Do you think the "butterfly ballot" was an isolated problem? How did the hanging chad become a world-class design problem? Did you know our 43rd president was chosen because of a decision made about font size? By someone who was not a trained designer? Did you know that the presidential election in 2000 was not the first - or last - time that design problems affected the outcome of an election? If you're trained in design, interested in fair elections, or looking for a way to affect world peace, come to this panel. This is probably the most important panel in the Free World. And we're not kidding.
Dana, a keen researcher with a natural curiosity for discovering the solutions to wicked problems, suddenly found herself sucked into the whirlwind world of ballot design following the 2000 US presidential election. She's now a recognized expert and key cheerleader behind ballot simplification efforts worldwide.
Lawrence Norden is Senior Counsel in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. In his capacity as director of the Brennan Center's Voting Technology Project, Mr. Norden has authored several nationally recognized reports and articles related to voting rights, voting systems and election administration. In 2009, Mr. Norden served as Chair of the Ohio Secretary of State's bipartisan Election Summit and Conference. His report from that summit, which made a series of recommendations to improve Ohio's election law and practices was endorsed by most of the state's leading civil and voting rights groups, as well as the Ohio Association of Election Officials. Mr. Norden was the Keynote Speaker at the Sixth Annual Votobit International Conference on Electronic Voting (Buenos Aires, 2008), and the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop/Workshop on Trustworthy Elections (Montreal, 2009). In June 2009, he received the Usability Professional Association's Usability In Civic Life Award for his "pioneering work to improve elections." Mr. Norden is the lead author of the book The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World (Academy Chicago Press) and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties (Routledge 2007).
Ric Grefé is the executive director of AIGA, the professional association for design. He has been extremely active in finding ways to improve the quality of information design, experience design and service design in the citizen experience.
AIGA is the oldest and largest professional association of designers in the United States; currently it advances the interests of over 20,000 designers working in a variety of communication media and dimensions, ranging from type and book designers to new media and experience designers. AIGA, under Ric, has become the leading advocate for the value of designing, as a way of thinking and as a means of creating strategic value for business.
Ric earned a BA from Dartmouth College, crafted books at Stinehour Press, spent several years in intelligence work in Asia, reported from the Bronx County Courthouse for AP, wrote for Time magazine on business and the economy and then earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Following an early career in urban design and public policy consulting, Ric managed the association responsible for strategic planning and legislative advocacy for public television and led a think tank on the future of public television and radio in Washington. He has been at AIGA since 1995, developing programs at AIGA that reinforce the relevance of design as an extraordinary creative gift and a critical element of business strategy, expanding AIGA to 64 chapters in the US, on over 200 college campuses, offices for AIGA China in Beijingi, and involving AIGA in global institutions to introduce policymakers to the value of designing in solving global problems.
Ric is deeply interested in 17th and 18th century political theorists, social innovation, institutional change and design that leaves you in awe.
