Look for Inspiration in Everyday Things
While we weren't able to attend this year's UX Week 2007 in Washington D.C., Bill DeRouchey of Ziba Design turned his presentation at UX Week 2007 into a great slidecast. (Thanks for slide-sharing Bill!) This is such a great presentation and it is a refreshing reminder to take nothing for granted, pay close attention to the fundamentals of everyday objects to find solutions and inspiration for good interface design.
Reminding practitioners, who are often buried deep in the details of their everyday designs, to look up and look beyond, can refresh your perspective and broaden your view of possibilities. As Bill puts it, "your attention fuels your craft as an interface designer."
Bill has some great tips and visuals to help tell his story. What I love is his perspective on "user-centered" iconography and visual cues that have evolved to help make the cues more centered on "you" the user than the business or function it serves.
Check out Dan Saffer's interview with Bill DeRouchey as well for more on IxD.
Side Note:
Recently on a trip, we found our hotel room had a wet bar fully networked with the billing systems attached to our room. Take out a soda, $2.00. Put it back - $4.00 restocking fee! We laughed since the system created great efficiencies for the hotel, but the offering by the hotel was somewhat disheartening. We had to laugh while in the process of checking out online from the room, the refrigerator immediately locked and a new message came up stating a new credit card needed to be opened on the account in order to open the refrigerator. While this "system" was well wired for the business, it didn't seem to match the "customer experience" they were offering with signs everywhere -- "We're delighted to serve you..." I guess that means as long as you have a credit card on file. Otherwise, "no soda for you!"
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