So, panels are always my favorite part of any conference--especially when I get to play Charlie Rose. In this case I was fortunate because we were able to have Valerie Case of Frog Design join us for a conversation on the business value of user experience. Also joining us was Beau Amber of Metaliq (creator of the now or soon to be ubiquitous Burton GPS demo). I predict we'll all be capturing telemetry on ourselves in a few years as a new hobby BTW.
There's a podcast of this session floating around and I'll be updating this post to link to it but we learned a couple of key things in this session. Your impression of the session will probably vary depending on what you do. First, I think there is a disconnect between what we all consider design. Some people consider design in terms of style and richness, with the implied connotation that this is always better or the right choice. Or perhaps a more accurate way to convey this is that sometimes the craft of creating a style and sense of richness is as far as the act of design is taken. You see this alot with new technology because you are showing of capabilities. I'd characterize this as visually compelling but not deep.
I think Valerie's perspective, and my own, is that design goes much farther than that. There are phases in our process that involve observation and collection of insight that in turn fuels choices and helps us identify opportunity. This is a conversation that warrants more space than I'm going to give it here but I'll revisit once the podcast is up. Simply stated, much of the conversation about design that is coming out of Microsoft is focused more on the craft than the process and I suspect that this is what is making alot of folks in the design community feel uncomfortable. But perhaps more worrisome is that it DOESN'T make alot of folks uncomfortable or that folks aren't seeing this.
I'm reminded of this when I read Antoine Valot's post about his experience at Expression Session 07 where he states...
"I hope the old Microsoft realizes, soon, that It will take more than words, more than pretty graphics, to really get it. It will take a radical change in thinking, a major transformation. And Microsoft’s developer communities, its business and enterprise customer base, and its very own engineers, will likely all have to be brought into the change kicking and screaming."
I'll be doing two more panels where we tackle this same subject. I expect in Chicago that we'll be a little more nuts and bolts and focus on pragmatic choices we make about design and technology to run an actual design business. I expect in the New York Panel that will delve a little more into how branding and customer culture comes into this process.
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