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Our observations of the world around us

  • IDSA Polar Opposites Conference Recap by Lauren Serota & Wyatt Starosta on October 01, 2008

    About 2 weeks ago, a good group of us Lextantites made a trek to Phoenix, AZ for IDSA’s 2008 national conference, Polar Opposites. We think it’s safe to say that we all had an enjoyable time (especially during “pool breaks”); here is a recap of what we had going on and other things we learned.

    In total, we were involved in 4 official conference events.  Marty and Lauren, with the help of Philip White (ASU, IDSA EcoDesign chair) lead a workshop called Design Research meets Sustainable Design, which was an experimental session based on findings from IDSA via Lextant’s research the ideal design community for young design professionals. The 40+ session attendees were briefed on current trends in sustainable development & design research fundamentals before being divided in to smaller teams. The teams, led by design researchers from Lextant, Blackhagen Design & The Savannah College of Art and Design not only developed research plans to understand consumers’ perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes of “green” issues such as Food waste, Bottled beverages and Hot water, they also identified specific process steps to achieve their goals. For example, one team tackling the issue of understanding an individual’s perception of hot water consumption came up with a unique solution -By putting a thermometer on the faucet they could record the temperature of the water and later during the interview probe the participant on whether or not the water was hot enough. This would not only allow the research team to better understand the question of “How hot is hot?,” but it would also help in developing metrics for engineers to use down the line. There were a ton of great ideas that came out of the workshop and our plan is to breathe some life into them by working with universities to turn them in to research projects for design students.

    Immediately following the research workshop, William Bullock (University of Illinois, IDSA SAGE chair), Brian Roderman (in2innovation, IDSA section VP) and Lauren lead Bourne vs. Bond – a designer’s life roundtable featuring young design professionals and their seasoned counterparts.  We had design greats such as Bill Moggridge, Bruce Claxton, George McCain and even our own Jim Couch participate in discussions (most of which were located at the bar) with designers of all ages to share experiences, and anecdotes of past successes and failures.  This was really tons of fun – it’s amazing how far a little direction and some introductions can go.

    People Can’t Tell You What They Want – and nine other design research myths.

    The following morning, Chris gave an engaging (and we’re not just brown-nosing) talk centered around dispelling design research myths called People Can’t Tell You What They Want – and nine other design research myths. The audience was littered with folks snapping shots of Chris’ slides (which can be downloaded here), and there were a few people in front of me that were consistently nodding in agreement while he explained the subtleties of conducting effective user-centered research.

    Finally, Chris and Marty sat in with the Blackhagen fellows on a panel called Resposables, tackling the medical industry’s disposable goods dilemma.  We sat this one out and opted to hear from Dan Harel from Smart, who did a talk on a few things including how designing and marketing to women has changed (a hat-tip to his co-workers in the Femme Den) and the absurd social and political uproar caused by made-up lyrics to Louis Louis in the 60s.  We’re still not quite sure what to make of this one (there wasn’t a clear thread throughout the presentation), but it was darn entertaining and thought-provoking, and we prefer that over linear and yawn-inducing any day.

    Other noteworthy events included Jon Kolko & Matt Schoenholz’s ridiculously well-attended Designing in the Face of Change talk, which described our shift socially (and our consequent responsibility as an industry) towards the need for thoughtful experience, emotional resonance and local relevance versus traditional, often commoditized “thing” design.

    Thanks goes out to Tim Atkins, Frank Tyneski, Larry Hoffer, Jill Richardson, Carrie Rice and all the other rad IDSA folks for putting together such a great event and providing a platform for fun and creative people to get together.

    For some more in-depth coverage of specific events, you can check out Jon Kolko’s notes.  Also, here are some more pics to browse through.

    Also, did we mention the pool?

    image

    Maybe we should have a caption contest? 

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