Olga Werby

Olga Werby, Ed.D., has a Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on designing online learning experiences. She has a Master's degree from U.C. Berkeley in Education of Math, Science, and Technology. She has been creating computer-based projects since 1981 with organizations such as NASA (where she worked on the Pioneer Venus project), Addison-Wesley, and the Princeton Review. She conceived, designed, and illustrated the award-winning "Field Trips" series of programs distributed by Sunburst Communications. Olga has a B.A. degree in Mathematics and Astrophysics from Columbia University. Olga currently teaches interaction design and cognitive theory at the American University in Paris and the University of California at Berkeley Extension Program. She was part of the faculty of San Francisco State University's Multimedia Studies Program, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and the campus of Apple Computers. Olga is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. She also holds a California teaching credential and is part of the San Francisco Unified School District where she often tests science-related curriculum materials in public elementary and middle schools.

Design for Social Good

Social engineering is way of designing products and situations which actively encourage people to behave in a desired way — Nudging for Good. EDF Challenge “Sharing energy in the city, 2030” seems an ideal circumstance for social engineering for the greater social good. The basic question is how do we as designers find ways to incentivize individuals to save energy? How do we make a bit of personal sacrifice an attractive option for most? How do we “nudge” people to behave in a socially responsible ways when it comes to energy use? First, it makes sense to break up the problem into several user categories: personal energy sharing, family sharing, neighborhood or community sharing, city or village sharing. At each level we expand the circle to involve more and more individuals, and so we need a different approach for each category. Each category has a set of pressure points on which social engineers can apply pressure to achieve the desired changes. Once we identify the user groups targeted for “nudging”, game theory can be used to find the most attractive options. While there are numerous strategies that can be borrowed from game theory to incentivize the desired energy sharing behavior,…

Building and Sustaining Online Communities

Pope Francis said an interesting and insightful commentary on online social media: “The Internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity… The speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgement, and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. … The variety of opinions being aired can be seen as helpful, but it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political and economic interests.” In other words, communities have the power to limit the range of views to only those that they seems culturally appropriate — a small subset of active users can completely change the group dynamics of a community. The responsibility of the managers to find their way to create and sustain healthy communities. I’ve been building and supporting communities for a while. It happened organically — I needed to help a client start a project and build a following around it; then another client needed something similar; after a dozen years (or more), I’ve found myself creating guidelines for communities and the people who help manage them. Below is some of my “wisdoms” from…

Fashion and Interface Design

Fashion Design shows have started up again: Fall 2014. I confess to a guilty pleasure of paging through photo after photo of the latest styles. There is something like a cross between artistic exuberance and freak show, all rolled into one insane media blitz. How can one not look? But there’s more to my looking than pure perverse curiosity. It’s true, I don’t really care what men will be instructed to wear and to like in the next season (or women, for that matter). But I do look for trends and patterns. And I also find something akin to Interface Design sensibility in the fashion industry — which way are we heading? What will be the next thing? What are these designers trying to say with their work? Product Design and Fashion Conceptual Design: What is it? What does this piece of clothing design to do? Keep the person warm? Cool? Modest? Allow them to get a job? Which job? Convey their personality? Cover up scars? Reveal tattoos? Make a political statement? Be cheap? Show off wealth? Last a long time? Be practical? Protect from the elements? Arm against hostiles? Depending on the purpose, clothing can take very different forms.…

Health Foo: Health and Human Rights

I want to live a healthy life

“I want to live a healthy life!” For as long as humans have lived in groups, this meant a social covenant — conforming to rules set by many to insure mutual survival. One way or another, health and law have been intertwined for millennia: don’t poo in a public well — one of the first health edicts along with burial customs religious food-limiting laws — limiting food born illnesses from decimating communities mandatory immunization — the need for herd immunity Health and community are mutually entangled. The price of living in a community means giving up certain personal rights: “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one” But this is a delicate balance. As a group, societies have done horrendous thing to individuals in a name of greater good: taking a right to privacy forced quarantines, treatment, and sterilization compulsory rehabilitation subjugation of women and minorities Starting about the mid of the last century, the awareness for the need to protect the rights of the few and the one from the many grew in its momentum. It was striking to me how the 1943 Abraham Maslow’s Pyramid of Human Needs became an echo for…

Language and Cultural Differences in Communication

Kulula Plane Decorations

Above is an example of Interface Design — Kulula Airlines decorates its planes in a very playful manner. Does this choice make you feel safer or more reticent to fly their planes? Well, that depends… Consider the FAA Passenger Briefing Guidelines: 14 CFR 91.519. Below are a few examples: § 91.519 Passenger briefing. (a) Before each takeoff the pilot in command of an airplane carrying passengers shall ensure that all passengers have been orally briefed on: Smoking. Each passenger shall be briefed on when, where, and under what conditions smoking is prohibited. This briefing shall include a statement, as appropriate, that the Federal Aviation Regulations require passenger compliance with lighted passenger information signs and no smoking placards, prohibit smoking in lavatories, and require compliance with crewmember instructions with regard to these items; Use of safety belts and shoulder harnesses. Each passenger shall be briefed on when, where, and under what conditions it is necessary to have his or her safety belt and, if installed, his or her shoulder harness fastened about him or her. This briefing shall include a statement, as appropriate, that Federal Aviation Regulations require passenger compliance with the lighted passenger sign and/or crewmember instructions with regard to…