–Engage

It is often said that interaction design evolved out of the requirement to stem the tide of the ever increasing amount of complexity in our personal lives due to technology. Design & engineering a like had to encompass a personal/human view of the effects that inserting their creations would have on the people who would encounter them (directly or indirectly).

To do this type of work required the creation and assimilation of tools from all manner of the world of art, design & engineering. Basically, we created THE most complex hard to understand and do discipline and practice, to help others mitigate complications due to complexity (said wordily on purpose).

People today have been grappling with where does IxD end and where does service design begin. Hell if I know (or care). Just like I can’t tell you where [fit old design discipline here: Arch, ID, GD, etc.] ends and IxD begins and you shouldn’t care either. What I do know is that there is a new group of people who are creating a community–a vibrant and productive one–which isn’t even really all that new relative to our fast-paced world, that “knows” what service design is, why its important and how to do it. No self respecting IxD with half a sense of integrity could argue that they exist.

Today I was giving a lecture that I first wrote in 2005 about the “history of IxD”. It is all predicated on the sense that our discipline emerged b/c of the need of human consideration by those who were grappling with placing ever increasing complex technologies in the context of the aforementioned humans. Further, we juxtaposed this to the birth of other disciplines like interactive design/art and realized that we can’t do our jobs well without considering aesthetics and classical design disciplines are much better at that than us, so lets look to them for guidance.

Along the way though, we realized that there was much in the world outside of technology that was either already more complex than it had to be, or whose complexity existed outside the ream of technology itself, even if technology enabled that complexity to happen in the first place. Institutions like travel & hospitality, financial services, health services, even retail have become so complex that like the graphical interfaces of yore human beings are being left with the same feelings of inadequacy and guilt. Service designers had to emerge to tackle these issues using new tools and to come up with new frames (such as collaboration) in order to take that same spirit of human consideration that is so rooted in interaction design and apply it to new areas of complexity. Like metaphor was used to bridge the distance between system and mental models in technological systems, so too will new rhetorical devices and frames will be used towards bridging whatever it is that is lacking between the system and human being within services.

All this is to say that at least for myself (and maybe for you now) I now have an understanding of the context that helps me thinking about services better in comparison to my core skillsets, and allows me to engage services in a new way.

I’d be interested to hear what self-identified service designers are thinking in this regards and if this framing at all might help you speak to interaction and other designers understand what it is you do.

I am looking for opportunities to work this summer. I have 16 weeks off where I’m available almost full time for adventures in design, mentoring, and teaching.

As a designer & mentor I’m most experienced doing work in the enterprise space within the areas of web as service, desktop applications, and embedded software. I have also done conceptual work for eco-system design across different market spaces.

The workshops I teach help individuals and teams around the following topics:
1) better more fundamental design processes
2) tips & tricks for rich internet application design
3) moving from web/software design to embedded software design
4) Design lifecycle: moving from research to design
5) Master class in IxD
6) custom classes as required by the needs of your organization

I will travel for short stints when necessary, especially for workshops, but otherwise work remotely.

“Call me!”

You will have a distinct advantage reading this if you are very familiar with the highways of the East Bay of California’s San Francisco Bay Area.

I have been trying to figure out how to talk about the experience of Interaction 10 (@ixd10) for the last 2 weeks. I knew I had to blog something about it. I have had some thoughts scattered and disconnected over the Twittersphere. But the theme I feel the most is “Crossroads.”

What do I mean by crossroads? The term is usually a metaphor that implies choice between at least 2 directions, which in itself implies a splitting from one. I know as I write this that it is easy to pick apart the metaphor and I can live with that. We are not splitting from one thing to another, but really we are in the process of coalescing our already existing splits to the point where there are new affinities that now have critical mass around them to identify on their own (or soon will be).

The analog in my head will only work for people who live in the Bay Area and cross the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to the E. Bay. I’ll try to describe as best I can.

When you enter the bridge everyone is the same. There are only 4-5 lanes of traffic and except for that really rare person who gets off at Yerba Buena Island, everyone is committed for what they feel is a single destination, “The East Bay.”

Sometime around the tollbooth on the other side the signs begin the task of segmenting people. They are still on the same road, but they start to create new temporary identities based on the signposts above.

Then the splits begin. People leave for south, north (which is oddly called East & West at the same time; and we think IAs and IxDs have problems!?!), and East. This split though is not the last of it.

To the south we have a clean split (one would think) but to get there you used to have to go east first and then south (oh! the glory of the big-one back in ‘89). To the East though there is a split between true east and south east (24 v. 580). How do you want to go east? The tunnel is pretty direct but the foothills are windy and picturesque. (I had to make this decision for 2 years; living at the interchange of 580 & 680.) Then to the north is a long road that eventually will split due west or continue north to hook east.

Wait! did I just end with 3 options that all head due east no matter what?

