ToRCHI June meeting: Sketching and Experience Design with Bill Buxton June 18, 2007

Date: Monday June 18, 2007
Time: Registration and networking starts at 6:30pm;
Presentation starts at 7:00pm
Place: Bahen Centre Room 1190 (main floor)
40 St. George Street, between University and Spadina,
just north of College.
See map (http://www.osm.utoronto.ca/map/)
Cost: Free for ToRCHI members* (General 1-year membership $20;
Guests and students $10-; ACM members $15-)

Title: Sketching and Experience Design

Abstract:

Among others, Hummels, Djajadiningrat and Overbeeke (Knowing, Doing and
Feeling: Communication with your Digital Products. Interdisziplinäres
Kolleg Kognitions und Neurowissenschaften, Günne am Möhnesee, March 2-9
2001, 289-308.), have expressed the notion that the real product of
design is the resultant “context for experience” rather than the object
or software that provokes that experience. This closely corresponds to
what I refer to as a transition in focus from a materialistic to an
experiential view of design. Paraphrasing what I have already said, is
not the physical entity or what is in the box (the “material” product)
that is the true outcome of the design process. Rather, it is the
behavioural, experiential and emotional responses that come about as a
result of its existence and use in the “wild”.

Designing for experience comes with a whole new level of complexity. This
is especially true in this emerging world of information appliances,
reactive environments and ubiquitous computing, where, along with those
of their users, we have to factor in the convoluted behaviours of the
products themselves. Doing this effectively requires both a different
mind-set, as well as different techniques.

This talk is motivated by a concern that, in general, our current
training and work practices are not adequate to meet the demands of
this level of design. This is true for those coming from a computer
science background, since they do not have sufficient grounding in
design, at least in the sense that would be recognized by an architect
or industrial designer. Conversely, those from the design arts, while
they have the design skills, do not generally have the technical skills
to adequately address the design issues relating to the complex
embedded behaviours of such devices and systems.

Hence, in this talk, we discuss the design process itself, from the
perspective of methods, organization, and composition. Fundamental to
our approach is the notion that sketching is a fundamental component of
design, and is especially critical at the early ideation phase. Yet,
due to the temporal nature of what we are designing, conventional
sketching is not – on its own – adequate. Hence, if we are to design
experience or interaction, we need to adopt something that is to our
process that is analogous to what traditional sketching is to the
process of conventional industrial design.

It is the motivation and exploration of such a sketching process that
is the foundation of this presentation.

Presenter:

Bill Buxton is the author of the new book,
Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right
Design, published by Morgan Kaufmann.

Trained as a musician, Bill began using computers over thirty years ago
in his art. This early experience, both in the studio and on stage,
helped develop a deep appreciation of both the positive and negative
aspects of technology and its impact. This increasingly drew him into
both design and research, with a very strong emphasis on interaction
and the human aspects of technology. He first came to prominence for
his work at the University of Toronto on digital musical instruments
and the novel interfaces that they employed. This work in the late 70s
gained the attention of Xerox PARC, where Buxton participated in
pioneering research in collaborative work, interaction techniques and
ubiquitous computing. This work was carried on in parallel with his
activities as Scientific Director of the Ontario Telepresence Project
at the University of Toronto. In 1994, Buxton became Chief Scientist
of Alias Research (and in 1995 its parent company SGI, as well) where
he had the opportunity to work with some of the top filmmakers and
industrial designers in the world. He is now a principal researcher at
Microsoft Corp., where he splits his time between research and helping
make design a fundamental pillar of the corporate culture. In 2007,
Buxton was awarded an honourary doctorate from the Ontario College of
Art and Design.

For more information, visit www.billbuxton.com

Official Website: http://torchi.org/index.php