Interaction Design, Design Education, Design Thoughts
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Today there was a rare piece in Techcrunch about user experience. The person keyed in on making a user experience memorable. And ya can’t argue w/ that. What it reminded me of was the one-off presentation I gave June 2009 at the From Business to Buttons conference in Malmo, Sweden.
So I think I’ll reprise it here in that spirit. Enjoy!
So I’ve had a lot of offline discussions about my little call for designs of a Harley Davidson car. One major recurring theme is the importance of the sound of the vehicle. That low slow baritone sound coming out of the exhaust that you can hear a mile away defines the Harley experience as much if not more than anything else that can be designed directly by the product designer.
So me and a couple of designer friends here at SCAD started asking ourselves a few questions when we approached the issue of a car for Harley Davidson. I don’t know if we have many definitive answers but we do have good questions.
1. Does it make sense to transfer the “exact” sound of the motorcycle to a car? What differences in the car context would take issue with that sound, or support it?
What we answered here is that sound itself is not the brand alone, but the emotions associated to what the sound means (more below). But we also feel that in the context of a car – sans helmet, listening to music, or GPS navigation – the level of volume probably wouldn’t work as well (more below).
2. This begged the question of, what types of persona changes would occur by expanding to this market?
Since safety will be increased in any change to a 4-wheel, door enclosed, vehicle, the brand will become instantly more accessible/approachable to so many more people. This will mean new persona types and even a softening of the self-perception of the total brand audience. (This reason more than any other might be why HD never did this.)
As an aside, we tried to look at other brand expansions. The closest one we can think of that resembles this type of brand expansion is Apple. The case study of Apple expanding into iPods and then iPhones while maintaining brand consistency across all product lines and throughout the corporate experience has flaws, but is a great story in whole. New persona groups were introduced to the Apple brand unlike before with just desktops and laptops. Even the advent of the iMac didn’t cause as much growth in Apple’s population of customers the way the iPod did. Many of these people didn’t care about Apple the way the previous group did and some joined in head first into the fanboy mentality but from a very different place. Assuming that HD could never argue over financial growth at the expense of having to work harder to maintain its brand integrity for its core fans/groupies, the reality is that adding a car to their product line would indeed create a very different market type. This being said, that means that a car does not have to hold onto ALL the core pieces of the brand while still maintaining the values of the brand and the value of the brand to others.
3. What is the value of sound to the people who who talk about the importance of the “Harley sound”?
There were so many thoughts that this issue evoked: the sound is a literal brand that tells everyone around that the person riding THAT bike is riding a Harley Davidson. It is a brand as powerful as Ck or DG and as far as sound goes probably is the most powerful audio brand anywhere. In my mind I’m comparing it to NBC, MGM Lion, Intel, Apple’s startup, etc. When it comes to motorcycles it is not a Harley if it doesn’t have that rumble. Unlike other audio brands HD’s isn’t just about when the item is present or being presented. It is the overture & the ovation. It is the warning of the “bad ass’” approach and the encore of his departure.
I’m sure there are many other questions that we can ask but these are the ones that we were able to get to so far. I’d love to hear/read your thoughts about the quality of the Harley sound & what questions we need to be asking when deconstructing the meaning & value statements of an iconoclastic brand like Harley Davidson.
Based on where we’ve gotten so far I’d like to start putting together a more serious design brief than we’ve done thus far. Here goes:
Who is this for?
What form should it take?
I must admit I’m really torn here. Part of me wants this to be a classical roadster, but that “family” requirement is jumping out at me. So this needs to be sporty & bold but balanced with some of the needs of the family. So here’s where I’m landing:
What about the sound?
This vehicle is not going to have THE sound. That wouldn’t make sense for this type of ”family” car. The brand statement is going to have to be redefined. I’m thinking about how the iPod & then the iPhone were used to change the brand as represented in the industrial design for the rest of the Apple product line. A market entry piece like this can use the spirit of the Harley brand & not the precise historic execution of that brand. What’s important here is what Harley represents to people and quite honestly a lot of that message is not in the form execution. Harley Davidson is more an icon than a brand. Even Japanese bikes that model themselves on the Harley, ride on the same emotional coat tails. The ultimate message of Harley is FREEDOM. Can that be put into a “family” vehicle? If not, then I go right back to a Shelby Cobra roadster with a low rumble exhaust. I just don’t think it would be as successful & ultimately valuable. It would just be another small market vehicle.