Damn! this metaphor is working out better than I thought because this is exactly how I see things going right now with the design world and interaction design. we are all committed to heading due east, but some of us temporarily whether blinded by the sunrise or just intrigued by the mountains, tunnel or coast line we pick a distinct path. This is an analog to thinking in 3D (Industrial Design), 2D (Graphic Design), information (IA), Activity (IxD/Service), space (Architecture) etc.

At some point these choices will invariably take people who continue on their journey to relatively the same point. Yes, we are getting there with a different set of experiences, and probably different communities behind us supporting us, but the arrival (again for those who keep pressing forward [not too enamored with their current place]) form something completely new and different.

What’s also true is that we make these journey’s repeatedly and each time we have the option to keep taking the same road or to experience new things. Sometimes it is good to skip the travel experience almost entirely, especially for the longer rides.

So now that I’ve beat that dead horse of a metaphor into the ground and probably only those who live or lived in the E. Bay really get it, I’ll move on. …

Interaction Design is one of the legs on this highway system. It’s destination is defined as East as much as any other design discipline. What is East? emergent, beautiful, bright, human, emotional, technological, contemporary, holistic, (and a host more). Our road way takes us on straightaways of rationality mixed with winding roads of exploring the nature of movement and activity towards accomplishments based on self-motivation. We take the tunnel because we are less concerned about “the view”, but after the tunnel we take the local streets to observe the people instead of staying just on the highway passing by.

But at some point there will be another split (you people realize I’m in Contra Costa at this point, right? along 24). We’ll hit the big mountain that inspired us this far (ha!) and we’ll have to pick north vs. south for a bit. And I think it is this split where A) my metaphor ends and B) is where IxD has stood for a little bit. This year the affinities are beginning to coalesce deeply.

The split here is between those who still want to think of interaction design as stopping at the focus of fitting people’s lives and creating efficiencies and those who want to work deeper; leaving technology to those who fetishize it; focusing not on what people want but what humanity needs.

At Interaction 10, Allan Chochinov (@chochinov) of Core77 among other attributes put up this slide!

This slide alone more than any other at Interaction 10 has stayed with me. It was more than design mumbo jumbo, it was a tacit call to arms for designers to get off their ass and start designing for real problems and not the ones that society has made up for them to design (most of those ARE now the real problems we have to design against).

The call to activism as a designer really hits the heart of the interaction designer who is taught first and foremost to have empathy, but then to convert that empathy into dispassion. We come to that empathy from a dispassionate place for the most part as if we are filling an empty vessel.

And this is going to be a part of the next big split. Not the difference between meaning and experience, or hardware vs. software (definitely not the latter). We are going to be split at our core between those who design passionately from a place of knowing the end results and want to drive people towards that result and those who feel that knowing the result breaks the rules.

I’m not sure that this split will even lead interaction designers to the same end point. Is this split of North vs. South going to lead any of us back west before we head east again? Will any of us head east at all?

I am so inspired by Jon Kolko’s new Interaction Design school in Austin and I know as I think about shaping my own design education practice I will look towards his and other great examples.

Even our winner of the IxDA Student Interaction Design Competition, Ahmed Riaz, demonstrated how altruism and driving people towards social responsibility should always be at the forefront of our designs.

I can’t wait to see how this all ends up.

February always comes in like a rocket and leaves even more quickly even on leap years (yes, I know this is not a leap year). For me coming into this February was one of the most crazy of my life (just ask my wife). Being on the ground planning a conference is so different than doing it remotely. There are certain details you can’t let go because you know the lay of the land and further people expect you to do more as well. It was indeed hectic, but also a labor of love as Interaction## always is for me. I can’t believe I have nothing to do with Interaction 11 | Boulder.  I’m determined to keep that a reality except maybe a talk or workshop.

The reality is that I have never been so burnt out on IxDA in all my life. Even 2 years ago when I “retired” from IxDA leadership I didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as I do right now. This isn’t a complaint, but just background to where the rest of this is going to go.

2 Years ago when I co-chaired Interaction08 I did so out of passion. I saw what Dan Saffer (@odannyboy)  was creating and I was inspired tremendously by the content he was creating and I knew we had a winner if only the conference got the right support. So I took the logistic steering-wheel with the amazing support from SCAD Conferencing. Arguably (not by me, ever) Dan & I re-wrote the book on what a UX organization’s conference can be like: Profitable, speakers well compensated and taken care of, well designed (& the design well executed by @danimalik & @ebacon), sponsorships that don’t buy content but still get good value, NOT in a hotel or other institutional setting, and finally GREAT (not just merely good or acceptable) food (the kind of food people talk about 2 years later).

When Bill DeRouchey (@billder) and Jennifer Bove (@jlb) took the reigns for interaction 10 (@ixd10) I was beyond excited. Bill’s attention to detail and Jennifer’s passion for content I knew would come together to create an amazing story. I also knew that Todd Zaki Warfel (@zakiwarfel) and Will Evans (@semanticwill) would do a great job with the experience design. I came in to do what I do best. Not just represent SCAD, but make sure that SCAD’s attention to memorable events shown through again re-inventing the organizational conference experience.

