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Calm Technology is a process for designing technology that works with human attention, instead of against it.

Smarter Humans, Not Devices

Launched in May 2024, Calm Tech Institute is dedicated to redefining human-technology interaction by promoting design principles that enhance human life without causing stress or distraction.

Calm Tech Institute offers: 
Calm Tech Certified™: A certification process that evaluates products against calm technology principles, aiming to complete assessments within two weeks. 

Workshops and Training: Interactive sessions designed to educate teams on the principles of calm technology and their application in product design. 

History

While writing her thesis on smartphones in 2007, designer and researcher Amber Case first encountered a small set of Xerox PARC papers from the 1990s describing Calm Tech. Starting in 2010, she expanded on these essays by creating Principles of Calm Technology, further extending them with her influential 2015 book Calm Technology: Principles and Patterns for Non-Intrusive Design.

The concept of Calm Technology and Case's principles for Calm Product Design have since been adopted by companies all over the world, including Microsoft, Samsung, Google, Virgin Global and AirBNB. Calm Technology also inspired award-winning product designs by Kyoto-based startup mui Lab.
 

Principles of Calm Technology™

I. Technology should require the smallest possible amount of attention

II. Technology should inform and create calm

III. Technology should make use of the periphery

IV. Technology should amplify the best of technology and the best of humanity

V. Technology can communicate, but doesn’t need to speak

VI. Technology should work even when it fails

VII. The right amount of technology is the minimum needed to solve the problem

VIII. Leverage familiar behaviors to introduce new ones

Locations

Global Headquarters

New York

Kyoto, Japan

Team and Advisors

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Calm Technology: Principles and Patterns for Non-Intrusive Design

2015, O'Reilly Books

Author Amber Case expands on ideas first introduced by researchers at Xerox PARC in 1995 with a series of principles, patterns and examples of how they apply to our current technology landscape, especially the Internet of Things.
 
This book is ideal for UX and product designers, managers, creative directors, developers, and anyone that cares about making products that exist alongside humans in a state of harmony.

Supporters and Partners

Plurality Institute

Designing our future through the past

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