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The People Behind

Making research accessible since 2002

Press kit / Media kit

We've complied a press kit / media kit

Contact info

Editor-in-Chief: Mads Soegaard
Email: mads@interaction-design.org
Online contact form

Postal address

The Interaction Design Foundation
Chr. Molbechs Vej 4
DK-8000 Aarhus C.
Denmark

 

Contributors

Contributing authors are from MIT, Stanford University, Google, IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Cambridge University, Stockholm University, Yahoo, Carnegie Mellon University, and many more companies and universities.

 

About The Interaction Design Foundation

The Interaction Design Foundation – the IDF - is a ten year old transformative non-profit enterprise focused on educating, informing and stimulating the global design community. The organization has created a powerful cloud based publishing model, blending free courses and textbooks with an immersive web site and social media presence for thought leaders, students, authors, academia, design professionals, futurists and tech-challenged consumers.

As vertical market focused MOOC ("massive open online courses"), IDF provides anytime/anywhere "absolutely free" access to original courseware developed in collaboration with top tier Universities, Companies, Authors and Thought Leaders from Stanford, Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, SAP Labs, IBM Research, and such noted authors as: Clayton Christensen, Don Norman, Alan Dix, Steve Mann, Eric von Hippel and Tom Erickson.

Each day tens of thousands of students and professional designers of all kinds (product design, User Experience, software development, visual design, graphics) access and engage with IDF’s curated content in the form of courses, interactive text and video, TV channel, membership forums and global design events. The high-growth ten year old non-profit has been self-financed from day one, recently supported by a corporate sponsorship from SAP.

 

The Executive Board

The Executive Board oversees and guides the overall direction of the Foundation. The composition of the board reflects our mission of serving both industry and academia.

 

Donald A. Norman

Picture of Donald A. Norman.

Don Norman is the author of numerous books including "Emotional Design," and more recently, "Living with Complexity." He is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group, a professor at KAIST (in Korea), and IDEO fellow, and a design theorist, studying the fundamenta...


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Bill Buxton

Picture of Bill Buxton.

Bill Buxton is an interaction designer and researcher. He is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and prior to that, he was Principal of his own Toronto-based boutique design and consulting firm, Buxton Design. Bill is one of the pioneers in computer...


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Michael Arent

Picture of Michael Arent.

Michael Arent is currently the Vice President of User Experience at SAP Business Objects, a division of SAP focused on analytics and business intelligence software solutions for the global business marketplace. He leads a global team of user experience profess...


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Jonas Lowgren

Picture of Jonas Lowgren.

Jonas Löwgren is an interaction designer, researcher and teacher. Currently employed as professor of interaction design at Malmö University, Sweden. Main areas of expertise include cross-media products, interactive visualization and the design theory of digita...


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Ken Friedman

Picture of Ken Friedman.

Ken Friedman is Research Professor and until recently the Dean of the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He works at the intersection of three fields: design, management, and art. Friedman works with theory constru...


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Olof Schybergson

Picture of Olof Schybergson.

Olof Schybergson is co-founder and CEO of Fjord. Since founding the company in 2001, Olof has led Fjord to become one of the world’s most successful global service design consultancies working with top clients including BBC, Citibank, ESPN, Flickr, Foursquare,...


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Daniel Rosenberg

Picture of Daniel Rosenberg.

Daniel Rosenberg is a global UX executive with the full range of skills in interaction design, usability metrics, game design and design management. He has dozens of publications in the field and is a frequently requested speaker at UX conferences and consulta...


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Irene Au

Picture of Irene Au.

Irene currently runs Product and User Experience at Udacity, a startup focused on bringing higher education online. Irene formerly led the User Experience and Design practice at Google, responsible for the user interface design of Google-branded products. Pri...


More about Irene
 
 
 
 

What do we do?

1

We produce top-grade educational materials by the world's technology elite. And give them to you for free.

2

You deserve free access to educational materials - worth thousands of dollars - whether you are from New York or New Delhi. That's our mission!

