IxD14 London Redux
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The document discusses the interplay between art and science in design, highlighting various speaker insights from the Interactions14 conference. Key themes include the importance of understanding language, the need for designers to be educated, the balance of qualitative and quantitative metrics in goal setting, and the role of mindfulness in enhancing empathy among UX designers. Ultimately, it argues that effective design requires a combination of artistic creativity and scientific rigor.
IxD14 London Redux
- 1. TH IXD14 LONDON REDUX ART vs SCIENCE Jake Causby @jakecausby E A NN OT VE AT RS ION ED
- 2. REPETITION OF TWO WORDS The use of the words ART and SCIENCE were prolific at Interactions14, more so than any other design ART & ! SCIENCE conference I’ve been to. ! Sometimes they were used independently of each other, and sometimes they were used together in an attempt to indicate some sort of balance. ! Here are some examples…
- 3. BERNARD LAHOUSSE FOOD = INTERACTION Bernard spoke of the science behind flavours, and how different foods that contain the same or similar molecule, despite possibly having very different flavours, can be combined and work well because of their molecular similarities.
- 4. BERNARD LAHOUSSE FOOD = INTERACTION Eg: Almond, figs, pears, cherries and chocolate all have the benzaldehyde molecule, making them go well together.
- 5. BERNARD LAHOUSSE FOOD = INTERACTION He also spoke of the psychology of taste, and how our other senses affect taste. Touching something smooth and fluffy can actually make things taste sweeter. Seafood tastes better near the sea, where we can hear the waves and smell the sea breeze. Colours can give us pre-determined assumptions about what flavours a food will have, causing disturbance if they don’t match. ! Bernard also spoke about the art of gastronomy, and how the science helps support that art. PHOTO: @MJBROADBENT
- 6. KLAUS KRIPPENDORFF L A N G U A G I N G R E A L I T Y, D I A L O G U E A N D I N T E R A C T I O N Klaus gave us an insight into the science of trying to define and understand language. ! He said the importance of language is the difference between thinking and acting. ! Language itself is not the outcome of thought, the outcome is what comes about after the language occurs. ! The responses to language is what creates reality.
- 7. KLAUS KRIPPENDORFF L A N G U A G I N G R E A L I T Y, D I A L O G U E A N D I N T E R A C T I O N He was saying that we need to methodologically approach design, but we cannot treat it as a natural science discourse for various reasons. Klaus struggled to fit his talk into 40 minutes, I don’t know why am I trying to fit it into 30 seconds! PHOTO: IXDA
- 8. DAN ROSENBERG THE DE-INTELLECTUALIZATION OF DESIGN Dan Rosenberg highlighted the fact that there is a great deal of “design” scientific knowledge that is being largely ignored by most designers. ! He argues that it’s not consumer design versus enterprise design, but rather product design versus solutions design, where product design is incremental and something that can be released early and iterated on versus…
- 9. DAN ROSENBERG THE DE-INTELLECTUALIZATION OF DESIGN …Solutions design which is something that could be dangerous or life-threatening and really needs to be designed backwards from the end goal. ! He argues (contentiously) that designers should be much more educated and even certified to practice that type of design.
- 10. CHRISTINA WODTKE T H E E X E C U T I O N E R ’ S TA L E Christina introduced the concept of OKRs, the process of defining desired Outcomes and measuring Key Results. ! Outcomes are qualitative and the Key Results are quantitative and must be time-bound and measurable.
- 11. CHRISTINA WODTKE T H E E X E C U T I O N E R ’ S TA L E Christina makes note of the fact that setting up and maintaining OKRs requires a combination of art and science to pull off well.
- 12. STEPHANIE AKKAOUI HUGHES HUMAN INTERACTIONS: PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL Stephanie Akkaoui Hughes spoke of how her architecture firm fly in the face of a traditional architecture approach, focusing on creating spaces that foster interactions instead of trying to design the interactions themselves.