It was a joy working with Sue, Leslie, Heather and Alice in SCAD Conferencing. I can’t imagine a more experienced, passionate team to work with outside the IxDA organization. They were unstoppable and amazing. Just as an example of their super powers. For those not there, We tented one of the amazing historic squares here in Savannah. to do that and make it a presentation space meant using a generator for power. Well a storm hit. The tent was not the problem, but the generator. Generators and lightning don’t get a long so we had to shut down the tent’s electricity and while that was a big blow to exhibitors showing there, it was even worse for speakers unless we came up with a quick solution. Next to this square is one of the 2 amazing historic theaters that SCAD runs. That night there was going to be a performance, but it was free during the day when we needed it. So!?! Quick changearoo and a few score of phone calls later, we had a venue switch (creating an event not with 10 venues but now with 11–Think Spinal Tap, baby!).

This kind of can-do, don’t-quit, attitude epitomized everything that went into this conference again and again. Whether it was digging out a tent the day before for the Fri-night party and never giving up on our oyster roast (I still can’t believe we were shuckin’ oysters at a UX conference) or turning our industrial design space into a space age disco/rave with glow sticks to boot, we would be no where without these Four Musketeers.

So while it is true, I helped focus food choices here and there. I was not giving up the brisket and I threw myself on the tracks for the lamb sliders on Friday night or came up with the international theme for food for Saturday night, it was the connections to the caterers and the venues that really made this fantastic. These Four Musketeers were the real miracle workers.

All this is to say that great experiences required experienced talent to execute on whatever hopes embedded in the design may attempt to communicate.

If anyone is looking for a space to put on a conference and are related to art & design, I highly encourage you all to look at SCAD as a partner for such an event for no other reason but the amazing work of Sue, Leslie, Heather and Alice.

If we can give the longest ovation in the world, I would give it to these women.

::BEGIN APPLAUSE::

I just had this idea. In education we have lots of opportunities for students to gain access to professional practice to prepare them for professional life: coops & internship abound.

What we don’t have are ways for faculty to stay engaged in practice that is sustainable, feasable & practical.

Sonny idea is to take advantage of the huge off time that many educators have & to pair them with industry opportunities during that time. Faculty cooperatives would be great, no?

Is anyone interested in beginning an experiment with this? I’m particularly interested in work being done in design for social change outside of sustainability efforts.

Thoughts?

There are few projects over the last year that have excited me as much as this one, except maybe the work I did for the Freescale Smartbook project. But “Mate” a game project I did w/ my undergrad interaction design human factors class here at SCAD turned out so amazing. I’m so proud of this group project.

The game design has gone so well. So much detail and the game play aspects are right on target. Unfortunately, volunteer development cycles that started too late meant the game could not be ready for a full official release in time for both Interaction 10 (#ixd10) and CSCW2010 (#cscw2010). But for a few good soles (100 of you for IxD10 and another 100 for CSCW you get to play the game now in its infant form as part of this private beta.

But what is Mate? Well, the idea was based off of an invitation by Elizabeth Churchill of Yahoo! R&D wanting to create a playful information space that used game mechanics and social networking to see how information transfer can be experienced differently in a mobile platform (the iPhone). So combining geolocation tagging, rich asset creation and sharing, social networking, and game play, Mate invites and engages people to learn about Savannah, the events taking place there, and the people who are participating. Check out this early experience prototype video:

Mate: Savannah Conference Game (video prototype) from David Malouf on Vimeo.

If you really think you are a game player and can put down 4sq and Gowalla for the long weeeknd, then please sign up for the Private Beta and join us — Play Mate!

Mate: Home Screen

Mate: Map Screen

This really made me kvell!

Trustees Theater, Savannah, GA

I’m giving myself a present tonight and maybe you’ll join me. Like many closely involved in this conference, I’ve been workin’ really hard. Lots of overtime hours of personal time. Lots of fights with the significant other over workin’ lots of overtime hours. But I remain energized because I have the inside scoop. What’s that scoop. OMG! this is going to be amazing!

So what is my present to myself and what does it have to do with my blog? Well, I’m taking a break from it and I’m going to spend my time perusing the schedule of speakers at the conference. I’m suing this moment to tell y’all what I’m lookin’ forward to so much that keeps me energized. Oh! and shhhh! I have a secret … not a lot of spots left … I’m not supposed to say anything yet, but we are very close to selling out.

So let’s start lookin’ at the content …

The Pre conference stuff

Yea, I can’t go to any of these because I’ll be actively working as a judge for the Student Competition (have you seen the amazing finalists?) I can tell you though who I would go see and why.

My top choice for the morning session on Thurs is hands down Tangible Interface Prototyping with Massimo Banzi and Tom Igoe. For anyone with even the slightest itch to move into thinking about physical interactions and how to prototype them, you should go. It’s hard to taste this type of prototyping with doing a bit of investment, so this is really an amazing opportunity. Did I mention that Massimo was one of the people who invented the Arduino platform?