3

In short, we do it as a labour of love and hope you will help us or join us !


 

 
 
 
 
 
 
More pics...

Knowledge wants to be free!

People from around the world show their support for our mission to make world-class educational materials available for free. It's all about the Democratization of Knowledge

Alexis from France.
 

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Alexis from France.
Ingrid from Norway.
 

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Ingrid from Norway.
 
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Our Donor Hall of Fame

We can't run the site without help from generous donors.
The most generous donors from the donor hall of fame:

 

Funding and Business Model

We are financially self-sustaining and healthy. We are however not profit-driven and re-invest every dollar in our operations.

 
 
 

The Interaction Design Foundation's Mission

1

We produce free, top-grade educational materials by the world's technology elite. Through free and open access to top-grade educational materials on how to design technology, we educate millions of technology designers on how to make more people-oriented and easy-to-use technology - like websites, household appliances, software applications, and mobile devices. For us, it's a battle against frustrating, time-consuming, and poorly designed technology that drains our productivity, dignity, and sometimes our sanity. Better design of technology will improve everyone's quality of life.

2

We foster synergy between academia and high-tech companies. We mix top professors from Stanford, MIT, Cambridge, etc. with elite designers from Google Research, Apple, IBM Research, etc. And together we produce top-grade, open, and free online learning materials to the benefit of both industry and academia all over the world.

3

We continually improve and reinvent learning materials as a genre by, for example, producing HD video interviews and including interactive elements. All the educational institutions we visit express need for innovation in this field. At Cambridge University, for example, they closed a museum in order that we could make a video with a professor.

4

We provide aid for educational institutions and companies in developing countries by giving them free access to materials that otherwise would be out of their financial reach. 20 % of our readers are from developing countries, and the number is increasing exponentially.

5

We modernize the publishing industry by building a conceptual, legal, editorial, and technical platform for the publication of first-rate online material in a world where 1) people prefer free content over paid content for reasons of both time and money 2) the physical book is being outmanoeuvred by the e-book 3) authors prefer that publishers use technology to maximize readership and not use it to limit readership as in the case of paywalls.

6

We lay out our results in total openness so they can be used within any other area – from astronomy to psychology.

7

We contribute to the creation of a better world – in agreement with the UNESCO statement, "Universal access to high quality education is key to the building of peace, sustainable social and economic development, and intercultural dialogue."

 
 

Our History

The Interaction Design Foundation is a labour of love founded by Mads Soegaard in 2002 and later joined by his wife, Rikke Dam. Apart from the founders, hundreds of people help out, serve on our boards, contribute hard work, and do a fantastic job in helping create free educational materials for our community and the whole world.

We're on a mission to make free and open educational materials: There are so many great minds in the Human-Computer Interaction and Interaction Design community and we want to empower these authors to reach all their interested readers around the world. We believe these authors have the minds to change the world and deserve a publishing venue truly designed for the author and the reader, not the publisher and the profit.

Our current results show that our free, open, and online approach to publishing lets our authors reach at least 20,000% more readers than their all-time most popular publication. That's quite an achievement since we only invite best-selling technology and design authors.

To do this, we had to re-think publishing from the ground up. For example, we do not "sell products" at all: We give highly valuable materials away for free. This allows us to use grassroots or "tribe-based" dissemination of our material, e.g. through social media, influential blogs, search engines, commercial classrooms, etc. With our approach, our readers are our helpers, not our customers.

In sum, it has taken us 10 years of hard work to get here and it's worth it: Every single day we help educate thousands of designers and thus help make "a better world through better design." We support:

 
 

The Executive Board

The Executive Board oversees and guides the overall direction of the Foundation. The composition of the board reflects our mission of serving both industry and academia.

 

Legal Advisory Board

 

Online Development Board

 

 
 

Our Peer Learning Network

 

The Editorial Board

John M. Carroll

Picture of John M. Carroll.

