Boxes and Arrows Podcast

Experience design is evolving in both discipline and practice as more people communicate and engage with media.

Elliotte covers several projects in this presentation including Eruv, a symbolic boundary erected around Jewish neighborhoods as part of the observation of the Sabbath completed in Lower Manhattan and New York city. Elliott also talks about the research into the life of his great-grandfather, which led to his concept for Graffiti for Butterflies, a technique for using ultraviolet light and street art to direct Monarch butterflies to food sources in urban areas.

We live in a world where the little things really do matter. Each encounter no matter how brief is a micro-interaction that makes a deposit or withdrawal from our rational and emotional subconscious. The sum of these interactions and encounters adds up to how we feel about a particular product, brand, or service. Little things. Feelings. They influence our everyday behaviors more than we realize.

They talk about the importance of the semantic differences around common issues in business like ROI from a design perspective, as well as the necessity to look beyond the “all mighty dollar” acknowledging the importance of being passionate about your ideas, knowing ultimately all team members want to create great products and services for other people. Don shares his insights about the presentation given by Jensen Harris from Microsoft at UX Week around the usability of the Ribbon in the latest version of MS Office as well as the exciting future that lies ahead for all in the UX field.

We talk about the video biographies of other team members at Adaptive Path and how all started out from humble beginnings – some in fields that had little to do with what we think about today as traditional UX projects – and how those experiences have helped in building great products and services. Leah outlines 5 tips she presented to attendees at the conference about how those involved in User Experience project can better engage those within the business about the value of such work.

They discuss various aspects of Kevin’s presentation including the importance of structure and patters to guide creative endeavors including the critical aspect of listening when striving to be a remarkable storyteller within your own organization. Kim shares her personal experience in attending art school and how the criticism of her art in school has helped her gain the confidence necessary to be a successful Interaction Designer, today.

We discuss the elegant way in which mental models can provide a visual representation of these behaviors including the supporting elements that foster the likely repetition of any action. Indi also talks briefly about her book from Rosenfeld media, “Mental Models – Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior” and how this publication can help others in the creation of these visual tools.

We explore the six key elements outlined during their presentation about what it takes to design services that keep people coming back for more. We probe into the dynamics of service design from real-world examples of business that provide unique experiences including a shoe company that will actually order a pizza for their clients as well as order products from competitor sites in order to keep their customers satisfied.

Jennifer and Ben outline why people get excited about intangible services in the same way they lust after the latest shiny toy that just came out on the market.

We talk about Cynergy’s awarding winning application “ben” at the PhizzPop competition – a National Design and Development Challenge sponsored by Microsoft. “ben” is a series of interconnected, cross-platform applications that leverage the power of Microsoft Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation, Live Services, Twitter, VoIP technologies.

In this conversation we talk about how Current got started, the power of the community in generating content for Current News, and how the Internet is allowing users to create ads for companies that could very well change the way marketing approaches innovative solutions for their customers.