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On October 25, I helped the IxDA NYC group put together an event we called “IxDA Studio”. The concept of the event was to bring together experts/design masters working directly with a group of design professionals in a studio/crit setting (like back in design school!). We wanted a place to design together outside of work and  to learn new ways of approaching problems from our peers as well as from seasoned design masters. We found ourselves 2 masters to help us: Josh Seiden, Design Manager at Liquidnet and Ted Booth, Interaction Design Director at Smart Design.

This is how our night went:

6:00 PM people arrive, eat pizza and chat.

6:15 PM - Josh and Ted gave the team the design challenge and brief (design a resource center for the IxDA site).

6:30 PM - Teams of 3 designers went to their own corners to tackle the problem. They were asked to spend an hour in groups of 3 designing. The deliverable we asked for at the crit is a concept statement with some sketches that shows the concept.

7:30 PM – we gathered together for a crit. Each team had 10 minutes to present the concept and receive feedback from the mentors - five minutes each.

So what happens when you put 30 interaction designers in a room, some pens, paper, and a design challenge? Some of them come up with concepts they describe as “semi-permeable membranes”. Those with an engineering edge will give you patentable technologies like “the magic filter”. Some complete and well thought out web solutions; intriguing concepts that challenge the definition of this thing we call a "site”; and what happens when Yelp meets Kayak with a dash of fluidity?  You also get a lot of laughter and a lot of useful learning experiences we can bring back to work. Basically a lot of fun and magic happens in three hours.

Let's take a look at collaborative dynamics of these groups in action, their presentation and what happened at the crit.

Team 1: Faith, Bianca and Kate gave us a very strong start for the crit with really great thinking and creativity. Their design concepts were inspired by a set of design attributes driven off of the client's brand identity - turning constraints into creative vision allowing them to push boundaries. You can see in their concept sketches below that they didn't go for the traditional "web page" design.

Team 2: Harry, Laura and Nelia started off with a big statement, "the absolute is... there is no absolute." They also gave thought to the different user groups of the site and defined their needs from a resource center. They used a set of key words to help them hone in on a concept: compelling, flexible/scalable, relevant/current, intuitive/transparent, open/collaborative. The functional requirement was that it has to allow for variable levels of engagement. They came up with a solid site design and architecture under an hour.

Team 3: Bryan, Carol, Cassandra and Xu focused on visualizing the information of "resources". They used tag clouds as a thinkmap to explore the relationship of information bottom-up. They want the metadata to be nominated letting the community rank content, hence "curating" what gets bubbled up to be seen by all.

Team 4: Eduardo, Pauric and Ray pitched the "magicability of their filter" that will treat everything as a resource and organize by tags, authors and a very fancy taxonomy. They basically have the whole site architecture figured out. So IxDA board members, you know who to call if you ever want to build a Community Curated Zeitgeist. Maybe they will even be nice enough to let you use their patented "magic filter" for free since it's for a good cause.

Team 5: Andrea, Masha, and Micah gave us yelp plus kayak and a dash of fluidity. This group was definitely a good example of how clear thinking gets you to a very simple and elegant solutions. Ted pointed out that they were the only group to talk about what is a resource and what is not a resource. Having clarity around the nature of the information lets them focus on the design. Their concept was about helping people find information in the most fluid way possible. Amazing what 3 designers can figure out in 1 hour!

Team 6: Karen, Pablo and Nick had a very methodical approach that got them to a very complete solution that combined some traditional web layouts with some jazzy browse and search concepts. They came up with 4 themes and 3 behavior patterns as design guidelines. 4 themes: accessible, live (community), fresh and relevant. 3 behavior patterns: the browser, the searcher, and the passive observer (someone who waits for the community to tell them what's popular). Started out with user and purpose with some brand attributes got them to a very elaborate solution in just one hour. That good old interaction design trick really works!

Team 7: Lily, Emily and Donghwan focused on connecting people rather then just the content. Emily (perhaps a former biologist or maybe she's just one of those designers who knows everything) called the concept a "semi-permeable membrane". Focusing on the people got this group to push some interesting boundaries. They put this out there: perhaps, ultimately people are resources, people who are interested in the same things perhaps should know about one another in the community, and exposing what people know would make them a resource to the community and to those with similar interests. They also drew ideas from Johnathan Harris' work with the Yahoo Time Capsule in some of their visualization concepts.

Team 8: Bruce, Lisa, Melania started off with "it's all about me". They visualized the content, the site, IxDA and all of the "things" around "me". Putting the user in the dead center of the concept resulted in a design that looks outwardly from the user's own page, kind of like a IxDA Myspace page. This design gives people a reason to put effort into doing things like tagging, organizing and creating "resources" for the larger community to consume.

 

The night ended right on time. The audience was very respectful, they listened well, and were eager to hear what the design masters had to say. Ted and Josh did an amazing job with the crit. They asked very good questions that pushed the design teams to think more critically about their concepts. They pushed where there is room to push. They also pointed out good techniques and approaches so the rest of us can learn new things to try out when we get back to work.

We think that this is an event we would like to repeat and if other local groups wants to do this and need help with logistics. Please get in touch with me at liya.zheng (at) gmail (dot) com. Fore more photos from the evening go to Flickr.

