The first three presentations were great.
Finding Inspiration For Design
by Patrick McNiel
There are many ways of getting inspiration, what you need to know is that it’s an ongoing process. And the weirdest thing is that it comes from various places – so look for inspiration not only in your field but in other fields, adjacent or not. When looking for inspiration in your field use cataloging publications, so you can see how other people solve similar problems – for websites you can use Design Meltdown. You need to remember though – don’t copy!
User Experience vs Brand Experience
by Andy Clarke and Steve Pearce
The thing is that good experience is actually merging the two, not have them as opponents. If you think of these as opponents you’ll only get one thing when both are needed to create a good experience. This will hurt your client and your reputation so it’s important that you try to find the right point where you get the best from both worlds. You need to know that experience is like an iceberg – you only see a part of it (the part that branding wants to change) while most of it is below the line. And that’s the part that people will talk about when it’s good or bad.
While there are many ways to design stuff, some completely methodological, there is another way – genius design, where the designer does a design based on their experiences and try to think what the best way for a user to interact is. This kind of design doesn’t need (want) to be analyzed – either it’s right or wrong. They don’t need to be safe to be usable – you can do amazing and weird stuff, your experience as a designer will tell you how far you can go. If you fail that’s only a way to learn where that line is.
Designing the User Experience Curve
by Andy Budd
A great talk about how people experience stuff and what stays with them. With a lot of examples and great slides I can’t put my finger on a single thing that he said that really stood out – the whole talk was great so you really need to find a way to listen to it, the slides aren’t going to cut it. The keywords – first impression, usability, personalization and customization, attention to detail, feedback, fun, experience.