Design strategies to help users embracing new technologies for a better future

Keynote Speaker:

Prof. Deborah Nas

Title of Presentation:

Design strategies to help users embrace new technologies for a better future

Date & time:

Monday 5th of August 18:15

Deborah Nas graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Design at the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands in 1996. After kick-starting her career at Philips and KPN, Deborah co-founded and managed an innovation agency for 16 years. She has been working with global and local brands for over two decades, helping them to apply new technologies in a meaningful way.

She acts at the crossroads of Technology, Business and Psychology, sharing her deep understanding of how and why new technologies fail or succeed.

Since the end of 1995, Deborah is a part-time professor of Strategic Design for Technology-based Innovation at TU Delft, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Here, she lectures different courses in strategic design and technology-based innovation and participates in think tanks like the TU Delft vision team “The quantum society”, developing scenarios on how quantum technologies might impact industry and society.

Design strategies to help users embrace new technologies for a better future

Throughout history, the same arguments have been used over and over again to express fears and concerns regarding new technologies. Both at a societal and an individual level, we tend to focus on the possible negative impacts of new technologies on society instead of the benefits they can bring. In her keynote presentation, Deborah will explain why people are suspicious of new technologies and share effective design strategies to mitigate fears and rejection in order to increase the adoption of new technological innovations. Using concrete example from the past and the future, you will learn why – and how – technology-based innovation differs from user-driven innovation and what designers can do to help people embrace technologies for a better future.