Well, if anyone up in Wisconsin is listening, I’d love to hear if my thoughts have merit. As for everyone else, I’d love to hear your thoughts & suggestions for other brand market expansions with similarly challenging qualities. It is just interesting from time to time to give yourself a hypothetical challenge and run w/ it as far as your skills, experiences, and extra time can take you.
Well, for my own tracking purposes I had to create my own brackets (taken from this generic one from @nytimes). I filled in the teams for the round of 16 as instructed in the original and then picked my winners in each of the subsequent rounds all the way to the Final.
If you do make your own predictions, let me know where to find your bracket.
Bear in mind I’m a total USer and my experience with football is well like none.
Yesterday I published a blog post inspired by Jared Spool’s (@jmspool) talk at the User Experience Lisbon (@uxlx) conference. I didn’t know when it was coming out, but here are my notes as published on JohnnyHolland.org (@johnnyholland).
Enjoy!
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!”
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.
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
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!
In February at Interaction 09 | Vancouver, Kim Goodwin’s closing keynote entitled “Each One, Teach One” (video) urged us all to take on the role of teaching as part of our practice.
I’d like to agree in triplicate.
My first experience as a teacher began when I was in college. The summer between my 1st & 2nd years I was a camp counselor and then my entire second year I was both a religious school leader and Zionist evangelist. Both roles started me on the path that I’m on today as a teacher. I’m currently a professor of Interaction Design at the Savannah College of Art & Design.
I guess I’ve always been drawn to teaching. After college I taught English as a 2nd Language in Israel and returned to the states with the goal of becoming a professor of Anthropology (never did finish that!).
The Internet also gave me moments of teaching (not just mentoring) very early on. I taught designers how to think about pixels and taught coders how to think about design very early on in my career.
As I said, I’m now a teacher as my primary profession. I love it. It is really the best career move I’ve made in a very long time.
So what makes teaching so special and why should you care. I agree with Kim that teaching is something that everyone should do. It is the best way I have experienced for honing my ideas and finding ways to communicate my ideas. It is also a great way to get instant feedback on your most out there ideas.
What I would add to this is that it is even more powerful to teach to those outside of your usual zones. For me this week I taught interaction design to high school students.
1) you so have to loose the jargon
2) you have to be clear in a whole new way. You can’t presume any pre-knowledge on the topic
3) you need to find new ways to make the material engaging or otherwise alive. This means learning new metaphors or references.
I have taught internationally, to different market segments and now to different age groups. The more you go outside your range the more you really have to push yourself as a teacher and your ideas that you are teaching.
Get out there and TEACH!
we started out caring about the behavior of the things we create.
we moved towards caring about fitting the behavior of the people we create things for.
now …
We need to design the behavior of things, so they fit the behavior of people, in order to change their behavior.
So the speaker list
has finally been announced for Geekend 2009 in Savannah, GA at the Hyatt Regency, November 6-8.
This is a great event meant to bring together folks from tech, biz and design of software, games and web.
I’m doing a custom rapid fire version of my Sketching workshop with some fun twists and turns for this particular type of hybrid crowd. Should be like raging fun!
Sign up today as it is a pretty great deal for a weekend conference and a great excuse to come to Savannah during a wonderful time of the year. You’ll be feeling a bit of the nip up north by early November and Savannah will still be nice and warm!
Here’s the place to go to find out all you need to know:
http://geekend2009.com/ or just jump straight to the facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/geekend
I first saw that there was a new issue of interactions (the magazine of ACM/SIGCHI) when @jkolko announced it. Right away I clicked on over to the site enticed by the mention of a piece about Education in NYC. Ya see I know big things are happening in NYC with the new SVA MFA in Interaction Design (@svaixd) chaired by @bobulate with co-leadership by an amazing designer, thinker and educator Stephen Heller.
When I arrived at the site, I was dismayed to find that a large portion of the articles were held for ransom by ACM, including the one I wanted to read. “Oh well!” I thought. I guess I’ll try to hit up a friend who is an ACM member or drag my ass down to the Jen Library (“Oh! I work for a university that buys magazines!!!”) here at SCAD (@scaddotedu) [Yes, it is sad that someone got @scad. Poaching Twitter IDs seems to be the new big game.]
In the meantime I was saddled with reading the abstract. I’m going to quote it here:
New York City has long ranked as one of the world’s design capitals, but the city’s interaction design community has been slow to find its feet here. Historically, user interface designers first flourished in the cubicle farms of the Bay Area, while many industrial designers plied their trade in the product foundries of the Midwest. Meanwhile, Manhattan designers traditionally worked in the city’s dominant media and advertising industries, with their inevitable bias toward print and motion graphics.
