Events
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Lecture: “The Storytellers”
Join us for the next in our lecture series featuring four speakers giving four talks in forty minutes. This month’s topic:
“The Storytellers”
People are natural storytellers, and as interaction designers, it’s our job to navigate the relationship between people and the objects they use every day. Is there a story that is unfolding between people and their products? Are stories organic? How do they emerge? Do interfaces tell a story? Should we be designing with a narrative in mind? Join us to hear short lectures from four very different perspectives on the story and our role in it.
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Wednesday, January 13
6:30-8:30PM, $6
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Location
Galapagos Art Space
(View Map)
16 Main Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
SVA student or faculty? RSVP at door (with SVA ID) for free admission.
About the Speakers
- Cindy Chastain, Creative Director, Experience Architecture at Rapp
- Ian Curry, Senior Interaction Designer, Local Projects
- Nick Gallo, Graphics Editor, and Writer, The Onion
- David Womack, Writer, editor, digital strategist
About the Lecture Series
The Dot Dot Dot Lecture Series is meant for broad explorations of interaction design, business, and aesthetic inspiration. Practitioners and thought leaders give short talks in an informal setting. Wisdom will be revealed and methods will be shared in a environment intended to satisfy both social and scholarly pursuits.
About the MFA Interaction Design Program
The new MFA in Interaction Design is an inventive two-year program that trains students to intimately understand how design can affect human behavior, and to think more holistically about the products and services they’re creating. The program explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life, and intends to increase the relevancy of design to business and society so designers can make a difference.
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Rob Tannen, “Ergonomics for Interaction Designers”
Ergonomics for Interaction Designers
The convergence of digital user interfaces with physical products (e.g., touch screens, gestural interfaces) puts interaction designers in a position where knowledge of ergonomics is valuable, if not essential, for creating effective solutions. This lecture is an introduction to anthropometric design and research methods, including: explanations of fundamental ergonomic design principles and myths, case studies at the intersection of product and user interface design, and actionable takeaways to apply immediately. The content is geared specifically to interaction designers, relating understood digital design principles and terminology to parallels in physical design.
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Wednesday, December 9
6-8PM
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Location
MFA Interaction Design Department
(View Map)
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City
About the Speaker
Rob Tannen is a usability designer‐researcher with expertise in both products and user interfaces. He is Director of Research at Bresslergroup, an award‐winning product design firm, where he consults on a range of consumer, medical and commercial projects. He has over 15 years experience working with organizations including Comcast, Microsoft, the New York Stock Exchange, Siemens, and the United States Air Force. He is a professional writer and speaker on topics ranging from simplicity in design to effective research methods. He is creator/editor of DESIGNING for humans, a reference site for user researchers. Rob earned a doctorate in human factors psychology from the University of Cincinnati.
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Matt Mullenweg, “Fireside Chat on Design, Entrepreneurship, and Open Source”
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Wednesday, November 18
6-8PM
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Location
MFA Interaction Design Department
(View Map)
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City
Fireside Chat on Design, Entrepreneurship, and Open Source
About the Speaker
Matt Mullenweg
Automattic, Founder
Matt Mullenweg blogs at ma.tt. He is best known as the founding developer of WordPress, the blogging software he guided from a handful of users to the most widely used open source blog tool. In late 2005 he left CNET to found Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Akismet.com, and Gravatar. In his spare time he enjoys taking photographs and playing jazz. -
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December Open House
We’re happy to announce our second Open House of the year. If you missed the October Open House, join faculty members, students, and staff for another afternoon of informal presentations, questions and answers, and open discussion to learn more about the program.
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Saturday, December 5
2-4PM
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Location
132 W 21 Street
(View Map)
6th Floor
New York City
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Chris Fahey at Web 2.0 Expo: The Human Interface
Faculty member Chris Fahey will be giving a talk at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo NYC—the showcase for the latest Web 2.0 business models, development paradigms and design strategies for the builders of the next-generation—on November 18.
The Human Interface (or: Products are People, Too!)
