Printer
Friendly Page

Faculty Profiles

William M. Gribbons
wgribbons@bentley.edu
AAC 261
781/891-2926
Professor of Info Design and Corporate Comm

PhD, Univ of Maryland-College Park, 1986

Research Interests:

Human Factors

Human Computer Interaction

Usability Engineering

Universal Accessibility

Product Usability

Information Visualization

Practice/Consulting Interests:

Product usability

Integrating user-centered development practices

The elderly and technology design

Lower literacy populations and technology design

Designing products for the global marketplace

User and task analysis

Teaching Interests:

Human factors

Localization

Usability testing and inspections

Information visualization

User and task analysis

Universal accessibility

William M. Gribbons
Selected Publications and presentations:

Journal articles
Stephen C. Porter M.D, Zhaohui Cai M.D., PhD, William Gribbons PhD, Donald A Goldmann M.D, Isaac S. Kohane M.D., PhD. "The Asthma Kiosk, A Patient-Centered Technology for Collaborative Decision Support in the Emergency Department," Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, vol. 11, no. 6, 458-467, 2004.

Gribbons, William, M. "Visualizing Information," Technical Communication, vol. 45, no. 4, 467-473, 1998.

Gribbons, William, M. "Organization by Design," Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, vol. 22, no. 1, 57-75, 1991.

Gribbons, William, M. "Visual Literacy: Implications for Information Design," IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, vol. 34, no. 1, 42-50, 1991.

Book chapters
Gribbons, William. "Universal Accessibility and Functionally Illiterate Populations: Implications for HCI, Design, and Testing," in The Human Computer Interaction Handbook, pages 872 - 881, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2007

Gribbons, William, M. "The New Demographic: Transforming the HCI Curriculum," in Human-Computer Interaction: Theory and Practice, pages 341-346, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey, 2003

Conference papers
Gribbons, William, Albert, William. "Pre-Conscious Assessment of Trust: A Case Study of Financial and Health Care Web Sites," in Human Factors and Ergonomics Conference, October 2009.

Gribbons, William, M. "Lower Literacy Populations: Implications for Usability Inspections and Usability Testing," in Usability Professionals Association, June 2003.

Professional presentations
William Gribbons, William Buchholz. "Accessibility for Lower Literacy Populations," to the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, New Orleans, September 2004.

Gribbons, William, M. "Usability Inspection Heuristics," to the Usability Professionals Association, Orlando, FL, June 2002.

Honors and Awards:
2002, Professor of Human Factors

1998, Associate Fellow, Society for Technical Communication

Scholarly Work in Progress:
"Optimizing Data Entry: A Patient-Centered Approach for Designing the PHR," .
First publication from our NIH Grant related to the Personal Health Record

Reconsidering Localization: The Role of Intercultural Psychology.
The localization field has relied on research from the disciplines of intercultural anthropology and intercultural communication. Over the past decade, the field of intercultural psychology has matured and offers critical new insights into the requirements and behaviors of global users of technology. This paper examines the implications of this research on our principles and practices.

Other Activities:
Keynote: Elements of the User Experience. Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, New York

Keynote: "It's all about the Experience: Creating Passionate Patrons Through the User Experience. Rutgers University and Temple University Library Conference

Keynote: The Art and Science of User Experience Design, Fidelity Center for Advanced Technologies, June, 2008

The User Experience: The Road Ahead. Featured speaker at a joint meeting of the NY Society for Technical Communications and the NY Usability Professionals Association. January 2008

Gribbons, William. November 2006. User Experience and the Changing Marketplace for Technology Products. Sun Microsystems, Burlington, MA.

Gribbons, William. Trends in User Experience, contribution to a Panel at the Usability Professional Association, June 2007, Austin Texas.

Health Literacy and Information Management in ADHD: Designing an Optimal Record (Funded by the NIH) 2.1 million. Member of a research team composed of doctors at Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Quoted in Mass High Tech: Director of the graduate Human Factors in Information Design program William Gribbons discusses the demand for information architects (IA) and Bentley's program which produces 25 - 30 IAs each year in Info architect dearth slows developers' growth plans. (August 3, 2007

Quoted in a Boston Globe article:Can you spot the personal communication assistant? By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff | July 30, 2007

* Chair, Aging by Design Conference, 2006. This conference assembled leading experts from government, business, and academia to explore the intersection of business, product design, and an aging population.

Gribbons, William. December 2006. Universal Design. Internet Benchmarking Forum. (Co-presented with Sue Newell). New York.

Gribbons, William. May 2006. Visualizing Information. Society of Technical Communication Portland, Oregon

Gribbons, William. September 2006. Ten Million Elderly Left Behind, Aging by Design Conference, Bentley College, Waltham, MA

Top of page

Research interests in human factors, localization, and visualization with a goal of building an applied theoretical model for information design. President of W.M. Gribbons Consulting, a leading human factors and design group. Over the past 15 years, this group has helped Fortune 500 clients improve the usability of their products through knowledge-based design. Past President of the Boston chapter of the Society for Technical Communication; an associate fellow in the Society for Technical Communication, and a member of the Technical Communication Editorial Board, the ACM, SIGCHI, Usability Professional Association, and Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.