- 13. STEPHANIE AKKAOUI HUGHES HUMAN INTERACTIONS: PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL I love her analogy of space being a living interface; something you can evolve after the space starts to be used. To design this context for interactions it has to be… INCOMPLETE IMPERMANENT IMPERFECT
- 14. GILES COLBORNE THE LOST ART OF EFFICIENCY IN INTERACTION DESIGN Giles Colborne gave us a refresher on GOMs theory: The scientific calculations of the average time it takes to complete individual elements of a user process flow.
- 15. GILES COLBORNE THE LOST ART OF EFFICIENCY IN INTERACTION DESIGN Lots of tiny improvements in interaction time can make an incredible difference. ! But sometimes it makes sense to actually increase the time if users expect it. ! Eg: the Coinstar example where people actually trusted the machine more when it appeared to take longer to count the coins because they thought it was doing a more thorough job.
- 16. IRENE AU BODY LANGUAGES OF INTERACTION DESIGN Irene Au highlighted the art of mindfulness, and how yoga and meditation can help achieve it. A major trait of great UX designers is undoubtably empathy. Mindfulness increases one’s ability to be empathic. ! She said true empathy goes beyond observation and synthesisation.
- 17. IRENE AU BODY LANGUAGES OF INTERACTION DESIGN At one point she had the whole room doing yoga. ! She said other added benefits of mindfulness include the ability to be focussed, playful and be without fear when expressing thoughts and ideas. PHOTO: IXDA
- 18. P E T E R B I L’ A K TYPOGRAPHY AT THE INTERSECTION OF DESIGN, TECHNOLOGIES AND LANGUAGES Peter Bil’ak talked about the art and science of typography. ! Designing a great typeface requires a deep understanding of language, technology and design…
- 19. P E T E R B I L’ A K TYPOGRAPHY AT THE INTERSECTION OF DESIGN, TECHNOLOGIES AND LANGUAGES But he notes the process is not complete until its been used, adapted and applied. ! He created this cool app History Remixer that allows you to choose your own weights, accents, colours, etc, effectively creating thousands of possibilities. ! I played with it for a couple of minutes to do this. typotheque.com/fonts/history/remixer
- 20. P E T E R B I L’ A K TYPOGRAPHY AT THE INTERSECTION OF DESIGN, TECHNOLOGIES AND LANGUAGES Here’s a great example of typography on this poster designed by Frank Chimero.
- 21. A N T O N I O D E PA S Q U A L E DESIGN IN MOTION: THE NEW FRONTIER OF INTERACTION Antonio de Pasquale revealed the science behind Disney’s 12 rules of animation.
- 22. A N T O N I O D E PA S Q U A L E DESIGN IN MOTION: THE NEW FRONTIER OF INTERACTION He has devised a new motion taxonomy which divide different categories of UI transitions into 4 quadrants on 2 axis: passive and active on one scale and time and space on the other. PHOTO: IXDA
- 23. A N T O N I O D E PA S Q U A L E DESIGN IN MOTION: THE NEW FRONTIER OF INTERACTION He then gives us examples of how you can map signature interactions onto this matrix and says we can use it to help devise our own signature interactions. PHOTO: IXDA
- 24. JASON MESUT B R I D G I N G T H E P H Y S I C A L - D I G I TA L D I V I D E Some guy called Jason Mesut spoke brilliantly about the divide between industrial and interaction design. ! It had a lot of venn diagrams in it so I can only conclude that it must have been very scientific… PHOTO: IXDA
- 25. S O W H AT C A N W E TA K E FROM THIS?
- 26. I S D E S I G N M O R E O F A N A R T, OR MORE OF A SCIENCE?
- 27. LET’S REFLECT ON HOW W E O P E R AT E D AY T O D AY • How much gut feel do we use? • Is this based on experiences of successes and failures? • How much do we rely on data and research when making decisions? • Do we really understand our users’ behaviour or do we just think we do?