But if I was a hard core web & software design guy, I would then choose either Brainstorming and Design Principles by Dan Saffer or Mental Models by Indi Young. I think many people really feel that brainstorming is easier than it really is and Mental Models are such an important tool for understanding how to begin to synthesize solutions that truly fit the human contexts we are designing them for.

In the afternoon, I think we are going to be privy to a rare treat. We are all used to our “methodologies”. You know the famous ones like Contextual Inquiry and Goal-Directed Design. Well, after a lot of searching through many of these, the one these guys have created is by far the most exciting as it is the only one that considers the emotional context with the rational or cognitive. So hands down, no exception in the afternoon, I would go to Predictable Magic: Designing Emotional Interactions and Business Results. The methodology was created by FIDSA Ravi Sawhney who started his career working in Xerox PARC on some of the earliest Pen-touch interfaces ever.

Friday

I’m always looking forward to seeing Nathan Shedroff, our opening keynote. Whether he is talking about Experience Design, Sustainability, Sci-Fi, or the topic he is bringing to us Service Design, he has a tremendous level of insight that always leaves me fulfilled.

I have 2 other pieces I’m looking forward to on Friday. The first, Who’s Going to Teach the Next Generation? with two educators I’ve gotten to know through my recent work with the student competition, Martin & Jeremy from Australia. Even if you have no intention of being an educator, you will be effected by how the next generation will be educated.

The other one I’m looking forward to is David Grays talk, Knowledge Games: A Grammar for Creativity and Innovation. Why? Because I’ve been wanting to meet this twitter buddy of mine like forever, and he is one of the smartest most insightful designers I know. Oh! and I’m a huge fan of his work at his company Xplane. Having had conversations with him about Knowledge Games, I really am looking forward to something more tangible and synthesized for he and I and everyone else to talk about.

Ok, so this isn’t content, but I am looking forward to it. The Friday night opening reception is going to be amazing. I have personally been the hand crafter of this party and for those who were at the parties at Interaction 08, they know that I am pretty good at this. This party features a game room, Blues band, Georgia Oyster Roast, Coffee Bar, local beer, and catered by one of the best restaurants I have ever been to, Cha Bella all at the fabulous Morris Center at the Trustees Garden.

Saturday

I didn’t know I was supposed to look forward to this speaker until one of my new co-workers told me he is THE guru on designing for social change and sustainability. Enzio Manzini will be speaking on just that: Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability as the morning keynote.

There are so many people coming to this conference who I have wanted to meet for years now. Shelly Evenson a former professor of Interaction/Service Design at CMU and now working at Microsoft. As Service Design (her topic) here is on my brain due to our new program in my department. I’m excited to hear her talk. (I’ll have to wait for the video though.)

But I have a dilemma as even more true to my heart is the work of Timo Arnall out of Norway. I was so upset I didn’t meet up with him when I was in Oslo last summer and his work in Near Field Communications is practically the tome on the topic. So I do think I must go to his talk: Designing for the Web in the World.

Later in the afternoon, one of my favorite conversationalists, Chris Fahey, will be giving a talk. I’m sure it will lead to much discussion and be quite inspirational: The Human Interface (or: Why Products are People, Too).

The day closes with a session that every is invited to, where the Finalists of the Student Competition, give a presentation of the work they did on Thursday as part of Stage 2 of the competition. Once more, you’ll get to vote for your favorite presentation after they are all over. Thank you Dell, for giving such great support to this first Interaction Design Student Competition by IxDA.

But after that we get to hear from the curator of the MOMA’s Architecture & Design collection, Paola Antonelli. I’m sure it will be just a great talk: Talk To Me.

Did I say “the day closes” … Oh! no, I was so wrong. After dinner in a great restaurant (don’t be shy, ask me for my favorities if you see me), get on a bus and head to my home away from home, the Gulfstream Center for Design where the Industrial Design and Furniture Design departments with and house programs in Service, Sustainability, Interaction, and Design Management. See our facilities and join Microsoft as we create an international adventure through food and get your energy pumping with some great DJed Dance Music. Did I mention the free alcohol? Just sayin’ …

Sunday

I must admit that Sunday feels so relaxing to me when I look at the schedule. We even start late (w/ breakfast served) so we can recover from the night before. I don’t feel compelled to make choices at all. Lots of very good stuff indeed from storytelling to physical prototyping, to bodystorming and more. But it all closes with Dan Hill and his thoughts on the new urban landscape: The Soft City.

So? …

Let me know if you’re coming and let the world know what YOU are looking forward to and if you aren’t coming why the heck not? This is going to be the best Interaction conference IxDA has every put together yet.

I’ve been resistant to publish stuff here that says, look over here for something I’ve said. But this piece in particular is something I put a lot of attention on and struggled about whether or not it should be published elsewhere or on my blog.

