One of the show and tells at the AIGA Summit this past weekend was by Julia Whitney from WGBH in Boston. This project is a companion to the 6 hour miniseries broadcast that ran this year. The interactive, web piece is a fusion of web and flash and video (currently the entire 6 hours of video is online). It is beautifully designed - both in form and in content. The scale of the project is impressive and the piece that stood out most to me is the Time Map that tracks the economic landscape across time and geography.
The window and it's settings (say you choose 1950) talk to the other windows as you select to view a report about the country. The time is contextual to your settings in the Time Map and all the information is based on that. They pulled this together for 41 countries across 90 span of time.

This is a rich and interesting site, not only for its content which is interesting, but for the techniques used to create paths and collections of information for people who may want to come at this information in different ways.

I will be attending the fifth annual AIGA Experience Design summit next week in Las Vegas. Should prove to be entertaining - especially since a bunch of us are going to see the Cirque de Soleil. Will you be there?

There is a really interesting set of articles about Information Design collected together over at the AIGA forums.

There are pieces by Terry Irwin (MetaDesign), Erik Speikermann (MetaDesign) and Nigel Holmes (a great info designer). Each article touches on a different facet of the field and the collection is set up for discussions by readers.

The new issue of Loop is out. The issue looks at several different academic programs and their curricula, with articles from Marc Rettig (IIT), Ron Saito (California State U), Brenda Laurel (Art Center) and others.

In a moment of synchronicity, the journal also offers an article by Steven Heller about Ladislav Sutnar and his approach to information design, navigation and other tools that are so relevant to today's web designer. I say this is synchronicity - for me - because I had just started researching the work of Sutnar this weekend for a future article for the Forerunners section of Boxes and Arrows along the same premise. I also was in an email conversation today about his work with an aquaintance discussing this very same thing.

So, Heller beat me to the punch. Go, read and be inspired.

Check out my interview with Terry Swack and Clement Mok, the founders of the AIGA Experience design group. The interview for Boxes and Arrows coincides with the first AIGA/CHI joint forum that is going on right now in Minneapolis. (wish I were there)

Feisty discussion over on the AIGA Experience Design list. Lots of fire - thanks Peter - and good points being made on all sides of the IA vs GD, IA includes GD, Experience Design is Collaborative discussions.

After several quiet months, it is nice to see this community actively discussing something again. Check it out and join the conversation. Hopefully this will evolve into something really tangible and useful to move the discipline forward and not stay in the defensive mode that some of the posts are in.

In a joint effort, that was mentioned at the 4th AIGA Advance Summit this summer, CHI and AIGA are teaming up at CHI 2002 to bring attendees a jointly produced forum.

"CHI2002 and AIGA Experience Design would like to invite you to participate in our first co-sponsored event! The FORUM is dedicated to exploring how the knowledge and skills from each community contribute to current thinking and innovations in the world of human-computer interaction and experience design. The FORUM is an independent two-day event and will take place immediately preceding the CHI2002 technical program and does not required attendance at other CHI2002 events.

The FORUM will explore the intersections of the SIGCHI and AIGA design communities, including design and evaluation methods and methodologies, philosophy of design, and design artifacts. The program will include well-known speakers from the design community, panels, and in-depth case studies. The FORUM will offer plenty of opportunities to interact with fellow design practitioners of all kinds."

I think this is a terrific opportunity for the two organizations to recognize their overlaps and differing perspectives on the same realm. We (designers) work with usability people or or often called upon to perform that role and in turn, many CHI attendees are on teams with designers or are making design recommendations. It is important to foster the collaborative relationships and learn from each other as we navigate new media.

I hope that, despite the fact that the event happens before CHI, attendees from both realms attend.

The artifacts and presentations are finally posted from this summers Advance for Design Summit 4.

The recap page links to page descriptions of each presenter and a powerpoint preso. Good stuff.

My original recap of the event can be found here. If I get the time, I may link directly to the presentations.

I will be leaving tomorrow morning for Phoenix to attend the 4th Advance for Design Summit. It looks to be interesting and some of the things we will be discussing are: (from the aiga site)

* how do we use the term 'experience design'? to what does it refer?

* who are experience design practitioners and what do they do?

* the value experience design practitioners bring to process and solutions and ultimately, for whom is the experience design community of the AIGA intended?

"The summit's proposition:
1 The summit focuses on digital experience, but we are mindful that design for human experience is not confined to a computer screen. Digital experience supports human beings in the course of their lives and grows out of the full environment of human experience, action, and behavior.

2 We've selected an initial number of titles/roles grouping all the terms that might be used to describe that role (so it doesn't become a nomenclature discussion):

* Design planner, a.k.a. design strategist, etc.

* Brand strategist, a.k.a. brand integrator, etc.

* User researcher...

* Usability specialist...

* Information architect, a.k.a. information designer, etc.

* Interaction designer, a.k.a. software designer, etc.

* Visual systems designer, a.k.a. creative director, etc.

3 For each roles we document
* themes of what we actually do

* themes of what we know or need to know--themes of knowledge

This information will be documented in such a way as to inform
* the standardization of practice knowledge and skills

* the development of undergraduate and graduate curriculum

An experience designer is an integrator
The proposition above suggests that someone who chooses to call themselves an 'experience designer' means that they have expertise in more than one role, and have the ability to integrate a broad range of knowledge with other members of a team.

Summit goals
Capturing this knowledge should provide, near-term, the foundation for the four Experience Design workgroups to deliver on their objectives. Long-term, consistency in messaging and information dissemination to deliver on the objective we've always had for the Advance: 'to establish a new community of design practitioners who are challenged to design for a world that is increasingly digital and connected."

These themes are familiar to the SIGIA group, which has been grappling with some of these same questions. The differences here are that as these themes are discussed and agreed upon, they are put forth to the larger membership at large via the online and printed journals and they become integrated into the collective literature and philosphy of the AIGA. I think this is important to do as we define this branch of design and we see how we, as designers, overlap and learn from the other related and similar disciplines. These articulations help us with clients, with defining what we do to our moms and help us gain credibility as a branch of a real profession. The agenda is an extension - or next step - from what we discussed last year. George Olsen has some thoughts about this as well at his site - Interaction by Design.

Should prove to be interesting and my hope is that the conversations don't degrade into the same circular conversations that we have been having all year at the different conferences, gatherings and on the lists.

I am also excited about the trip, because if things go well, I will be helping with the redesign of the Advance/Experience.AIGA website. Will update as the weekend progresses.

The recent AIGA communique has info and links to the March Seminar on Experience Design.

"Post-conference materials available for "Verge: AIGA Seminar on Experience Design"

AIGA held its first seminar on Experience Design in March 2001. Materials from the conference are now posted in the past conferences section of www.aiga.org. You'll find moderator Brenda Laurel's opening remarks, bios and short descriptions of presentations by speakers Vernor Vinge, Rodney Smith, Ryan Oakes, Dj Spooky a.k.a Paul Miller, Scott Ault, Debbie Bonnanzio, Dale Mason and Ralph Appelbaum for you to print out and read at your leisure.

The "Verge" seminar was developed specifically for AIGA's community of interest-AIGA Experience Design. You can join the group's discussion

Read the edited seminar highlights"

I missed this conference but it sounds pretty interesting.