–Engage

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.” - Steve Jobs

An open letter to the IxDA community

The Interaction Design Association of today is not the IxDG or even InteractionDesigners.com of yesteryear. The organization has grown faster than the rising stock of Apple over the the short 7 years since Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini made his call to action that gave conception to this organization. This is my ...

Mark Baskinger talks about drawing as an Interaction Designer

Found this great interview done by @JohnnyHolland of Mark Baskinger, Professor of Industrial Design & Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He talks beautiful about drawing and what value it gives the designer. Can't wait to reference this as part of my "secret sauce" workshop @UxLx next month in Lisbon. Check ...

It will come … well, maybe

Finally got 2 seconds on my friend's iPad today. Can't walk into Best Buy because I don't trust myself. I played with it for maybe 5min tops and a lot of that time was with my little boy tuggin' at my sleeve saying, "What's this?" So this is by no ...

Why people who favor open systems are at a disadvantage?

It's not even an insurmountable disadvantage. Just a disadvantage. I go back and forth with my appreciation for and my disfavor of open systems. I believe that everyone has taken sides in the world. You either believe in government or you don't. That is to say, you believe that agencies can ...

Game-Changers Are Usually Imperfect

I came across a piece about the iPad from @petterihilsila, entitled Game-Changers Are Usually Imperfect. Normally, I wouldn't post something just about the iPad, but I think this piece highlights for me the importance of platform design over component design in products and services (especially where they are combined). Before Saturday, when ...

Meaning: Semiotics

In my last piece, I discussed an important part of design education which is lessons in humanities especially rhetoric and comparative literature. I discussed the importance of frames as well as narrative. But it doesn't end there. These concepts--frames and narrative--are just tools for something bigger, which is meaning. As human ...

Design is for humans and so we learn the humanities

[Continuing my series on design education] I feel blessed to have come to design in a serpentine path. I came to be a designer after being an anthropologist. Not only did I get the obvious dose of social sciences like anthropology, sociology and psychology, but I got a strong does of ...

Art: A cornerstone of design education

Continuing what is now becoming a series I want to talk about the importance of Art and add a well rounded Art education inclusive of fine arts, art history and art criticism as part of any solid design education. 15. Art: Expression, craft, context & criticism Design's history comes from the arts. ...

Why It’s Not Damning to Define the Thing

This was originally published by ACM Interactions magazine in their May-June, 2013 Edition as part of their Confessions column. I re-print it here with their permission as columns like these are not made available to the public as a whole. Thank you ACM for allowing me to do this. Why It's ...

Coordination vs. Collaboration

Recently I've been made aware of different ways of thinking about "collaboration". It kinda took me for surprise be specially given the geo-social contexts, but there is no ignoring it. What I learned as two completely different activities some use the same word for or more correctly use the term ...

Report from Up to All Of Us

I'm currently on a plane heading back home after a short weekend with a group of mostly instructional designers who are at a new type of unconference (something I've never experienced before). It felt more like a retreat than a conference due to the setting and the style of interaction ...
December 12th 2012
Tags: education, general thoughts One Comment

As Corona says, “Change your Latitude [Longitude]” – Travel is awesome.

Today I sparked a bit of a conversation after I tweeted: Everyone who is creative should move every 5-10 years; to minimally find a way to live somewhere else for a yr (sabbatical). http://twitter.com/daveixd/status/278919010391826432 Why do I put such importance on travel? What value does it give a creative person? And to the ...

Today Johnny Holland says Goodbye and I am sad & grateful

Today Johnny Holland, the amazing Interaction Design online magazine says goodbye. This news makes me feel both sad and grateful. Johnny Holland (JH) has been a rare place that allowed me to include my voice where other magazines rejected the types of topics I was interested in discussing: esoteric, foundational, semantic, ...

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