As I’ve been teaching this past year and been in dialog with many design disciplines, this piece represents my best thinking about the best direction for young designers and how they should engage in interaction design as a part of their larger design education and career development.

Check out the piece on JohnnyHolland.org.

This year as part of its completely redesigned annual global conference the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) is organizing a Student Competition searching for “Excellence in Interaction Design”. Entries have already been streaming in from students representing programs from around the world. For more information about goals and rules of the competition please go to the competition web site at http://interaction.ixda.org/student-competition .

This week we have some big announcements and a really big reminder:

Announcing Dell, Inc. as the exclusive sponsor
We are super excited to announce that Dell, Inc. global manufacture, designer and distributor of computer systems for the home and business is the exclusive sponsor of IxDA’s Student Competition. Dell’s contributions will allow for IxDA to offer full scholarships to our finalists to Savannah for the conference and to continue to compete for the grand prize which Dell will also be contributing (see below).

Grand Prizes for IxDA Student Competition
Because of the generous support by Dell, Inc. IxDA is proud to announce that not only will there be a grand prize for the winner of the student competition, but also a prize for the second place competitor as well. The grand prize winner will receive a Dell Latitude XT2 Tablet Laptop (http://bit.ly/5GQFwk). There will also be a 2nd place prize to be determined closer to the event, also provided by Dell.

So don’t miss your chance …
The deadline for submitting your entry is just around the corner. December 31, 2009 at 11:59p PST will not just be the end of a decade, but also your last chance to submit to the competition. Individuals and groups can submit process books to win a full scholarship to come to Savannah, GA, USA and a chance to compete further to win the grand prize of a Dell Latitude Tablet Laptop or a Dell Mini Netbook.

To submit please go to http://interaction.ixda.org/student-competition

For more information please feel free to contact IxDA at info@ixda.org

Today the Jury of the IxDA Student Competition announce 2 changes to the competition.

1) That the deadline is extended to 31-Dec (Happy New Year!) @ 11:59pm US/PST.

2) That we will now be accepting submissions for groups.

Get the announcement and learn all about the student competition.

Yes, I know, this contradicts my previous post about why we are only accepting individual contributions. But we must evolve. I still haven’t heard anything personally that makes me want to support “all group work” as many of my peers are teaching either in this discussion or from personal contacts. I’d love to hear more about what this newbie educator is missing.

For those that may have missed it, I’m the chair person for the first IxDA Global Student Competition in Interaction Design. Since launching the competition there have been a slew of people asking if their team of 2-a billion could enter the competition. I have even been told that for some students they really only do work in teams and thus cannot enter the competition despite having excellent projects.

I think that unlike other design disciplines’ competitions this competition is as much about the person doing the design as it is about the outcome of the design itself. We won’t just be judging a person on the final result of the design, but also on the knowledge of interaction design embedded in the design and in the person himself/herself.

In this regard, a team project would be very difficult for us to judge regarding individuals. While we recognize that a lot of work in practice does happen in teams which is why especially in early courses team projects are encouraged, much of the work we do in practice, even as team members is done as the sole interaction designer. We work with visiaul designers and engineers and industrial designers in our teams, but usually there are too few of us to go around to all be working on the same project.

In this regard though it is very difficult to judge where the lines are blurried or crossed. So for us to understand the make up of a team is beyond our scope at this time.

Maybe if the competition occurs next year we can change the competition to have some areas that include team work.

At this time though, the competition is soley for individuals. And we hope you enter!

– dave

Whether you are a practitioner, student, educator or prospective design manager, I’d love to get your feedback on this survey.

It should take a little bit of time, especially for employers, but I will do my best to make the information public once compiled.

Thank you in advance.

http://bit.ly/IxDEDU

- dave

As part of a press release that was crafted by SCAD for the Interaction 10 | Savannah conference, i was asked for a quote (well a lot of quotes) and this one was put in there:

“Interaction design is not the design of a medium but rather a philosophical shift in how to design for any medium. It answers the questions of why, how and what with a new lens and expanded impact,”

I found it interesting that after a big brain dump on what is IxDA, what is its influence, what is its partnership with SCAD in the past and now in the future and what is Interaction 10, this is the quote they chose. It’s one of those quotes that when you read it you double take as if listening to yourself on an audio recording. Ya know? that sense of disbelief that that is really you.

Then I read it again and I realized I didn’t say anything at all, because the statement is so separated from its context that it just isn’t real. So here is the full paragraph in which I was responding to this question, “What is unique about interaction design at SCAD?”

As far as I can tell SCAD is the only design school that offers interaction design as a minor to its undergrads. The program here at SCAD for the minor is geared towards bringing the design of behavior across all the design disciplines here at SCAD. By focusing on behavior regardless of medium, we have a strong opportunity to bring a new level of fidelity to all our design programs. Interaction Design is not the design of a medium but rather a philosophical shift in how to design for any medium. By concentrating on the dialog that takes place between people products & services and then the effect that those dialogs have on the behaviors of people, interaction design, answers the questions of why, how, and what with a new lens and expanded impact.