From “Old School, New School: Teaching Interaction Design In Manhattan” by Alex Wright in interactions XVI.5 – September / October, 2009
I have to admit that that abstract set me off already, and so I knew I wasn’t going to make it the Library I queried every other day or so a Tweeter friend of mine or another person urgently wanting to read this piece. But what got my underwear so tightly pulled up my butt in a wedgie anyway?
So, I persevered until I could get my hands on the article itself. Didn’t want to judge the book by the cover. Finally from 3000 miles away (depending on where my well-traveled friend @steveportigal is this week) I got it via scan of the physical copy in my inbox on my iPhone. I read it right away. I mean its only 4 pages so it didn’t take that long.
Some 3-5 hours later, this poured from my twitter stream (be sure to start from the bottom):
My twitter stream using Tweetie on my Mac
So about an hour later, I am here writing this for you all. I feel like there are a lot of holes in my short pokes and so it does neither myself nor Alex any good to just leave that lying there. So here is what I’m trying to get at. …
Since most won’t be able to read the piece, here is my very biased summary.
And now that we are all caught up … here we go.
I’m actually going to start at the end, because it is the ending with the Pratt program that probably still has me so fired up. A visual design + LS program is not the same as an IxD program. It’s not. Yes, there will be some overlap classes, but beyond philosphy the goals, methods and overall practice is like saying that becoming a chiropractor is like going to med school. “Well they both learn anatomy, right?”
And this is the start of my problem with this piece. (and my problem with much of the UX community in general). Alex, whom I know is very well educated in IA and IxD and has a tremendous vitae to show he knows how to do it all, isn’t being careful. At best we can forgive the lack of fidelity or accuracy because the User Experience community has been too lenient and given us all way too much space to do the equivalent of saying a tree is the same as the forest it lives in (or visa versa).
I was a bit bummed about this b/c a) he didn’t acknowledge that Pratt’s been in the LS game for quite some time; b) the HUGE real missed opportunity at Pratt which is to have an ID/IxD program; c) calling that LS/VD program even slightly the same as ITP, Parsons or SVA a HUGE stretch. iSchool is NOT IxD School. Overlap is not the same as equation. If that is the case then NYU has another program in multimedia and another in HCI. Then there is Columbia’s HCI program, and actually SVA has had a computer arts program for the longest time. And FIT has an interactive design program as well.
But let’s go back to my rant on Twitter. In it I compare NYU/ITP to the Royal College of Art (in London) Designing Interactions program. I claim that here is a meaty comparison to explore. Both are very committed to allowing for creative freedom. However, every canvas has some implied boundary, and every institution has more than in implied philosophy.
NYU/ITP is an amazing program. I am not here to dismiss or discredit the amazing education and I’d even say research in the area of digital art & design that has and continues to take place there. But I know too many who have taken my previous attempts at defining out of “my” sandbox to mean that they don’t have my respect and that is just not true. If I correct you and say that your puppy is a lab instead of a golden retriever, it doesn’t mean there is a change in value or appreciation. Just an understanding of its properties in relationship to other puppies. Same here.
Now, ITP and RCA as noted are both what I would called schools that promote expression and exploration over pragmaticism and direct business practice. But they also differ greatly on what it is they explore. ITP’s focus (not exclusion, but focus) is on the medium. What is “interactivity”; how do we create it; what in the form makes something interactive? It is a class in art & expressionist design; Truly a fine art degree. RCA’s focus is on interactions. These for one are not limited to the digital (and thus interactive) but can include human to human interactions. When we talk about interactions vs. interactivity, what we are distinguishing is which side of the relationship are we going to look at. Study and exploration in interactions is a study in humanities and social science (the other one in art & engineering).
It is THIS dichotomy and by which I mean continuum, that is so much more important than expression vs. practicality. The latter is the personal pre-disposition of the teacher & student. The former is a philosophical debate on where “the answer” lies and what is the meaning and definition of interaction design.
This is why I am upset with Alex’s piece, b/c it so wildly and broadly paints the IxD stroke of paint, that it falls apart due to its lack of inclusion of the many other programs that would have to fit in that same stroke. Further in a magazine like interactions I would have expected something better, stronger and more targeted. Alex’s piece belonged in his own publication the New York Times or Crains (the local business weekly), but not in interactions.
Of course, it begs further the question, why in a magazine who’s chief subscriber based is NOT in the design & art school arena would someone write an article that solely focuses on that arena? Further, how can we talk about these institutions as being educators of IxD and not compare them to more academic and pure HCI programs who also claim to teach this? Lastly, why NYC in an international magazine? Talking about IxD education “styles” so to speak, and not talk about Europe (RCA, CIID, Umea, Malmo, Delft, Einhoven, Utrecht, Pottsdamn, Domus, etc.[and there are many many more]) is to not understand the real depth of IxD EDU.
