ID [PNW]

This is a conceptual design of a haptic interactive digital object that intimately connects two people.  Designed by Spencer Denton and Carson Massie, junior industrial design students at Western Washington University, as part of my introduction to interaction design project. They found that "technology is amazing, but... Does technology make sense to serve us a foundation for our relationships?  Human interaction on a personal level is not translating well to the digital world." Their problem statement was "Technology has created relationships and social interactions that lack touch and presence.  Create an interface between two individuals, which acts as a platform that fosters intimate communication." digital messages are so easy that they've lost their meaning. How can we use technology to communicate intimacy? Connecting the long distance relationship with technology. Your partners caress can be seen as moving finger prints on a...

UX concepts done by Ana's group at Microsoft Speaking at the IDSA Western Design Conference Seattle 2012 is Ana Maria Pinto da Silva, Senior UX Designer, Microsoft, Strategic Prototyping . Ana Pinto da Silva leads design for Microsoft’s Strategic Prototyping and Advanced Strategies Group (StratPro). Her work synthesizes her interests in storytelling, architecture and emerging technologies and her deep passion for creative collaboration. Ana’s previous experience includes game development, architecture, and interactive media. Her work has garnered several awards including the Al Falah Grant from U.C. Berkeley in 2002 and a Webby Worthy Award in 2003. In addition to her media work, Ana has been an instructor at San Francisco State’s Multimedia Studies Program developing and teaching courses on interactive media history and development. She has extensive non-profit board experience including her current work as a board member for Artist Trust and is the founder of Seattle’s...

Concept Camera: The WVIL from Artefact on Vimeo . Nikki Pfarr is a Senior Design Strategist at Artefact and a former Ph.D. Candidate at Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. She is a founding partner of the Brains, Behavior & Design Group, and was previously a UX Designer at Google. Nikki holds a Master's of Design from IIT’s Institute of Design and a B.S. from MIT. She has led workshops on incorporating behavioral economics into user-centered design for the IIT Institute of Design Executive Education summer camp series, the Chicago chapter of the IxDA, and various Artefact clients. Nikki's original research on the implications of behavioral economics on design research practices was published in the 2010 Conference Proceedings of the International Design Research Society. Nikki Pfarr, Senior Design Strategist at Artefact   Nikki will be speaking at the  IDSA   Western Design Dialogue Conference 2012  in Seattle, May 4th and 5th. ...