Reading that, again really helps fill in the blanks for me and is a lot more meaningful all around.

I’ve been asked to write up something about the Student Competition for IxDA that I’m the chair person for. Well, I think I did just that when I wrote up the vision of the competition we posted on the student competition web site.

So instead of rewriting it, I’ll just quote the whole thing here in case you missed it or you enjoyed it so much you want to read it again.

The Interaction Design Association (IxDA) is committed to supporting the global community of practice for those practicing interaction design (IxD) regardless of specific roles in their day-to-day lives. As the discipline of IxD matures, the need for closer ties to design education programs that include the discipline of IxD intensifies. Every year the Interaction conference has been hosted by an educational institution with strong commitments towards creating tomorrow’s designers with a strong base in IxD. This year we want to take the next step and broaden that relationship with future practitioners by offering them both a venue to demonstrate the amazing work that is going on within education programs around the world and to receive invaluable feedback from the practice community about the relevance and quality of the work being presented. This last goal is of the utmost importance to the core constituents of IxDA; to ensure that tomorrow’s designers marry education’s goals of practical development of future practitioners and the need to create new bodies of knowledge that can be used to inform today and tomorrow’s practice.

So with this in mind, we have put together a humble beginning for a student competition in concert with Interaction 10 | Savannah. This is an open invitation to all students and recent graduates from undergraduate and graduate programs regardless of program type or location around the world. Whether you are in a program for HCI, Industrial Design, Information Architecture, Computer Science, Interactive Design, Graphic Design, Communication Design, Instructional Design, Fashion Design, Interior Design, Exhibition Design, Architecture, Jewelry, and of course IxD we would love to see how your work exemplifies excellence in theory and practice of IxD.

One of the driving principles of the Interaction Design Association is that we are an organization focused on the discipline of interaction design and acknowledges that the discipline is just a part of the elements that make up a great executed design. In this spirit, the competition is going to encourage students to focus on quality of their design for behavior(s) but also must demonstrate expertise in the other relevant aspects of their product & service’s design.

We are keeping this first iteration of this competition fairly open. We will accept future concept work, abstract work, and work with direct relevance to today’s practice. Good luck to all the great competitors out there.

If you are a student or a recent grad and got something to share with the IxD community, please do get to work and get ready to submit something glorious!

Get the details!

IxDA has been an honor for me to be a leader of since the very first moment I joined the Yahoo group August 2003. It has always been about learning. Whether it was learning about group building from Challis Hodge, speaking from Robert Reimann, teaching from Jared Spool, leading from Dirk Knemeyer, designing from way too many people to even imagine, IxDA has always been about putting myself in proximity to people I can learn from. Often as in the case I’m about to describe, the decision to lead was not purposefully about learning, but through design’s best tool, serendipity, it most certainly turned out that way.

A few months ago Bill DeRouchey, one of this year’s co-chairs, reminded me that I wanted to lead a Student Competition as part of IxDA’s Interaction 10 | Savannah conference coming up this February. It wasn’t so much that I had forgotten as I was actually hoping someone else would step up and take it over. I’m SOOO glad no one did.

I immediately sent out feelers to people I wanted to be on a jury. I sent some 15 invitations out and assumed that many would say, “I’m sorry, I’m too busy, but thanks for thinking of me.” What I got back were 14, “SURE!”. And more than that, I even got about 5 people at different times and for different pieces who were incredibly energized and worked really hard.

For each piece we’ve worked on, 1 person though has stood out to me as my mentor for the project. This just reminding me that the person with vision and leadership is not the smartest person in the room, but best capable of knowing who is and how to utilize them. Jonas Löwgren from Malmö University in Sweden has worked almost as tirelessly as I have. But more important than his work ethic has been his contribution to the content of the competition, and his availability to me as a reflecting board.

From Jonas, I have learned so much in this process so far, but I have to say the thing I have been trying to internalize with me the most is Jonas’ ability to synthesize and facilitate through criticism. As someone who comes from a more, let us say, direct culture, I have found that I have struggled the most at learning how to give criticism of students and peers in an approachable way.

I have noticed that Jonas’ discourse style even in his second language is one of synthesis and facilitation. What this manifests itself as is to be that person who restates with innate sensitivity what a group of people are trying to say. But it isn’t just restating, it is contextualizing and purposefully giving higher relevance to some points more than others. Then he reacts in a way which produces the “next logical step”. It is a brilliant teaching technique and one that I both appreciate as a teacher, but more importantly appreciate as a peer and student.

Of course, I have other more direct lessons through this process from all of the participants on the student competition jury and I appreciate every opportunity from all. Working closest with Jonas though has been a true pleasure and I wanted to give this public shout out.

To see what all this good leading & learning has led to, please feel free to go to http://interaction.ixda.org/student-competition and encourage all students to put themselves out there. Jonas, myself and the rest of the jury are some of the best educators and practitioners out there today and our feedback and review regardless of your likelihood of winning will be a source of review you will not have too many chances to receive.

