Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.

AM+A Publishes Health Machine Article in Chinese

amanda.mcfarland — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:25:44 +0000

AM+A Publishes Health Machine Article in Chinese

AM+A has published a conference paper in Chinese about its Health Machine concept design for a smartphone/tablet app that combines information design and persuasion design. The objective of the project was to design a solution that changes people’s behavior about nutrition and exercise to avoid obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The article appears in the conference Proceedings of this Usability Professional Association (UPA) User Friendly 2011 conference:

Marcus, Aaron (2011). “The Health Machine: A Mobile Concept Design to Change Behavior” (in Chinese). Proceedings, UPA User Friendly 2011, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, 11-13 November 2011, pp. 9-19, http://userfriendly.org.cn/en/index/.

The Health Machine recently was awarded an IIID Information Design Award for its international competition. The award announcement ceremony took place in Taipei, Taiwan, in October 2011.

A case study about the Health Machine recently was published recently in Information Design Journal:

Marcus, Aaron (2011). “The Health Machine.” Information Design Journal, 19:1, pp. 68-88.

Aaron Marcus named Distinguished Engineer by ACM

Crissy — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:20:30 +0000

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named Aaron Marcus a Distinguished Engineer in 2011, an honor based on the confirmation of peers and his career in computer graphics design over the past 40 years. For the 2011 elections in several categories of distinguished professionals, he was the only person so named. The Distinguished Member Grade recognizes those ACM members with at least 15 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous Professional Membership who have achieved significant accomplishments or have made a significant impact on the computing field.

AM+A Wins Three Design Awards for Green Machine, Health Machine, and Money Machine

Crissy — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:07:17 +0000

AM+A is pleased to announce that the International Institute of Information Design (IIID, http://www.iiid.net,), based in Vienna, Austria, has awarded Design Awards for AM+A’s The Green Machine, The Health Machine, and The Money Machine projects in a ceremony at the Taiwan Design Center, Taiwan, Taipei, in October 2011. This is IIID’s first international information-design awards competition, which seeks to award the best work and to demonstrate the value of information design.

The IIID plans to update its Website with details about AM+A’s projects. Beginning in 2012, IIID also intends to circulate an exhibit of the winning projects worldwide. IIID will be publishing a book with all the winning entries, which AM+A will receive, together with a trophy and certificate of its achievement.

At approximately the same time with this announcement, Information Design Journal (http://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/idj.11.1) published a case study of The Health Machine:

Marcus, Aaron (2011). “The Health Machine.” Information Design Journal, 19:1, pp. 68-88.

A case study about AM+A’s earlier project, The Green Machine, was published in Information Design Journal, also:

Marcus, Aaron, and Jérémie Jean (2009). “The Green Machine.” Information Design Journal, 17:3, pp. 235-245.

Other publications about The Green Machine are the following:

Marcus, Aaron (2010). “The Green Machine.” DesignNet, 2010 (in Korean), pp. 114-115.

Marcus, Aaron (2010). “Das Green Machine.” Design Austria Mittelungen, No. 4 December 2010, pp. 4-7 (in German).

Marcus, Aaron, and Jean, Jérémie (2010). “Green Machine: Designing Mobile Information Displays to Encourage Energy Conservation.” Information Design Journal, 17:3, pp. 233-243.

AM+A has published white papers about all three machines, as well as a later project called The Story Machine. These white papers are available upon request.

IBucks can Save America!

Crissy — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:17:09 +0000

The basic idea is this: The US Treasury Department could decide next week that it is OK for the picture of anyone (of any race, gender, age, or nationality) to appear on the front of official US currency and corporate/organizational symbols/logos on the back, providing the sponsors pay $100 million to the US Treasury for the PR/egotism privilege.

I think we should start with Steve Jobs.

This approach is especially timely in relation to Apple’s Steve Jobs memorial celebrations in Cupertino, California, on 16 October 2011 and on 19 October 2011.