John M. Carroll is Edward Frymoyer Chair Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include methods and theory in human-computer interaction, particularly as applied to networking tools for ...


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Erik A. Stolterman

Picture of Erik A. Stolterman.

Erik Stolterman is Professor of Informatics and Department Chair in the School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington. Stolterman’s main work is within interaction design, philosophy and theory of design, information technology and socie...


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Margaret M. Burnett

Picture of Margaret M. Burnett.

Margaret Burnett is a Professor of Computer Science at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. Her current research focuses on end-user programming, end-user software engineering, information foraging theory as app...


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Robert Fabricant

Picture of Robert Fabricant.

Robert Fabricant is the Vice President of Creative for frog design where he leads frog's efforts to expand the impact of design into new markets and industries. An expert in design for social innovation, Robert is lead partner in Project Masiluleke, an initiat...


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Peter Morville

Picture of Peter Morville.

Peter Morville is president and founder of Semantic Studios, a leading information architecture, user experience, and findability consultancy. He is best known for helping to create the discipline of information architecture, and he serves as a passionate...


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Online Development Board

 

Lars Hult

Picture of Lars Hult.

Lars Hult is a business innovation manager, interaction designer and researcher at Santa Anna IT Research Institute in Sweden. Main areas of expertise include product and service development, especially design processes, user studies, and work with use-quali...


More about Lars
 
 
 

Olga Werby

Picture of Olga Werby.

Olga Werby, Ed.D., has a Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on designing online learning experiences. She has a Master’s degree from U.C. Berkeley in Education of Math, Science, and Technology. She has been creating computer-based projects since 1981 wi...


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Mads Soegaard

Picture of Mads Soegaard.

Previously, I've worked at The Danish National Technological Institute working with research in industry Until March 2000 I was one of three partners in Csite.com, a web development company of about 11 people. It went out of business in 2009. I've ...


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Legal Advisory Board

 

Martin von Haller Groenbaek

Picture of Martin von Haller Groenbaek.

Martin von Haller Grønbæk is partner at BvHD law firm and a leading Scandinavian IT-lawyer and a partner and co-founder of law firm Bender von Haller Dragsted. He advises on open source and other types of open licences. He sits on numerous boards of IT and new...


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The Reviewing Board

Mads Soegaard

Picture of Mads Soegaard.

Previously, I've worked at The Danish National Technological Institute working with research in industry Until March 2000 I was one of three partners in Csite.com, a web development company of about 11 people. It went out of business in 2009. I've ...


More about Mads
 
 
 

Rune Nørager

Picture of Rune Nørager.

Rune Nørager is a design psychologist from Aarhus University. Although there is no formal profession called design psychology as such, this approach seems to fit the academic and professional competencies of Rune Nørager that has characterized his career s...


More about Rune
 
 
 

Lars Hult

Picture of Lars Hult.

Lars Hult is a business innovation manager, interaction designer and researcher at Santa Anna IT Research Institute in Sweden. Main areas of expertise include product and service development, especially design processes, user studies, and work with use-quali...


More about Lars
 
 
 

Egon L. van den Broek

Picture of Egon L. van den Broek.

Egon L. van den Broek, MSc (2001) in artificial intelligence, PhD (2005) in image retrieval, and PhD (2011) in affective computing. He is consultant and assistant professor (University of Twente and Radboud University Medical Center Nijmegen, The Netherlands...


More about Egon
 
 
 
 

Rikke Friis Dam

Picture of Rikke Friis Dam.

Rikke Friis Dam holds a Master's Degree in philosophy and educational philosophy from the University of Aarhus. Rikke also holds a journalistic degree in making research accessible from The Danish School of Media and Journalism, and a bachelor degree in teachi...


More about Rikke
 
 
 

Klaus B. Baerentsen

Picture of Klaus B. Baerentsen.

Klaus Bærentsen is associate professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Aarhus. His research area concerns human consciousness in a broad sense, encompassing evolution, cultural history and ongoing individual life activity, as well as the brain a...