- 28. Maybe we look a bit more towards SCIENCE to… Maybe we look a bit more towards ART for… SCIENCE ART • • • DEFINE U N D E R S TA N D GAIN INSIGHTS ? • • I N S P I R AT I O N POSSIBILITIES OF EXECUTION LET’S ASK THESE SAME PEOPLE…
- 29. BERNARD LAHOUSSE Like a painter if you know the chemistry and physics of making colors and mixing, rules of composition you have the potential of becoming a better painter, but it doesn’t mean that you will make the best art. PHOTO SOURCE: IXDA WEBSITE
- 30. DAN ROSENBERG PHOTO SOURCE: IXDA WEBSITE There is no one size fits all… Both are needed and the balance is often contextual to the problem you are trying solve. I also think there is a third dimension which is the craft of UX execution.
- 31. STEPHANIE AKKAOUI HUGHES PHOTO SOURCE: IXDA WEBSITE For me, Science and Art are equivalent to Flow and Beauty. Flow and Function are the ones driving the creative process, but if the result is not beautiful, then it is not functional either.
- 32. IRENE AU PHOTO SOURCE: IXDA WEBSITE The question isn't “is design science or is it art?” but “design is both a science AND an art, so how can we all get better at integrating the two?… how to get better at integrating the analytical and creative minds so that we switch between the two modes of thinking more effectively in order to create the best outcome.
- 33. CHRISTINA WODTKE PHOTO SOURCE: IXDA WEBSITE When people say art and science they usually mean it will take gut instinct and personal experience as well as data, research and logic. OKRs are powerful because they speak to us as humans with dreams as well as watching the bottom line.
- 34. GILES COLBORNE PHOTO SOURCE: IXDA WEBSITE The common idea that science is not a creative field is utter bollocks — thinking entirely new thoughts is clearly a creative activity. To be a rounded person, you should never assume that it is “versus”. You should always seek to be a complete human.
- 35. KLAUS KRIPPENDORFF If art is painting, sculpture, and poetry, there is hardly any overlap with science. The sciences develop theories of the world, art expresses the ideas and feelings of individual artists. PHOTO SOURCE: IXDA WEBSITE Design is an undiscipline, one that should be able to question anything and be allowed to try everything. — “Design Research, an Oxymoron?” (paper)
- 36. DAVE MALOUF Design is both art and science and that is what makes it great T H E N A L I T T L E L AT E R S A I D … PHOTO SOURCE: PHOTO SOURCE: I XA VA ’W E B S II T T E R A V ATA R D D E S TW TE – If art is like masterbation – Then interaction design is like sex – And service design is like prostitution
- 38. WELL WE WERE JUST A STONES-THROW FROM AMSTERDAM’S RED LIGHT DISTRICT! PHOTO: FLICKR.COM/WEESEN
- 39. I THINK IT’S LESS ABOUT THIS ART SCIENCE AND WHERE YOU WANT TO BE, O R T H I N K D E S I G N S H O U L D B E O N T H AT S C A L E
- 40. AND MORE ABOUT THIS BETTER GOOD WEAK INTUITION SKILLS THEORY SKILLS WHERE THEY ARE INDIVIDUAL SKILLS AND THE SCALE IS PROFICIENCY
- 41. AND IT DOESN’T STOP THERE WRITING SKILLS O B S E R VA T I O N SKILLS LISTENING SKILLS ETC ETC NEGOTIATION SKILLS ETC RETENTION SKILLS
- 42. W E A L L U S E A C O M B I N AT I O N O F ALL OUR SKILLS WHEN MAKING ANY DECISION. ! THEY SHOULD ALL BE SHARPENED HAND-IN-HAND TO MAKE US M O R E A D E P T AT O U R C R A F T.
- 43. IT’S ART IT’S SCIENCE IT’S A BUNCH OF OTHER THINGS TOO, AND IT’S FUN!
- 44. IXD14 LONDON REDUX THANKS Jake Causby @jakecausby SPECIAL THANKS TO • IRENE AU BERNARD LAHOUSSE CHRISTINA WODTKE GILES COLBORNE KLAUS KRIPPENDORFF DANIEL ROSENBERG P E T E R B I L’ A K STEPHANIE AKKAOUI HUGHES D AV E M A L O U F