The first weekend of November (just 2 short weeks away), I’ll be one of a slew of great speakers her in Savannah, GA on the topics of Technology, Entrepreneurship and Design at the first of what hopes to be a great new annual event called Geekend!

Check check out this amazing program!

I’ll be doing a flash workshop, “Sketching: The Secret Sauce of Design”. A course on how to bring the fundamental design practice of sketching to any creative, solution oriented endeavor. Come and check it out, but be sure to bring a good pencil and an awake mind!

I’m also going to be doing a session on Sunday during the unconference part with @kplawver on Twitter. It doesn’t sound all that original or enticing yet, but we guarantee to show you something new!

See you there! It will be a blast!

Watch This! before continuing: (It’s an amazing video prototype that re-thinks multi-touch for the desktop.)

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

First Clayton, I’m incredibly impressed by this video. It shows an attention to detail in production value, theoretical analysis, and overall solutioneering that I know many can learn and be inspired by.

I have a host of questions about the video:

1. This feels overly complicated. “It feels” that way b/c it looks like (I can’t play w/ it yet, right?) a piano metaphor and at that the gestures that each finger has to be able to articulate to reach the level of expert is even more complex than that of a pianist. That being said, I just realized that most functionality is available in simple strokes and this can be a way of ramping up someone from novice to expert. I just wonder how many people will be able to make it past chopsticks.

2. I have worked in the industrial design community for quite some time now. Their reliance on tablet profile desktop screens through the use of Wacom Cintiques is quite strong. Other 3D software communities like visual effects artists, etc. are also making great use of this model. The flexibility of the the cinque to articulate between positions is the key to its success b/c it takes advantage of the reality that there are different modes of operation throughout the day. I do Alias and then I answer email. But my main point is that due to the this ability to transform the tablet is not permanent and thus the stress you suggest inherit in that design is not real. BUT! I also want to say that before we had computers we wrote. I mean w/ a pen and this meant looking down and such. We survived that, no? All that is to say that I would re-evaluate your critique of the tablet position, or your limited view of the tablet profile and re-examine it.

3. Who? who is this for? I think your video is trying to generalize experiences which may not be true. For example I have changed my entire mode of operation to be comopletely browser driven. Close to 80% of my daily interactions happen in the browser. This means that due to tabs I have 1 application open at a time with maybe 2 other widgets that I access from a sidebar (music & twitter). This model of interaction feels like it is an extreme case, which is why the person above who talks about music is totally perfect for this, b/c music has such a level of complexity of controls.

Further, is “window” operation/manipulation really that hard in the current model? I probably spend 80% of my time on the keyboard and 20% on the mouse, so what problem are you look at that requires such an intense shift in hardware and software models?

This is to ask plainly, “Is the problem that great or even really there at all?”

But another important point to this is that design needs to not just think about human mechanics, but needs to be situational. I love video prototypes, but I stress to anyone who tries it that video prototypes need to be situational. The narrative of human use is an imperative in making the medium be truly useful to a design process. So I would ask that a 2nd take on this video do just that. place a “real” person in the middle using this in their day to day life. Bumptop a similar attempt at desktop re-design has the same problem, while I think that Aurora by Adapative Path is a great example of changing the browser & hell the desktop too, by embedding real human narrative into their demonstrations.

4. the loss of direct manipulation feels to me to be the crux of the issue. What makes an iphone and other multi-touch systems “work” is direct manipulation. If multi-touch is just a remoted system like a mouse, then all you’ve done is change the point of gesturing and added an arguable level of complexity that is not required. to me it is direct manipulation and not gesturing where the greatest added benefit of touch comes to play and this doesn’t address this.

5. the keyboard. 1 area that is interesting is that you don’t address the transitional moments of shifting between keyboard (well we all know the keyboard is a problem in and of itself) and the “pointing device”. The simple and current elbow articulation to a single handed mouse not only is simple and the muscle memory easy to embed, but it has the added value of leaving 1 hand on the keyboard so that experts (ever play doom?) can gesture with both hands to create unique modes of operation. I.e. control and drag causes a copy.

But the real benefit of this mode of operation is that w/ one hand “always on the keyboard” you end up with increased efficiency of target acquisition b/c the moving hand can always use the reference point of the stationary hand when trying to find home keys when leaving the mouse.

6. the existing trackpad issues where not addressed. The main one being my wife’s pet peeve which is that she always looses her cursor with accidental taps by her wrists.

7. Why choose 1. Going back to my ID studio, the current set up has many devices: critique (pen direct touch), 3D mouse, keyboard and regular mouse.

Most importantly though, that putting yourself out there like this to criticism is HUGE. This is inspirational not only for what it offers directly but because it offers a point of discussion. I could have never done this level of articulation with someone to respond to as well produced as your demonstration. It has great thinking and there are real problems to address, or more importantly even if the problems aren’t great, there are still places where we can hope to do better.

