Things I learned from IXDA 2017
Strategies and new ideas for creating better user experiences
A convergence of designers, researchers and creatives met together to share new ideas on the product and practice of interaction design in New York City.
Here some things I learned along the way:
How design can influence power
Chelsea Mauldin — director of Public Policy Lab, on the role of designers can strategically empower users
See users as owners — difference between end users and people affected by system
Stretch your scope — looking at the entire user journey, incorporating the experience of the many stakeholders
Name the body — humanize the work; as our work is more abstract, digital and virtual it’s easy to sidestep complications of human interactions
Simplify VR environments for better comprehension
Gary Hustwit — an independent filmmaker, best known for his films Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized, on exploring cinematic VR
- Increasing visual complexity lead to lowered retention rates
- The storyteller must balance showing and telling — using a simplified environment to help the user focus on the story line
- There are still many more explorations to be made in this space, even just shifting the audience’s POV can be used in storytelling
Creating a conversational UI that also feels human
Elena Ontiveros — content strategist at Facebook Messenger, on best practices for content strategy for your bot
- Set expectations — communicate your key functionality early on and the medium your bot is in
- Provide context — provide guidance for what’s being asked and what will happen next
- Create engagement — find ways to keep your interactions human through variety or humor, show personality thoughtfully
Gartner’s Pace-Layered Application Strategy
Mayo Nissen — associate creative director at Frog, on pace layering approach to viewing change
- Stewart Brand’s concept of Shearing layer of change — how there are varying paces of change in buildings over time
The layers described in decreasing order of life range (aka pace of change)
- Site
- Structure
- Skin
- Services
- Space plan
- Stuff
- The concept has been used to describe the varying paces of change in systems within organizations in IT, web design etc.
- In the context of development, while the outer “stuff” may change constantly, we must evaluate underlying strategy to improve over time
The importance of technological progress with ethical accompaniment
Cennydd Bowles —a product designer and writer, on ethics in AI
- We tend to hold onto a neutrality fallacy, believing tech to be neutral instruments that simply fulfill tasks
- Though AI promises productivity and reliability, it does nevertheless inherit bias from training data and algorithms
- While designers tend to value seamless and “invisible” experiences, there may be instances where we want to purposefully show complexities and the nature of interactions on the user’s behalf
