Amber Case

Calm Technology: Embracing the Periphery in Design

How can we design technologies that become part of people's lives and not a distraction from it? This practical talk explores the concept of calm technology, a method for smoothly capturing a person's attention only when necessary, while calmly remaining in the background most of the time. The goal is to explore principles of design that results in products that work well, launch well, are easy to support, easy to use, and work as pass-through interfaces, so people can focus on the task, not the tool. ​Amber Case studies the interactions between humans and technology, and how technology affects culture. Case is an internationally recognized design advocate and speaker, and the author of four books, including Calm Technology and A Kids Book About Technology. She spent two years as a fellow at MIT’s Center for Civic Media and Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and was a 2021 Mozilla Fellow. Named one of Inc. Magazine’s 30 under 30 and Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology, she was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2012 and received the Claude Shannon Innovation Award from Bell Labs. She was the co-founder and CEO of Geoloqi, a location-based software company acquired by Esri. Case is the founder of The Calm Tech Institute, a foundation that exists to establish new standards for designing harmonious human-tech interactions that improve our lives. She works on design, governance, and AI through her position as a Research Director at the Metagovernance Project. You can follow her work on Medium: https://medium.com/@caseorganic and on X @caseorganic.