My top list:
1. object management
2. ergonomic data entry
3. mental models of pervasive and transitive computing
4. form factors beyond (too wide, open, eh?)
5. self induced behavioral change through technology

Thanx Clayton for putting this out there! It is going straight in front of all my classes and my entire faculty today!

– dave

I’m really proud and excited about the work this class of mine is doing. Check out their 4wk progress.

It is so hard to not become a victim of our surroundings and this post is trying really hard to not do that.

I have a pretty multi-facetted history; however, that history has been linear in its movement away from technology and towards design. Not that these are opposites, but they have centers of overlapping communities. Each community with its own distinctiveness at its center. Language, methods, mental models, etc. And to be very blunt, my techy side was never really at the engineering level, and more at the social scientist level. Both though share a rationalistic and analytical tendency that allows them to speak more easily with each other like a Norwegian speaking with a Swede, as opposed to a Scandinavian speaking with a French person. This latter simile is more like that of a techie to a designer. Did you notice how the level of zoom changed? (important here).

As many have noted, I’m pretty passionate when I speak. This is a double-edged sword to say the least. I think passion helps you get listened to, but if the energy is not directly properly, it is often interpreted as being definitive instead of suggestive. Lately, there have been a lot of discussion (good discussion) about the relevance of “user-centered design”. Unfortunately, since no one really has a lock on what the heck UCD is, it is hard to have a conversation about it. Further, the idea that there are so many contexts for work makes it further difficult to come to any sort of group consensus about it. Further, people are in different parts of their career.

Some might say that this lack of cohesion of a single community of practice is at the core of the problem and it is hard to argue that. But that is plain cynical and I do believe there is more than binds all these differences than separates us.

Since we are trying to generalize, I will break this down to a common denominator. “user centered design” is the philosophy that we must in a measured and methodical way bring the user into various stages of the development process of products & services. The bold elements are there for a reason.  Measured is not necessarily quantitative, but it is declarative and can be related to the data of observation (in the (social) scientific sense of the term). Methodical is important because it relates to the intentionality of the observations and that they observations follow a method with a history, and a collection of case studies that support its use. This to me is the bare minimum in order to maintain that UCD is a useful, viable term for design.

User Experience is the result of any design artifact that uses UCD. It is NOT “experience design”, but an experience design can be a user experience. Further “user experience” implies by the use of the term user that the experience focuses on “use”. But that might push back the discussion a bit, so gloss over it if you felt the hair on your neck go up.

Now that we know what I’m saying when I say these terms we can move on. The reason I feel like these terms are still moot is because of history. It assumes that sometime in 1991 when Mitch Kapor first declared the software design manifesto or even further back when SIGCHI split from HFES or even further back when HFES formed that these were the first moments of UCD at all. We can look back to DaVinci and his work or we can look even further to the work of “de Architecture” by Vitruvius to see how human beings were being methodically considered in measured ways.

Even in modern times (turn of the century) the idea that we must design for humans has taken place well outside the realm of software design. Henry Dreyfus’ “Designing for Humans” is a core book of study for anyone doing Industrial Design, for example. And there are many more examples. So at best UCD is not describing something new, but describing something specific within a new area where it has been missing. Ok, that’s all well and good.

Today, though, we are designing in close collaboration with more and more types of people and the reality is that the language of UCD in practice and theory is couched in terms that while relevant to many looses relevancy for way too many.

So as someone who has declared that UX and UCD are dead, it is not out of insensitivity to the need that we constantly observe, measure, analyze and model, but rather out of a change of audience when I promote my thinking.

But to the contrary, Dave …

I just recently returned from the Industrial Design Society of America’s IDUS annual conference. There were more “design research” sessions than any other single topic by my best analysis. I didn’t attend many but one that really got me was one of the closing keynotes. It was a brilliant example of how we need to be engaged in observational and immersive research in order to get out of ourselves. What the speaker said is that “gut-based design is at best a derivative of conventions” and in order to leave convention we need new data.

At no time during his talk did this person once use UCD or any other language we would consider in our purview as UX practitioners. He was completely grounded in realm where anthropology and industrial design meet (quite often I might add).

But I hear so many people in software design whom UCD can’t be taken for granted and so many in the ID community for whom research is non-existent. This is why UCD/UX is still relevant for them. But for me, in my world, in my experience, UCD/UX ended about 5 years ago. Suggest to me that research is optional or disposable and I won’t take the job. If you insist that research is the core to great design, you’d equally loose my attention.

I teach research methods and I’m drilling into these students the idea 2 things:

1) you can’t start to design unless you know why and for whom

2) you can’t do research without designing it from the ground up

The dialectic between design and research is strong. You should never stop designing and you should never stop observing. Does observation always need to be methodical and measured? I don’t think so. It is more important to just get out of oneself and consider the world around you. There are contexts where observation has to be measured in order to be useful and the best forms of measured observation are methodical. But again, the goals and contexts will determine how and when.