Don Norman debates John Maeda of Automattic, the company behind WordPress

In January, world-renown executive, designer and technologist, John Maeda, and a team of 25 people from Automattic joined Don Norman and the UC San Diego Design Lab for a spirited debate. Automattic is a web development corporation that powers about 25 percent of all websites – the largest of any of the content-management systems. Maeda serves as the‎ global head of computational design and inclusion at Automattic, which has 520 employees in over 50 countries and is currently valued at over $1 billion.

Reflecting on the debate, Don Norman said, “It’s always a delight to talk with John Maeda about the nature of design and how it should be moving. To John and me, design is more than making pretty things, design is a way of thinking and approaching significant problems in society.”

While Automattic is most known as the company behind the free blogging service WordPress.com, it is also the company behind WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, Longreads, VaultPress, Akisment, Gravatar, Polldaddy, Cloudup and many others. Automattic was founded a belief of making the web a better place and their goal is to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.

About John Maeda:

Maeda draws on his diverse background as an MIT-trained engineer, award-winning designer, and executive leader to help businesses and creatives push the boundaries of innovation in their markets and fields. As an artist, his early work redefined the use of electronic media as a tool for expression by combining computer programming with traditional artistic technique, laying the groundwork for the interactive motion graphics that are taken for granted on the web today.

Maeda holds MS and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering + Computer Science from MIT, an MBA from Arizona State University, and a PhD from University of Tsukuba in Japan. He was the recipient of the White House’s National Design Award, the Tribeca Film Festival’s Disruptive Innovation Award for STEM to STEAM, the Blouin Foundation’s Creative Leadership Award, the AIGA Medal, the Raymond Loewy Foundation Price, the Mainichi Design Prize, the Tokyo Type Director’s Club Prize, and induction into the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame.

Maeda is an internationally recognized speaker and author; his books include “The Laws of Simplicity,” “Creative Code,” and “Redesigning Leadership.” His talks for TED.com have received cumulative views of over 2 million to date. Maeda previously served as Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a world-leading venture capital firm. He was also previously a Full Professor and Associate Director of Research at the MIT Media Lab in which he worked on advanced user interface and experience design.

Maeda is currently a board member for Sonos Inc (the leader in high fidelity wireless audio systems), Wieden + Kennedy (the world’s last independent global advertising agency), Google (advising the Advanced Technology & Projects group), and Cooper Hewitt (advancing the Smithsonian’s mission to place design at the center of the nation).

About John Maeda:

About John Maeda:

Michael Meyer Highlights Design-Driven Innovation in Business

Read the article below Michael Meyer's presentation below or skip ahead to the bottom for audio…

Designer in Residence: Seda Evis

While Seda Evis participates as a Designer-in-Residence at UC San Diego with The Design Lab, and is VP of Strategy & Growth at FreshForm Interactive—an experience design and innovation consultancy—she also claims to have what she refers to as a superpower: her hybrid mind, which she describes as the combination of two worlds: the business side and the design side.

As a Designer-in-Residence at The Design Lab, Evis enjoys working in an interdisciplinary setting, which she says enhances her existing skillset. “Academia tends to be quite separate from how the practice is done,” she explains. “I find ways of doing interdisciplinary work, as well as cross industry work, very important for innovation because that’s how you actually get seeds from different places.” As of now, most of Evis’s work at The Design Lab has been working with the Community Team on the now winning bid for the World Design Capital 2024 (WDC) designation. Her work dovetails with her role on the Board of Directors for the Design Forward Alliance–a non-profit organization started by the Lab in partnership with the regional design community and one of the partners co-leading the HOME 2024 WDC efforts alongside the Design Lab, Burnham Center for Community Advancement, the City of San Diego and the City of Tijuana. The designation puts the San Diego-Tijuana region in a prestigious international cohort recognized for the “effective use of design to drive economic, social, cultural and environmental development.” Even the proposal theme is significant, Evis says. “Home” not only refers to the immense and diverse communities of San Diego and Tijuana that form one, but also serves as an acronym for Human-centered, Open, Multi-disciplinary/Multi-cultural, and Experimental. For Evis, participating in HOME2024 signifies her career “coming full circle.”

Future of Public Health Research: Joint-Collaboration Event Sparks Agile Healthcare Discussion

This past May, the Design Lab hosted The Future of Public Health Research event in…

Researchers Receive $2.8 Million Grant to Study Hidden Biases in Healthcare

“The project seeks to use social signal processing (SSP), a computational approach that detects subtle cues in behavior that are typically invisible. For example, talk time, interruptions and body movements from health care providers might differ based on a patient’s race, gender or socioeconomic status.” - Nadir Weibel, Design Lab Faculty

Individuals have their own inherent biases. Most are harmless – preferred foods, favorite cars, go-to streaming services. However, biases tied to race, gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status have serious consequences.

This is particularly true in medicine. Unintentional, hidden, biases may perpetuate healthcare disparities. While providers are not acting out of malice, these attitudes could have significant impacts on patient care.