a world wide economic crisis. Design matters.
We keep learning this lesson on ballots, on web sites, in software and devices, and in the interactions we have with customers and users. And yet, there are glimmers of hope everywhere -- successful designs where small changes made all the positive difference. Dana will discuss some of the lesser-known disasters, show some surprising successes, and share results from her research and usability testing on ballot designs and instructions to voters.
Even if your day job is seemingly far away from world-changing events, Dana will show you how you, too, can get involved and start contributing your super powers to make your world a better place.
Dana is the person federal and state election officials call on when
they need to do something about ballot usability and design.
Over the last 8 years, Dana E. Chisnell has trained more than a thousand election officials to test the design of their ballots to avoid costly mistakes and unwarranted attention. She's given highly rated presentations and workshops for a dozen state election departments and conferences, as well as voter advocacy groups and secretaries of state.
As a member of the Brennan Center for Justice's ballot design task force, Dana advises on plain language, ballot design, and usability testing. She's also one of the leaders of the Usability in Civic Life Project, which developed the LEO Usability Testing Kit, a simple training tool for local election officials.
This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society on Social Implications of Technology, and GBC/ACM will be held in MIT Room E51-315. E51 is the Tang Center on the corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Sts and Memorial Dr.; it's mostly used by the Sloan School. You can see it on this map of the MIT campus. Room 315 is on the 3rd floor.
Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list.
5:30 PM, Monday, 21 May
Transforming the Industrial State: Sustainable Development Through Technology and Policy Initiatives
Nicholas A. Ashford, Professor of Technology and Policy, Director, MIT Technology and Law Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sustainable development will require revolutionary technological and institutional innovations. The modern industrial state has failed to conceive and implement policies that mutually reinforce such crucial social goals as economic welfare, environmental quality, and earning capacity. Our society is locked in to an unsustainable industrial system by entrenched economic and political interests. Lock-in is the greatest obstacle to achieving a sustainable industrial system.
Professor Ashford will argue that an integrated scheme of multi-purpose policy initiatives, including appropriate environmental, health, safety, economic and trade regulation, is necessary to break out of technical, economic, financial, and political lock-in. He will address the effects of unequal access to economic and political power and of producer-created demand on the future of technology-based economic development. Professor Ashford will share insights from his recent book: Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development: Transforming the Industrial State (2011, Yale University Press).
Nicholas
Ashford is Professor of Technology and Policy at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, where he teaches courses in Environmental Law,
Policy, and Economics; Law, Technology, and Public Policy; and
Sustainability, Trade and Environment. He is director of the Technology
and Law Program at MIT. He holds both a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a J.D.
from the University of Chicago, where he also received graduate
education in economics. Professor Ashford's research interests include
sustainability, trade and the environment; regulatory law and economics;
and the design of government policies that both encourage technological
innovation and improve health, safety and environmental quality.
This meeting is free and open to the public. It will be held 5:30 – 7:15 p.m. on Monday, May 21, 2012. Refreshments are at 5:30 p.m. and the presentation will begin at 6:00 p.m., both in the Lincoln Laboratory Cafeteria, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, MA. For more information, please contact Jim Ernstmeyer, ernstmeyer@ieee.org, (781) 929-8114, or visit the IEEE website at http://www.ieeeboston.org/.
A no-host dinner and discussion will begin after the talk at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 21, at the Great Wall Restaurant, in the Great Road Shopping Center, Bedford, MA.
Directions to the Meeting:
Please enter MIT Lincoln Laboratory parking lot at 244 Wood Street entrance and park in visitor parking. The entrance to the cafeteria is on the lower level, to the left of the main entrance.
From I-95 (Route 128): Take Exit 30B on to Route 2A - Stay in Right Lane. Turn Right on to Mass. Ave. Follow Mass. Ave for ~ 0.4 miles. Turn Left on to Wood Street and Drive for 1.0 miles. Turn Left at Wood Street Gate. Lincoln Lab is also accessible via public transportation by taking the 62/76 bus from Alewife. More directions are available at http://www.ll.mit.edu/about/visitorinfo.html.
Directions to Dinner:
For door-to-door directions please use MapQuest.com with a destination of 309b Great Road, Bedford MA.
From I-95 (Route 128): take exit 31B, and follow Routes 4 and 255 west for 2.4 miles to the Great Road Shopping Center on your left. The Great Wall Restaurant will be towards the far right corner of the mall.
From Lincoln Lab: Take left onto Wood Street, right onto Hartwell Avenue at the end of Wood Street, and left onto Routes 4 and 225 at the end of Hartwell Avenue. Follow Routes 4 and 255 west for 0.9 miles to the Great Road Shopping Center on your left. The Great Wall Restaurant will be towards the far right corner of the mall.