CURRENT SITUATION
So – online it is — Zoom class version of Understanding Users. Welcome brave souls, let’s proceed. Given the national situation, I suspect we’ll be doing this next semester too. It’s a new world, with the same old human frailties making sure of this. Will universities think about reducing tuition? I mean they’re shifting the cost of delivery to the domestic internet infrastructure provided by faculty members and students, so there’s room here. Let’s see what contortions ensue.
After 15 years as Dean of the School of Information, I returned to life as a faculty member here in 2018. I study humans and the emerging information infrastructure, with the goal of shaping information space to serve humans better. My work engages design, human behavior, and social justice. I hold a PhD in Psychology from Loughborough University, an an M.A. (1st class) from University College Cork.
Prior to life in Texas, I was a founding faculty member of the School of Informatics at Indiana University and a Research Fellow at Loughborough. I serve on the editorial boards of Journal of Documentation, Interacting with Computers, and am now co-editor of Information & Culture (we’re broadening the scope and want your papers!)
Read my InfoMatters blog to get some of my latest words on all matters information-related. Just did a short piece for Gizmodo on internet censorship around the globe.
My major new focus for the next year or more is a book examining the nature of users. I want to us to rethink user-centered design to consider the full human experience, from physical to social, and this book will explain my argument for the ‘vertical slice’ through the layers of boundaries in social science. We are all physical, perceptual, cognitive, social and cultural beings in one material form. Let’s design for that! More about me and my work can be found in the links below, feel free to reach out. Email is my preferred channel – adillon @ ischool.utexas.edu