So yes, as someone deeply engaged in IxD EDU here at SCAD (undergrad only), but with an Interactive Design program that is quite different (but amazing in its own right) just across the street I found this piece to be more an excuse to mention a new program in NYC but to find a way to fairly place it in a greater context, than to really explore the dynamics of IxD EDU.
After a debate on the IxDA list, I feel pushed to make this inquiry: (was going to tweet but way too long)
This might sound a bit off-putting, but I’m feeling desperate. Can someone please show me a Goal Directed Design or Contextual Inquiry project (any formal UCD methodology) that has had the same impact as the following products: Amazon, iPhone/iPod/MacOSX, Windows, NetFlix, TiVo, eBay, Craigslist, Google, WikiPedia, Facebook, etc.
Doing usability tests is not enough. I want to see an entire methodology from concept to deployment. If it is just an off research study or usability testing then it is just about philosophy & tool kits and not methodology.
I really hope there is something out there. Leave your comments here please.
(I started this post over 3 months ago and finished it today. Sorry if it feels a tad disjointed, but I still like it. Hopefully you will gain some inspiration and motivation by it.)
In 2008 I had the pleasure of co-chairing the first Interaction Design Association (IxDA) conference, Interaction 08 | Savannah. My partner in crime, Dan Saffer, provided a tapestry weaved through his vision of what would make a great program for the interaction design community, and I had a shared vision of what the conference experience should/needs to be.
There were many success criteria that anyone sets for themselves but the overwhelming response (and associated almost 200 person waiting list) of Interaction 08 were the pre-success factors that led to more important ones later, such as rave reviews and well the number of returnees to this year’s, now 2nd annual, conference, Interaction 09 | Vancouver.
The new chairperson, Greg Petroff, under new constraints led a tremendous team of volunteers to create an even better event than its predecessor. Greg, followed much of the same parameters of programming that Dan set up, with is own unique twists, and he had a different city with different challenges & opportunities that he was able to use to his advantage to create a great total experience.
As the logistician, in my organizing of the 1st conference, I was convinced that the logistics made the event, and I was totally wrong. They frame the event, but they don’t make the event. What makes the event are the people. Hands down, this year had an energy and a sense of community that last year did not. The critical mass of Twitter & Facebook had an undeniable effect on how people not only communicated, but also related to one another before, during and now even afterwards.
People talk about the “summer camp” atmosphere of the conference, but not in a bad cliquy way. Why? Because anyone and everyone can have instant entre into the world of the camp itself. There is an almost zero barrier to entering the world of Twitter and following being such a passive act with little obtrusion to those you are following, means you can connect anonymously and assert yourself on your own terms.
But the conference was not Twitter by any means. The other piece that people brought into the conference is their voice. The voice of the conference was everywhere. The true desire to use our skills and talents towards improving the human condition was infused throughout the conference. This wasn’t by design, except to say the design was to let the natural voice of the community find itself. It came through the organic conversation between speakers and attendees and sometimes between speaker and speaker.
Being at the center of it all, I often wonder if I’m just kidding myself. Is this feeling just for me? Did all 450 or so people at the Four Seasons & Fairmont in Vancouver have any semblance of the same experience? (Please let me know if you didn’t.) I am constantly challenging this, so I don’t get too myopic in my world view.
What I hear though is that many, and I would argue most of the people I met (many of whom for the 1st time physically or virtually) had some level of contentment and connection to what was created in this gathering.
But back to the voices and what they were saying and how they were saying it. Despite the many technical difficulties the one recurring thought I have when I think about this year versus last year is that we all from keynote to lightning round speaker to hallway conversationalist matured. Our tones, our topics, our means of connecting with one another have all gotten more professional, more intelligent, more thoughtful, and more human.
The other piece of the conference that was there for me, was a sense of positivism. Not necessarily optimism, but positivism. What’s the difference? Well to me, one can still have a sense of the negative nature of the world we live in, but still feel as though they can have a positive effect towards changing it. Obviously, the sustainability folks (talked about on many other forums) have put out their call to arms to help save the world, but Dan Saffer & Kim Goodwin put out in my mind an equally important call to arms–BE DESIGNERS!
Dan Saffer’s presentation did a great job of invigorating the audience about what is at the core of what we DO and to get out there and just DO IT! Kim’s was more reflective and urged us to understand the connections between us as people/practioners as human beings, and to take on the challenges of our practice, especially the one of education.