My idea has been published in a number of publications and on the Web worldwide:

The American Institute of Graphic Arts published an earlier version of my idea for Customized Currency on its Website:

http://www.aiga.org/a-modest-proposal-customized-currency/

The Omaha World-Herald, in Warren Buffett’s home town, published an article about my earlier version of Collectible Currency using his image:

http://www.omaha.com/article/20111003/NEWS01/710039962/1009#nelson-buffett-bucks-not-so-nuts

I published another version of the idea called Collectible Currency, which features a portrait of Mr. Buffett at Bay Citizen, which feeds San Francisco Bay area news to the New York Times.

http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/collectible-currency-simple-suggestion-1/

In South Korea, the Seoul Design Market, published Customized Currency:
http://seouldesignmarket.com/news?sect=1&page=1&keyword=&order=1&cat=1&idx=734

I was interviewed by reporters for ABC’s “Evening News with Diane Sawyer” for possible broadcast.

The full proposal appears below.

iBucks: Steve Jobs Saves the USA, and So can You! Using the USA’s Own Money to Reduce the Deficit with Collectible Currency

Mr. Aaron Marcus, President
Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A)

Version of 19 October 2011
May be reprinted in whole or edited form, with citation.

The USA is in a fiscal quandary and facing default. The deficit is soaring. US government tax revenue is only $2.2 billion per year (FY2010), but Federal spending is $3.5 billion (FY2010). The FY 2010 deficit ending in September 2011 was $1.3 trillion. Some estimates predict the accumulated deficit in ten years will be $14 trillion. Republicans have proposed a $100 billion cut in spending. President Obama proposed to freeze government spending and save $400 billion over the next five years. Recent budget proposals propose to save $1.1 trillion over the next ten years. Even these proposals primarily concern discretionary funding, which accounts for only 20% of the budget; they don’t touch the majority 60% of Medicare, Social Security, and military expenses. The Chinese are beginning to shy away from supporting our financial irresponsibility. NPR reported that $1b in gold coins sits in the US Mint that no one wants, while Congress debates how to reduce the deficit…. Houston, we have a problem…

There is a simple solution that significantly can increase revenues and help reduce the deficit.

The USA’s Treasury could decide tomorrow to begin sponsoring the printing of the image of anyone on the front of the US one-dollar bill, and any corporate or organizational logo on the back… provided that any sponsor pay 100 million dollars for the privilege of this public-relations opportunity and/or ego trip. Each set of bills could be a collectible “limited edition” of 100,000 bills per set. The sponsor of each image could receive 10,000 bills. The US Treasury could distribute the remaining 90,000 bill randomly to US taxpayers with incomes at or less than $90,000. This collectible currency might even grow in value over the years, depending on who’s on the front, and what’s on the back. In a way, each of these special dollars would have $1,000 already invested in each of them.

This new design might allow USA currency to show the first non-Caucasians, the second occasion of a woman (Martha Washington was the first in the nineteenth century), the children or grandchildren of doting sponsors, or their spouses. Even people and companies/organizations outside the US could take part.

Steve Jobs and the Apple symbol might be a good place to start.

As many people well know, the USA’s currency has been undergoing graphic re-design, with the image of past presidents appearing on the left, rather than centered on the bill (a subtle political message?), with more colors, new typography, and new anti-counterfeiting techniques. The one-dollar bill is the remaining holdout in this campaign. Now is the perfect time to make this historic change in “outside funding” of the currency.

There are about three billion one-dollar bills in circulation, the most of any denomination, and they last about 21 months in circulation. That means, if the collectible currency first edition “sold out” to only 500 people images and 500 symbols/logos, the US government would raise $100 billion dollars over a two-year period. Two years later, it would be time to issue a new edition. In seven cycles, the US could raise $700 billion, or about half the current US deficit of approximately $1.3 trillion in September 2011. There are more than 400 billionaires in the USA, and Fortune 500 corporations are sitting on some of the largest cash reserves in their history. It is always challenging to tax the wealthiest individuals and companies. This simple suggestion gives sponsors a tangible benefit in return for their funds: something personal, valuable, concrete, enjoyable, and noteworthy. Worldwide interest in this project might even produce ten times as many sponsors for perhaps smaller editions that might have more value later as collectibles and produce ten times the immediate revenue.

