Daniel Jackson

Speaker Profile

Daniel Jackson is professor of computer science at MIT, and associate director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He is passionate about helping software designers and their colleagues understand what conceptual clarity really is, and how to achieve it. He has collaborated on software projects with several major organisations including NASA on air-traffic control, Massachusetts General Hospital on proton therapy, and with Toyota on autonomous cars. He travels and speaks widely on design and has addressed global corporate and general audiences. His newest book, The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter for Great Design introduced a radical new theory of software design that lays out a practical and coherent path, accessible to anyone—from strategist and marketer to UX designer, architect, or programmer—for making software that is empowering, dependable, and a delight to use.

Books¹

The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter for Great Design Daniel Jackson
A revolutionary concept-based approach to thinking about, designing, and interacting with software
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Ideas²

Facebook’s dark design: It’s not just the algorithms In the midst of our current debate about Facebook, have we ignored a core issue? Public scrutiny has focused almost entirely on the company and its practices. Read More

Daniel Jackson on The Essence of Software As our dependence on technology increases, the design of software matters more than ever before. Why then is so much software flawed? Why hasn’t there been a systematic and scalable way to create software that is easy to use, robust, and secure? Read More