Universal Access to the Net: Requirements and Social Impact

Jeff Johnson, UI Wizards, Inc.
jjohnson@cpsr.org

Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
Stanford University April 18, 1997

 

This talk will address the following questions: Where do we stand today with respect to achieving universal access to the Internet? What is required (particularly in the HCI realm) to achieve it? What are some of the consequences and side-effects -- positive and negative -- for society?

Click here for Recommending Readings for "Universal Access to the Net: Status and Social Impact"

Click here for the CHI97 talk from which this talk was developed.

 

Jeff Johnson is President and Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consulting firm. After earning B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and Stanford Universities, he worked as a user-interface designer and implementor, engineer manager, usability tester, and HCI researcher at Cromemco, Xerox, US West, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems. He has published numerous articles on a variety of topics in Human-Computer Interaction.

Since 1983, Johnson has been an active member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a public-interest organization that examines the impact of technology on society. He was co-founder of CPSR's "Computers in the Workplace" project, founder and Chair of CPSR's Denver-Boulder chapter, and Co-chair of the first U.S. conference on Participatory Design of Computer Systems, PDC'90. In the late Eighties, Johnson joined CPSR's Executive Committee, and in 1991 was elected to a term as Chair of CPSR's Board of Directors. Johnson has published numerous articles on the impact of technology on society, and has participated in technology policy proceedings at the local, state, and national levels. With Prof. Ben Shneiderman, Johnson co-organized a special Social-Action session at CHI'92 in the wake of the Rodney King riots. He is currently on the Advisory Board of NetAction, a public-interest organization that fosters on-line skills among political activists.

 

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