Class: phpOCR

http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/2874.html

We've all made them: spelling mistakes, grammar errors, silly tidbits on our resumes. They stay there until one employer is kind enough to tell us, "Don't do that! It's what holding you back." It's understandable if one made a small spelling errors here and there, but how is it a professional thing to do to put that one is a single mother with six kids on our resume? Not only is that unprofessional, employers are not suppose to know that kind of information. Also, it makes us too desperate to get the job and that we are not confident in our qualification for the job. True, extra information like our hobbies of photography and mountain climbing might give us an edge, but know when it is too much unneccessary information. The only things that need to be in our resumes are things that pertain to the job applying for or have to do with our professional experiences.

 I hope none of you out there are dense enough to make these resume blunders:

Job site CareerBuilder.com recently asked pollsters Harris Interactive to survey hiring managers and find out the wackiest resume items they've seen lately. Out of 2,627 responses, here are the top ten resume blunders made by job candidates:

1. Attached a letter from her mother.
2. Used pale blue paper with teddy bears printed around the border.
3. Explained a three-month gap in employment by saying that he was getting over the death of his cat.
4. Specified that his availability to work Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays is limited because the weekends are "drinking time."
5. Included a picture of herself in a cheerleading uniform.
6. Drew a picture of a car on the outside of the envelope and said the car would be a gift to the hiring manager.
7. Listed hobbies that included sitting on a levee at night watching alligators.
8. Mentioned the fact that her sister had once won a strawberry-eating contest.
9. Stated that he works well in the nude.
10. Explained an arrest record by stating, "We stole a pig, but it was a really small pig."

I wish you all luck on your job hunt.

"Sometimes concept cars are created not to show to the public but only to inspire those inside the corporation (...) concept cars are three-dimensional question marks that ask 'What if?'.

"Concept cars are dream machines, vehicles that we eagerly hope will provide a forecast of our own automotive future (...) through the artistic eyes and creative mind of the auto designer".

Larry Edsall's "Concept Cars", a book published by Barnes & Noble.

When working on defining consumer products and applications, conceptual design becomes a crucial research technique enabling teams to further explore the potential of ideas, options and features. Designers can synthesize and visually communicate key aspects of the user experience more effectively than what lengthy discussions alone or written documentation can possible achieve.

As part of the process, sketches morph into mockups which, in turn, evolve into prototypes testing specific use cases and features. At this point, delivering measurable results means involving both resident and external users as part of conjoint analysis and usability testing. This kind of research relies on trial, error and refinement, rapidly iterating as need to be able to innovate.

Concepts should be shared with actual customers to gather direct insights on what's of value to them. This becomes a basis for design and feature prioritization as well as product roadmapping. However, some concepts could lead to design inflation if positioned as close representations of what can in fact be delivered. This means overpromising and, eventually, failing to meet customer expectations.

There are two tracks worth considering. One is concept design involving near term products, while the other is about forward looking experimentation. Both might have to be developed in parallel. Forward looking work is about leveraging design foresight to provoke strategy and innovation. As Bob Johansen states in "Get There Early" this is about being able to "sense the future to compete in the present":

"It's the ultimate paradox for leaders: you can't predict the future, but you must make sense of it in order to thrive. To be successful, leaders need to sort out what's important, devise strategies based on their own point of view, and get there ahead of the crowd".

"But most leaders today are just concerned about getting there in time. Many are even willing to settle for getting there fashionably late. They focus on quick-fix problems, avoiding the kinds of long-term dilemmas that will characterize the future".

If the above was of interest to you, then I would also suggest related posts such as: "Demo strategy for innovative technologies", "Do you really need to be disruptive" and "Lead user innovation".

The following pictures are the ones prompting me to write this post. These are concept cars recently showcased at Tokio's Motor Show:

Source and reference: http://autoshow.autos.msn.com/autoshow/Tokyo2007/default.aspx

Posts of interest: Design Concepts: Future Car (1); Next Gen Prius?; Innovation and cultural differences; Unconventional partnerships: BMW and Google; Ergotrans. 

Spain's royal family and its prime minister joined Prado Museum officials in Madrid Tuesday to officially inaugurate the massive, modern new expansion to the prestigious art museum.

A group of Neolithic figurines stolen in Greece in 1985 and smuggled to Germany, then forgotten for 20 years, went on display in Greece on Tuesday.

Too many designers have a victim mentality and shirk their professional responsibilities as related to, among other things, deadlines. This week I reexamine a current discussion going on in our community and describe a more responsible approach to deadlines.

Cultural officials in Rome and representatives of the Princeton University Art Museum have signed a deal to return artifacts Italy claims were looted from its shores.

• How z-index works!
• CSS2.2 and the 2007 CSS Snapshot
• LoggerFS
• The Limitations of Server Log Files for Usability Analysis
• Rails 2.0 features: Multiple views
• Web Safe Typography on Screen for Pixel Perfectionists
• Unicode Code Converter v6
• BlueprintCSS 101
• 10 Javascript Ajax Tabs
• 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes
• Java7 Roundup
• Flat input buttons in Leopard? Here’s why.
• Doing it with (user) style
• A Brief History of Programming, Part 1
• Preparing and planning an audit

Toronto-born artist Joshua Choi has won the $10,000 Kingston Prize for his textured oil painting titled Emily.