One of our projects, TimeSlips, was recently featured in this wonderful piece on Morning Edition.
bentucker
It’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day! I had the honor of presenting once again at the UPA Boston User Experience Conference. My slides are embedded here, but I encourage you to view the slides on SlideShare, as the transcript of the talk is included in the ‘Notes’ tab below the slides.
Imagine you’re almost done with your taxes—but you’re ravenous and the smell of Indian food is wafting through your window, your electricity is randomly turning off for 30-second blips, and the neighbor’s infant is incessantly scream-crying. How successful will you be finishing your taxes? This session included simulations so you can get a sense of reading as a low-decoder, and of completing web-based tasks when you lack the ability to filter out distractions and/or struggle with short-term memory. We observed usability test session video clips of some of the obstacles introduced by interface design choices. You can’t design effectively for low literacy and attention disorders if you don’t understand how these issues affect people as they try to work online. We looked at good and poor design implementations of forms, touch and ajax interactions, search interfaces, and layout choices. I hope the talk helps people improve design for as much as 15% of audiences.
jstrothman
The first batch of our new hand-printed business cards.
bentucker
Planning session with the USGBC GBIG team in D.C.
jstrothman
Check out TimeSlips on the TODAY show! It’s been thrilling to develop software for a project that has brought such joy to so many.
bentucker
“An Experimental Study of Homophily in the Adoption of Health Behavior” is an article by Dr. Damon Centola published in this month’s issue of Science. I was privileged to collaborate with Dr. Centola and his team on the project. The article describes a carefully controlled experiment in social networks and how the network’s structure and the perceived similarities and differences of people in those networks influence their behavior. So far the only “‘layperson’s” description I can find on it in the Boston Globe. It glosses over nearly all the nerdy bits…
My small contribution was to quickly implement a compelling “diet diary” website that people participating in the study would use to track their calorie intake on a day by day basis. As participants used the site and interacted with their “buddies” the data was feed into a database to be later analysed by others on the team.
I’ve known Dr. Centola for many years and we have spent many late nights talking about the details of his work on in informal basis. While it was a only a quick project for us it was great to contribute “officially” in some way to Dr. Centola’s work.
This is one of the things I love about working at GreenRiver. Nearly all of our project involve working on some interesting tidbit (or sometimes terabyte) of data with people who can help us to understand what questions need answering. Then it’s up to use to figure how best to extract and present the answers.
Dr Centola’s earlier Science article is also interesting.
amichal
TimeSlips.org is a storytelling tool designed for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, their loved ones, and their caregivers. The app uses improvisational storytelling “to replace the pressure to remember with the freedom to imagine.” In 1996, founder Anne Basting began researching the use of creative drama techniques to facilitate communication by people with cognitive challenges. Since that time the TimeSlips project has trained 2000+ facilitators and embedded the method in 30+ facilities/organizations.
jstrothman
We are thrilled to be working with web and mobile application designer Tim Schmitz. In addition to more than 10 years of experience as a web designer and developer, Tim has a couple years of experience developing for iPhone and iPad. Tim also has a public policy background, and shares our commitment to the social mission of the software we write. Perhaps most importantly, Tim is the one member of Gang Green who can sing: he’s a tenor with the 18th Street Singers in his home town of Washington, DC.
michaelknapp
Marvin, our Director of Finance, can’t get away from green rivers— even in his spare time. He shot this at Stickney Brook in Brattleboro before work last week.
bentucker
GreenRiver.org completed its work with the Open Society Institute, a nonprofit founded by George Soros whose mission involves protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities. In collaboration with NYC Design studio Sway Design, we developed an application showcasing OSI’s meta-analysis of thousands of studies of HIV interventions. These are studies of projects meeting the needs of women and girls in developing countries facing the AIDS pandemic. The analysis also highlights the gaps in knowledge remaining to be addressed.
michaelknapp
