Creating Connections
Wendy Ju, Executive Director for Interaction Design Stanford Center for Design Research
Room 1601, 4:00pm

ABSTRACT: We are entering an era where we are surrounded by devices, environments and vehicles that aim to support and assist us. These services, however, are only useful to the everyday consumer if the interaction is simple and easily understandable. By researching how people in public social spaces act as ephemeral teams to jointly perform short tasks--like opening the door for one another, offering a drink, or taking away trash--we can better understand how to design the interactions of interactive consumer devices.

BIO: Wendy Ju is Executive Director for Interaction Design Research at Stanford’s Center for Design Research, and an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Design Program at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Her research is primarily focused on the design of interactive devices, particularly human-robot interaction and autonomous car interfaces.

Dr. Ju has played a broad and long-standing role in the Bay Area design research community. She was the founder and editor-in-chief of Ambidextrous Magazine, Stanford’s journal of design. Dr. Ju frequently collaborates and consults with local technology companies on interaction technologies, human interaction experiments, and enabling research. She has been instrumental in creating hands-on interaction design curriculum for K-12 students, undergraduate and graduate programs at Nueva School, Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design, Stanford’s Electrical Engineering department and Stanford’s Music department. Dr. Juhas a PhD from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering, and a Master's Degree from the MIT Media Lab.