As the next Interaction conference looms, back to Savannah, where I now call home and hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design, which I now call employer, I see something even more new beginning to grow. A next step for the interaction design community and the user experience community as a whole.
1. The frame we are creating for Interaction 10 | Savannah is going to be completely different. The new co-chairs, Bill Derouchey and Jennifer Bove (@billder & @jlb), have been listening, but also exploring the possibilities of what we haven’t thought of before. They are designing with the help of a great team a new type of conference. One that the UX community has not seen before.
2. SCAD is working harder to make sure the logistics are even that much better than before. We have more venues (none are hotels, except for the pre-conf workshops) that really bring out the spirit of both SCAD and historical Savannah. Two venues date back to the 1700′s.
3. But this isn’t about history, but more about inspiration. This event will have new voices emerge (or old voices using new tones) that include student contests, interactive art exhibition and film documentaries.
4. Don’t just listen, but get active, engage, do. The pre-conferences aren’t going to be the only place to engage in dialog, or work with your hands. There will be inspirational talking heads, but there will also be discussions and activities to participate in both days of the conference.
There are a few things from the ’08 conference to continue to look forward to. Odds are the weather will be better than Vancouver (we have a 67% chance of better than north of Dixie weather in Feb in Savannah). And most importantly we are planning on bringing back our old caterer for a couple of the parties. Our event at Interaction 08 | Savannah won our caterer accolades in the press all around the Southeast. So she’ll be coming back.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, there is the most important thing again–the voices. There is no better voice to bring to Interaction 10 | Savannah than your own. So bring it. Make a submission of the various types of presentation and leading opportunities and rise up in chorus with the many others who will be presenting and leading this coming February.
I’d love it if peeps would leave a comment if they have even the slightest inkling that they’d like to lead something at Interaction 10 | Savannah. But more importantly go to http://interaction.ixda.org/ and submit your abstract(s) for consideration.
See ya there! (I mean here! I live here now!)
Yesterday, I decided after reading @fabwteets amazing links come across my timeline for about 2 weeks now, to do the same.
I have connected my Shared Articles RSS feed to Twitterfeed.com. So now whenever I share something in Google Reader, that individual post will have the title and the link reference posted to Twitter with the tag #dLink.
I share articles mostly about interaction design and all that is tangentially relevant to that topic. But sometimes there is more fun stuff, especially now you can share stuff that isn’t in your feed in Google Reader (stuff you just find, like from other’s tweets). So instead of just a retweet, I can do a retweet AND a google share.
So if you don’t already, you can find me & then follow me on twitter at this ID: @daveixd
If you don’t twitter (like you only ‘Facebook) I’m going to have an upcoming piece about why I Tweet more than Facebook and a little tutorial on what twitter is and how to own it without it owning you.
I’m excited when I look at work like that being done by these students. THIS is the work I want to be associated with. Practical and ground breaking and aesthetic. Visual, tactile and more. I’m sure other schools like CIID and Malmo are doing this type of work, but I want to take this moment to give kudos & congratulations to the work by these masters students in IxD. Congrats!!
With the currently running Design Challenge by Mozilla (Partnered with IxDA & JohnnyHolland) about Tabs I thought I’d share a core concept in doing design work. What are the latent design criteria not expressed in the request?
It is so important to understand this core component of design. It is an element that in my mind best defines how design differentiates itself from other creative endeavors. That is when listening to a request, the designer’s first goal is to ignore the direct meaning of the request and dissect its parts to understand the real problem(s) that need to be solved.
So the classic example stated in the design community is when asked to design a bridge, the designer goes back to design the best way to get from point A to point B. [I know this sentiment can be attributed to a single individual, but I can't find the reference.]
We must always remember that as designers, we don’t design for the manifest problems, but for the real problems. To put it another way, the client says they may want the text bigger, but what they are really saying is that they want the text more readable.
And bringing this back to the Mozilla Design Challenge: don’t re-design tabs, but rather figure out what tabs solves and make THAT better.
John Maeda the president of the Rhode Island School of Design is doing an experiment on Twitter. He is looking for design hybrids. It’s a great idea and is totally in the spirit of many of the conversations I’ve been trying to lead around the realities of design and the changing nature of design practice.
Well of course I have to add a link pointer to my latest piece on JohnnyHolland.org.
The piece is a teaser for the presentation I’ll be giving in Malmö, Sweden this coming June at the From Business to Buttons conference.
This is an amazingly well done detailed video/animated history of the technology that makes up today’s Internet. Very COOL!!!
Thanx (@flytip)