May SF Service Design Drinks Recap
On May 20, a group of very interesting people got together for the fourth SF Service Design Drinks. Unlike the previous events, which were held in bars, this one was hosted at Adaptive Path, who graciously provided the venue plus beers and snacks for the attendees (it helps that I work there). The turnout was [...]
Jeremy Yuille Explores IxD Education at Adaptive Path
Adaptive Path recently hosted a brown bag lunch with Jeremy Yuille regarding interaction design education. I skirted up from my Nokia office a few blocks away to take advantage of AP’s open invitation. It took me a while to realize that Jeremy is on the IxDA board, and that I had met him at the [...]
Designing Design Teams
As our efforts to consider how current design firms might transition to new areas for design, our team talked about designing design teams as a possible strategy to advance the influence and understanding of design. The idea is that as a design consulting firm, we would create design teams within organizations that could sustain themselves [...]
Six More Weeks of Grad School
If you follow this blog regularly, you will have noticed that I have not been regularly updating as of late. Time has been very limited, and the brain power needed for blogging has been diverted to other tasks, like thesis, thesis, teaching, coursework, and, of course, finding a job.There are six more weeks left of [...]
Bringing Emotion into the Design Process
I’d like to continue a comment about bringing emotion into the design process because I think it deserves its own post. Kip said: Design has some valuable roots in its ties with emotion, but in many ways we’ve lost touch. Can we bring a sophisticated discussion of “emotion” back on the table and include it [...]
Design School 2007,
Me in 2008, and a Blizzard
Happy new year +3! What follows is my experience in 2007 as a graduate student and the opportunities it afforded me, as well as what I will be doing in 2008. Finally, I mention the blizzard that is about to hit Mammoth Lakes, California, where I currently am. Design School and 2007 Two thousand and [...]
UX Week Takeaways
Here are all the presentations I went to at UX Week, along with a single takeaway to make it an easy read. If there is no takeaway, I was probably checking email or working on Emergence. Day 1 ClearRx: From Masters Thesis to Medicine Cabinet (Keynote) with Deborah Adler, Milton Glaser Design makes a difference. [...]
Why the Charmr Is Significant
My Adaptive Path colleague, Alexa, has a great post on our vision for the Charmr project. Our primary hope is that device companies will see the enthusiasm that a vision created from this perspective can generate and might embrace a more human-centered approach in their work. And we hope to inspire others to answer Amy’s [...]
My Summer Work Unveiled—Charmr
Yesterday at UX Week the R&D project I’ve been working on all summer for Adaptive Path was unveiled during a panel discussion called Wear It During Sex. The project was inspired by an open letter to Steve Jobs by Amy Tenderich, a diabetic. Adaptive Path answered the call and developed a diabetes management system, called [...]
Charmr Project: Diabetes Management
Interaction Designer, Adaptive Path, Summer 2007 Charmr was an internal R&D project at Adaptive Path inspired by an Open Letter to Steve Jobs by a prominent diabetes blogger, Amy Tenderich. The goal was to generate enthusiasm for human-centered thinking and inspire broader change throughout the medical device and design industry. In eight weeks, we went [...]
Done with Adaptive Path, kind of
Friday was the last day of my 10 weeks at Adaptive Path. We had the normal 4 pm tea time, but with more people and more activities. The Wii, which I had heard we had, finally made an appearance. The screen was projected on the conference room wall to make for some great fun. Overall, [...]
Bouncing Ideas Off Dan Saffer
One of the great things about being at Adaptive Path is that I have access to the cello-playing man who wrote Designing for Interaction, Dan Saffer. Today I sat down with him to talk about the direction my essay is going, as it’s somewhat of a commentary on the perception of interaction design in current [...]
Back from Baltimore
I flew back from Baltimore today after day long days with a client. On the plane I read half of Everyware by Adam Greenfield, which I’m finding quite intriguing. I found myself highlighting lots of text and using post-its jot to down ideas and bookmark pages for potential blog topics. Also, I kept putting ubiquitous [...]
Todd Was Speaking for Todd
At afternoon tea on Friday, one of the Adaptive Path folks explained why AP’s blog posts don’t necessarily express what the company thinks as a whole. “Todd was speaking for Todd,” he said. He was speaking about Todd Wilkens’ recent post on why usability is a path to failure, which many usability professionals took issue [...]
Video Sketches vs. Cartoon Scenarios
I volunteered to give brown bag presentation at Adaptive Path on the mobile media research and concept my team did for Motorola last semester. I really didn’t know what they would think. The most conversation centered around the value of the scenario video sketch versus a lower fidelity demonstration of the concept. Jesse James Garrett [...]
First Two Weeks at Adaptive Path
As I’m going to Chicago to present our final Studio 2 presentation to a different set of folks at Motorola, I am done with Adaptive Path for the week. That means my first two weeks at AP are behind me. So what have I been up to? Not too much. But I don’t say that [...]
First Day at Adaptive Path
And so it begins. I introduced myself at the weekly Tuesday staff meeting. “Oh, so that’s how you say your name.” I also got a couple, “You don’t look like what I imagined.” Today was pretty relaxed. I met the other intern, Irene Chong, from the Institute of Design. We compared design programs and conference-running [...]
CMU Alumni Party at Adaptive Path
On Sunday, I attended a CMU alumni get together at Adaptive Path in San Francisco. The event coincided with CHI being in San Jose this year. And CHI was the reason I was in SF. Dan Saffer was our host, so I got to talk with him a bit. One thing everyone seemed to mention [...]
Interning at Adaptive Path
Just a brief note to say I recently accepted an offer to work at Adaptive Path over the summer. I’m super excited to experience what they’re all about and check out San Francisco. I start the end of May and finish in early August. Should be a good time. In other news, my illness has [...]