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Allan Holstein-Rathlou

Picture of Allan Holstein-Rathlou.

I am a Master of Arts in Nordic Language and Literature and Philosophy. I have researched, taught, and published on a wide spectrum of topics relating to my subjects. Especially, I am interested in the dynamic relationship and interactions between philosophy, ...


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Anne-Marie Christensen

Picture of Anne-Marie Christensen.

Anne-Marie Christensen holds a MA research degree in anthropology and is the founder and principal of Etnovator. Etnovator is a consultancy company doing deep market research and people-centered innovation within the life science sector. The company is based o...


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Also help from

We also get help from....

Soeren Friis Dam

Picture of Soeren Friis Dam.

Soeren helps interaction-design.org with audio design on our videos and assistance with graphic design on our website. Soeren is a composer and graphic designer and has started the Danish Band, Sinusstøv....


More about Soeren
 
 
 

Alumni

David Malouf

Picture of David Malouf.

David Malouf is currently a Professor of Interaction Design in the Industrial Design Department of the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Before taking this position, David was a Sr. Interaction Design for Motorola Enterprise Mobility where he designed s...


More about David
 
 
 

...


More about
 
 
 

Martin Brynskov

Picture of Martin Brynskov.

Martin is assistant professor in interaction technologies at the Department of Information and Media Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. He is also director of the Civic Communication group at the Center for Digital Urban Living, a Danish national researc...


More about Martin
 
 
 

Karsten Nebe

Picture of Karsten Nebe.

I graduated in Computer Science, and Psychology as minor subject, at the University of Paderborn. In 2002 I started working as Usability Engineer at the Cooperative Computing & Communication Laboratory (C-LAB) Paderborn, which is a joint research and developme...


More about Karsten
 
 
 
 

Jeppe Stouby Mortensen

Picture of Jeppe Stouby Mortensen.

Jeppe Stouby Mortensen works as an Architect and 3D designer at Schmidt Hammer & Lassen in Aarhus, Denmark. Previously, Jeppe has been a founding partner of Sektor4, a Danish 3D Design company, and worked as a lecturer at the University of Aarhus. ...


More about Jeppe
 
 
 

Peter Dalsgaard

Picture of Peter Dalsgaard.

Peter Dalsgaard is an assistant professor at the Department of Information and Media Studies at Aarhus University with close ties to the Center for Digital Urban Living and CAVI, the Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction. "My field of research i...


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Elhanan Gazit

Picture of Elhanan Gazit.

Dr. Hanan Gazit (VRider) serves as the Israeli DIGRA Chapter ,, promoting the DIGRA's vision and the use of virtual worlds and digital games for instruction, learning & business in all sectors. Dr. Gazit is a researcher and a lecturer at H.I.T-Holon Institute ...


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Bill Papantoniou

Picture of Bill Papantoniou.

Bill Papantoniou is researcher at the Ergonomics Unit of the National Technical University of Athens. He also teaches Ergonomics in the AKTO Industrial Design school  and works in projects involving the support of human work (physical and cognitive). B...


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Thomas Memmel

Picture of Thomas Memmel.

Thomas Memmel was a research assistant at the University of Konstanz at the chair for human-computer interaction of Prof. Harald Reiterer. He holds a BSc (2002) and MSc (2005) in Computer Science. He was involved in a DaimlerChrysler AG funded PhD program and ...


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Jonas Therkildsen

Picture of Jonas Therkildsen.

Jonas Therkildsen is partner and information architect at Sorthvid ApS. Sorthvid is a small webagency located i Copenhagen, Denmark. We do large-scale information architecture and user-experience on the web. ...


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Jacob Orquin

Picture of Jacob Orquin.

Jacob Orquin is employed as a PhD researcher at Department of Marketing and Statistics at Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University. Jacob is also partner in the Danish user experience and usability company UserPilot. Main interests: usability, user ex...


More about Jacob
 
 
 
 

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