Think about it. Wouldn’t our wealthiest individuals and corporations, or their fund-raising supporters, donate funds for the worthy cause of reducing the national deficit? Wouldn’t the wealthiest business leaders, politicians, media stars, or their public relations agencies, get behind this “Save the Nation” effort through a Collectible Currency movement? Just one example: Stephen Colbert the Comedy Central television news announcer might mobilize each of his 1.3 million Colbert Nation “citizens” to donate $100 to come up with the cash to immortalize his face on the national currency, especially now that his portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery. In his typically modest way, Stephen Colbert could announce the “Stephen Colbert Saves the USA, and So Can You” initiative.

A more likely subject now would be all those who would like to pay tribute to Steve Jobs and Apple Computer.

The possibilities are numerous. The potential fund-raising capability is enormous. Remember: if the USA doesn’t do it, some other nation might, and use the USA’s very own icons to increase their treasuries.

Write to Apple Computer, Warren Buffett, the President, the US Treasury Department. Write to Congressional leaders. The popular movements in the US currently and around the world show the power of people to accomplish great change. In this case, the USA’s budget and, in the end, all of the citizens of the USA could be the immediate beneficiaries.

Author Contact Data:

Mr. Aaron Marcus, President
Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A)
1196 Euclid Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94708-1640, USA
Tel: +1-510-601-0994, Fax: +1-510-527-1994
E-mail: “Marcus, Aaron”
Web: www.AMandA.com

Note: This is a unique current essay. Earlier related versions of Collectible Currency and Customized Currency ideas have been published on the American Institute of Graphic Arts Website, the Bay Citizens Website, on YouTube, in the San Jose Mercury News, in the Financial Times, in the Omaha World-Herald, and in the South Korean Korean Design Market Website of September 2010. An ABC News crew has interviewed Aaron Marcus about his earlier proposal, Customized Currency. Some of the images below have never been published.

Figures: Sample one-dollar bills with images of Steve Jobs and the Apple symbol, President Obama, Warren Buffet, Lily Marcus (grand-daugher of Aaron Marcus), Aaron Marcus, and the AM+A corporate logo. (All Figures are copyright free and may be reprinted with the permission of the author.)

Author Bio: Aaron Marcus is President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A), Berkeley, California, a firm that designs user-interfaces for products and services. He is a graphic designer, a Fellow of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and a member of the CHI Academy. He can be reached at aaron.marcus@amanda.com.

Author Credentials:
Aaron Marcus was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1943; attended Princeton (physics) and Yale (graphic design) Universities, and has taught at Princeton, Yale, University of California/Berkeley, Hebrew University/Jerusalem, and Bezalel Academy of Art and Design/Jerusalem. He has won design awards from the New York Type Directors Club, exhibited his work at the American Institute of Graphic Arts, written/co-written eight books and more than 300 articles, including an article in The New Republic analyzing the US fifty-cent coin honoring the US landing on the moon. He was the world’s first graphic designer to work full-time with computer graphics. His artwork is owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Princeton Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey.

AM+A: Customized Currency

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:40:45 +0000

Aaron Marcus has proposed a “modest plan to save the US economy.” His redesign of US currency involves the US Treasury Department allowing anyone’s face to appear on the front of US currency and any corporate logo on the back, provided each sponsor pays $100 million to the US Treasury. If 7,000 wealthy people and corporations sign up worldwide, that would raise $700 billion for the US Government, about half the 2010 fiscal deficit or about the amount that the government paid for the recent economic bailout. This design project provides an incentive to wealthy individuals and companies to give part of their wealth to the US Government. Grandparents might want to see their grandchildren featured. Entertainment stars and political leaders could see their faces everywhere. This idea recognizes that one of the US’ greatest exports is its US currency.

His design was one of several finalists in a private competition to redesign the US currency. ABC News interviewed Aaron Marcus about his Customized Currency (or Vanity Bucks) project for their nationally broadcast “Evening News with Diane Sawyer“.

