I was at a interaction design specific conference at June 12-13, from business to buttons. I haven't gotten around to jot down my thoughts about it until now. A short description on some of the seminars follows:
Day one
Keynote by the man, Don Norman. And a little plug for his new book The Design of Future Things - I probably will get this book as all the others. Don't get me wrong this was not just a book review, there was a lot good insights and it was good listening.
Next up was a session with Kim Lenox a really good session. A good look on how they are changing their way of work, they are clearly moving towards a more agile and involved process. I mean; whiteboards, post-its, direct communication and collaboration over the borders. This is getting good and fun. This was a new session, as Ryan Freitas had to cancel his, and a very pleasant surprise.
Next up was a mix containing three shorter session on New interaction techniques.
Most interesting of these was a session on multi touch and gestures. Quite interesting stuff, this also sprung a small fear that Apple et al are doing their patent stuff here. Multi touch and gestures should be open, not locked down by patents.
There was a quite fun session on clothes and electronics from cutecircuit.
Last session of the day was by Kars Alfrink from Leapfrog on playful design, how the knowledge from gaming can be implemented on business. There are lots of interesting stuff that can come out of that mix, I'm sure.
Day two
For me the day started out with a keynote by Dr Patrick W Jordan around the four pleasures; Physio, Psycho, Socio and Ideo. This was a excellent session with lots of real world data and anecdotes. Like the clunk of BMW doors and the Heineken psst.
Last out was a workshop on agile methods and interaction design. I think that a few answers came out of that session. Most important though is that developer in agile projects need to get the interaction designers on the right track. Share your knowledge. I think Interaction designers need to learn a lot more on this issue. Many are still stuck in big up front design, and this has got to change.
Sessions, pdfs and stuff can be found at the from business to buttons site.
On a side note, I think that many interaction designers are afraid that they will loose out on the design if not all methods and tools are applied. And some methods and techniques cannot be applied directly in an agile projects. However, the gain in communication and development speed [in agile projects] are so great that there is no return. They have to learn that you don't need all the answers at the table at the start. And an interaction designers work is not done when the project starts. It has to be done continually during the development.