Plenary Speakers

IEHF Lecture: 'Can we design effective sociotechnical systems? Exploring the gap between systems design and systems in action' by Professor Ken Eason

"After 40 years of involvement in the design of sociotechnical systems I continue to find large gaps between systems as conceived by their designers and the way the systems operate in practice. In this lecture I want to explore why this gap still persists even where the design process is user- or human-centred and there is a lot of user involvement. For the past decade I have been working on systems in the service industries, mostly on health systems in the National Health Services."

Donald Broadbent Lecture: 'The Human Component of Military Capability: The Key to Enabling Technology' by Sylvia Horner

Sylvia is responsible for managing a team of 40 Human Factors practitioners providing a comprehensive range of human factors consultancy services in task analysis, training needs analysis, workload studies, manning, human error, automation, HCI design, requirements capture, concept development and validation trials.

'Enhancing quality of life - a people-centred approach to innovation' by Patrick Jordan

Pat Jordan is a design, marketing and innovation consultant. He acts as strategic advisor to many companies and has a visiting chair at the University of Surrey in the area of digital innovation. Previously he has worked as a policy advisor to the UK government, has held academic chairs at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Leeds, and was Vice-President of Symbian, at that time the world's largest mobile communications consortium. He is also a writer, broadcaster and professional speaker. He has written or edited six books in the area of design, marketing and innovation, and two on positive psychology. Pat is an ergonomist by training and spent the first seven years of his career as a human factors specialist with Philips Design.

'Validating a driving simulator for police driver training' by Lisa Dorn

Dr Lisa Dorn is a Reader at Cranfield University and head of the Driving Research Group leading a team of psychologists working with the private and public sector on research concerned with driver behaviour. Lisa is also Research Director for a2om, a driver education software company and DriverMetrics, a company wholly owned by Cranfield University to exploit. Lisa's research in the development of online driver assessment tools for educational purposes. She is series editor of Human Factors in Rail and Road Safety with currently over 15 titles in the series and has over 50 publications including four edited books.

'Enabled by Design. The who, what and why' by Denise Stephens

Denise Stephens is co-founder of Enabled by Design (EbD), which was set up in May 2008, after being announced winner of the first ever Social Innovation Camp. Since then, Denise has been central to the day-to-day running, continual development of EbD and raising awareness of its work. Achievements include becoming UnLtd level one and Nominet Trust level two award winners, Catalyst Awards nominee and being selected for the Innovation Exchange’s Next Practice Programme, as backed by the Cabinet Office. In addition to this, Denise has spoken at various events and been appointed as a member of the FAST (Foundation for Assistive Technology) board of trustees. Denise has featured on the front page of the Society Guardian and in various publications with an interest in assistive equipment, health and disability. She is enthusiastic about Design for All and the scope for it to support independent living.