The full idea is explained at the American Institute of Graphic Arts Website: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/modest-proposal-customized-currency?searchtext=aaron%20marcus. A South Korean innovation Website has posted a Korean text with all the key images: http://seouldesignmarket.com/news?sect=1&page=1&keyword=&order=1&cat=1&idx=734.

The YouTube video explaining the project is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by6JxRkrxSo

AM+A: Green Machine

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:35:33 +0000

Finding a sustainable way of life is a 21st-century global challenge. The “green” movement helped to increase people’s awareness of sustainability issues and propelled development of products to help decrease our ecological footprint. Smart grid applications enabling users to monitor their energy consumption are some of these innovative products. However, most are targeted to the PC and don’t focus on innovative data visualization. Communicating critical data helps build awareness, but does not result automatically in effecting behavioral changes. The question then shifts to how exactly to motivate, persuade, educate, and lead people to reduce their energy consumption.

For the Green Machine project, 2009-10, AM+A researched, analyzed, designed, and evaluated powerful ways to improve sustainability-oriented behavior by persuading and motivating people, especially home consumers to reduce energy consumption and increase increase efficiency and recycling by means of a well-designed mobile phone application concept prototype: the “Green Machine.” AM+A designed and tested a prototype Green Machine application oriented to making energy conservation behavior changes and redesigned and improved the user interface based on interview-participant feedback. The Green Machine uses principles of combining information design/visualization and persuasion design.

AM+A’s presentation and white paper explain the development of the Green Machine’s user interface, information design, information visualization, and persuasion design. The project has been published in case studies and articles in the USA, Europe, South Africa, and South Korea. Aaron Marcus has lectured about the project in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the USA, among other countries. Aaron Marcus’ Green Machine lecture is on YouTube:

AM+A: Health Machine

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:33:45 +0000

Finding a life-enhancing and life-preserving way of life is a 21st-century global challenge. Obesity and type 2 diabetes are increasing in many countries. Health/nutrition information, products, and services available to increase people’s awareness of health issues and propel changes by monitoring food are targeted to the PC/Web, do not focus on innovative data visualization, and lack persuasive effectiveness. Communicating critical data helps build awareness, but does not result automatically in effecting behavioral changes. The question then becomes: How can we motivate, persuade, educate, and lead people to reduce their food consumption and exercise more?

For its Health Machine concept design of 2010, AM+A researched, analyzed, designed, and evaluated powerful ways to improve healthful behavior by persuading and motivating people, especially those 50+ from lower economic and educational levels, to reduce food consumption and increase exercise by means of a well-designed mobile-phone application concept-prototype: the “Health Machine.” The author’s firm designed and tested a prototype Green Machine application oriented to making energy conservation behavior changes in 2009. The Health Machine uses similar principles of combining information design/visualization and persuasion design. AM+A reviewed the presentation with a certified dietician and redesigned screens based on her recommendations. AM+A’s presentation and white paper explain the development of the Health Machine’s user interface, information design, information visualization, and persuasion design. AM+A is publishing a case study about the project and lectures about the project worldwide.

Kaiser: Online Library Evaluation and Design

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:30:19 +0000

Kaiser Permanente (KP) is an integrated managed care organization, based in Oakland, California. Operating in nine states and Washington, D.C., Kaiser Permanente is the largest managed care organization in the United States. Kaiser Permanente has 8.7 million health plan members, 156,000 employees, 13,729 physicians, 37 medical centers, 400 medical offices, and $34.4 billion in annual (2008) operating revenues and $1.3 billion in net income.

In June of 2006, Kaiser engaged AM+A to analyze and test the usability of the Clinical Library (CL), a Web-based internal information resource. The Clinical Library makes a wide variety of clinical information available to physicians, clinicians, and nurses, both during actual patient care and at times when they are engaged in research or study. Through the Clinical Library, KP clinicians and nurses can find internally produced guidelines for medical conditions and procedures, find and print out patient handouts, reach other Kaiser Websites, access external resources such as journals and medical texts, and reach a wide variety of other resources of a operational or managerial nature.

