Persuasive Technology Examined at User Interface Conference

CHI 2003: Predicting the Future By Creating IT

Fort Lauderdale, FL/ New York, NY, (10 March 2003) - Think of the most influential entities today: the U.S. Army, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com and eBay - all of them are using persuasive technology. Why did the U.S. Army start using technology to persuade people? Why do Amazon.com, Microsoft Corp., and eBay use elements of influence in their software? "Because it pays off on the bottom line," says Dr. BJ Fogg, Director of Stanford UniversityÕs Persuasive Technology Lab. "While usability has been the watchword of the 1990s, persuasion will increasingly be the focus of the coming decade," says Fogg.

In Fogg's upcoming tutorial, How to Motivate & Persuade Users: Influence in Everyday Human-Computer Interaction, he will examine how computing products can be designed to change what people think and do. Fogg adds, "If powerful organizations are the only ones who understand how computers influence people, then everyone else including the general public will be at a disadvantage. People need to understand how software can be designed to change their beliefs and their behaviors." Fogg will present his tutorial on April 7th at CHI 2003 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. In addition to a tutorial on persuasion, CHI 2003 presents 35 tutorials on topics ranging from usability, Web design, new technologies and accessibility.

The annual CHI Conference is the premier worldwide forum for the exchange of information on all aspects of how people interact with computers. The conference features a six day program full of presentations, tutorials, vendor exhibits and networking opportunities. Researchers, practitioners, educators, and students from around the world join in exploring and creating the future of human-computer interaction. Over 2000 professionals from 40 or more countries will examine the future of human-computer interaction from April 5-10 in Fort Lauderdale, FL at the Broward County Convention Center.

CHI conferences are sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI). In addition to ACM, various organizations in the technology industry support the CHI conference. CHI 2003 Champion sponsors include: Diamond Bullet Design, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., National Science Foundation, OSDN - Slashdot, Unisys, and Yahoo! Inc. Other sponsors include eLearn Magazine, IBM, Intel, Menlo Technology Group, Nokia, SAP, Sun Microsystems and User Interface Engineering.

For more information, contact the CHI 2003 Conference Office at +1 (312) 321-4096, send e-mail to CHI2003-office@acm.org or consult the CHI 2003 Web site at: http://www.chi2003.org Editors contact: Rosemary W. Stevens, Ace Public Relations, Palo Alto, CA +1 (650) 494-2800, chi2003-PR@acm.org