Working with a team from CMI, AM+A drew up an interview script and interviewed sixteen clinicians and nurses in their offices in four KP regions: Colorado, Northern California, Northwest, and Southern California. Subjects were given a series of mostly medical questions, and asked to find answers using Clinical Library.

The Usability Analysis report resulting from this study detailed both the powerful potential of the CL to serve its target audiences and numerous severe usability issues currently limiting its effectiveness, particularly during time-critical periods of actual patient care. The report detailed 31 major “observations” concerning usability issues, grouped in four general categories such as “Search Issues” and “Navigation Issues.” A fifth category detailed observations of the effectiveness of “Clinical Tools,” a partial restructuring of the CL UI that had been implemented in the Colorado region. A table of priorities was prepared based on comments by the interview subjects. AM+A made preliminary recommendations for how each issue could best be resolved.

In the fall of 2007, Kaiser asked AM+A to propose a usability analysis and design project to address some of the issues discovered in the 2006 report. The proposal divided work into two Phases: Phase 1 was a rapid, two-month project focused on a “proof of concept” redesign of the most time-critical parts of Clinical Library, with four rapid tasks including a paper user test conducted by phone. Phase 2 was a six-month complete redesign, including the development of an interactive prototype and three user tests in the field.

AM+A completed its final work on the project at the close of 2008. Final user tests showed significant improvements in speed of navigation and user satisfaction. Based on the success of the project, Kaiser provided a letter of recommendation.

Intel Corporation

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:25:49 +0000

Founded in 1968 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Intel is the world’s largest semiconductor chip maker, developing integrated circuits and other advanced integrated digital technology products to computing, communications, and other industries. Intel’s products line include chips, boards and other semiconductor products that serve as the building blocks integral to computers, servers, consumer electronics, handheld devices, and other networking and communications products. Component-level products include microprocessors, chipsets and flash memory.

In 2008, Intel engaged AM+A to facilitate the development and testing of the user interface for its product designed to assist C++ developers in improving program performance by providing targeted code analysis, advice and instruction for implementing parallelism within a serialized program. Target users of Threading Advisor are developers and architects experienced in writing serialized code, yet unaccustomed to coding to support parallelism, and possibly even unfamiliar with core threading concepts. AM+A conducted these tasks.

Needs Analysis: Provided thorough examination of the existing prototype and supporting documentation, in addition to critical insights into the reasons for existing usability issues and an array of possible solutions and improvements.

Conceptual Design: In Round 1, provided new conceptual models incorporating an improved user interface and new features, such as streamlined navigation, task list integration and management, expandable and collapsible instructions, and other modular elements.

Usability Testing: Conducted two-day testing session and wrote detailed report of test findings and recommendations.

Conceptual Design: In Round 2, added updates to the first conceptual design document, included minor revisions and changes identified in AM+A’s usability testing report.

Visual Design: Included full-color screens and a full product icon set.

Intel’s project manager was very satisfied with AM+A’s work and provided a letter of recommendation.

Anonymous Clients: Cross-Cultural Analysis

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:15:11 +0000

For two different clients, as yet not disclosable, AM+A provided cross-cultural analysis services.

In one project, AM+A conducted a culture audit of a software product that the client was localizing for a very different language, writing system, and culture. AM+A analyzed the graphics, icons, terminology, and concepts of the original product, using the assistance of third-party language-subject-matter experts. AM+A idenetified problemmatic issues and provided specific recommendations for improvements. The client considered AM+A’s report very valuable for the localization process. Without this kind of analysis, one might make excellent translations of content that should never have been included in the first place.

In a second project, AM+A conducted an analysis of the country and corporate cultures of a major corporation with offices in many countries. AM+A identified potential issues that might affect the ability of multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural, multi-country teams to cooperate, collaborate, and communicate. Examples of differences included culture-influenced teams in which This information enabled the client to develop better solutions for its development teams.