More and more, users are interacting with web sites and software on a conversational, physical, and emotional level—just like we’ve always interacted with other people. UX designers, then, must stop thinking about interfaces as dumb control panels and begin imagining them (literally!) as human beings. This talk will discuss past, present, and future ways of humanizing the user experience.-
Wednesday, November 18
9-10AM
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Location
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
(View Map)
655 West 34th Street
New York, NY 10001
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The Future of Web Design New York City
Chair of the program Liz Danzico and faculty members Paul Ford and Jason Santa Maria will participate in a panel discussion at this year’s The Future of Web Design, the conference for “web designers, creatives and anyone who cares about web design.”
The Long and Short of It: Panel Discussion
Hemlines. Javascript. Haircuts. Search queries. Attention spans: It seems they’re all trending toward short. At a time where every character is one more toward 140, and every pixel counts, are we just designing and writing for what can be digested at a glance? Do longer or more in-depth experiences still have the ability to connect with audiences, or is short more meaningful? Panelists who artfully practice both sides of the form will briefly examine methods, design strategies, and contentions around practicing the long and the short of it.
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Tuesday, November 17
8AM–5PM
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Location
New World Stages
(View Map)
340 West 50th Street
New York, NY 10019
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Andy Budd, “Designing the User Experience Curve”
Designing the User Experience Curve
These days people expect more from a website than a handy set of tools and a pretty interface — they want an experience. From the moment somebody enters your site they’ll be judging you on everything from the way the site looks to the tone of your error messages. And they won’t just be judging you against other sites. They will be judging you on every customer experience they have ever had, from the rude man at the train station to the lovely hotel clerk that checked them in while on holiday. So in order to compete, we need to up our game and look at experiences both on and off-line.
In this session Andy Budd will look at 5 key factors that go into designing the perfect customer experience. By taking examples from the world around us, Andy will discuss how we can turn utilitarian experiences into something wonderful.
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Friday, November 20
6-8PM
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Location
MFA Interaction Design Department
(View Map)
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City
About the Speaker
Andy Budd
Clearleft, Founding PartnerAndy Budd is one of the founding partners at User Experience Design Consultancy, Clearleft. As an interaction design and usability specialist, Andy is a regular speaker at international conferences like Web Directions, An Event Apart and SXSW. Andy curates dconstruct.org, one of the most popular design conferences in the UK. He’s also responsible for UX London, The UK’s first dedicated Usability, Information Architecture and User Experience Design event.
Andy has helped judge several international design awards and currently sits on the advisory board for .Net magazine. Andy is the driving force behind Silverbackapp, a low‐cost usability testing tool for the Mac. Andy also wrote the best selling book, CSS Mastery and occasionally blogs at andybudd.com.
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Scott Berkun “Confessions of a Public Speaker”
Confessions of a Public Speaker
Wonder why some good ideas in the world get rejected? Why bad ones get accepted? It’s about communication and persuasion, and this talk, based on the upcoming O’Reilly book, Confessions of a Public Speaker, provides honest, provocative and funny lessons on how to present and convince groups of people without selling out your soul. Based on Berkun’s 15 years of experience pitching, he lectures and teaches groups of all sizes, including appearances on NPR, CNBC and MSNBC. Bring your toughest questions about public speaking, pitching and tough creative communication situations for the no-holds barred Q&A.
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Tuesday, November 17
11AM-12PM
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Location
MFA Social Documentary Amphitheater
(View Map)
136 W 21st Street, Room 102
New York City
Related
About the Speaker
From 1994-2003, Scott Berkun was a manager at Microsoft, where he worked on the UI for first five versions of Internet Explorer in the early days of web design. He left the company in 2003 with the goal of writing enough books to fill a shelf. Confessions of a Public Speaker is his third book, following his bestsellers The Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen. Scott makes a living by writing and speaking. He taught a graduate course in creative thinking at the University of Washington, blogs for Harvard Business, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired magazine, Forbes, National Public Radio, and other well known media. You can see his entertaining lectures and provocative essays on his blog at http://www.scottberkun.com.
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Steve Portigal, “Getting Generative: User Research Applied to Business Decisions”
Getting Generative: User Research Applied to Business Decisions
Too often the tools of user research are applied to closed-ended problems (“Should the button be on the right or the left?”), leaving tons of great insights on the cutting-room floor. By taking a more considered view of what research to do, when to do it, and what to do with what has been learned, we can uncover and address any number of business challenges: organizational structure, process, branding, positioning, design language, new product/service opportunities, and of course, features. Steve will lead an interactive discussion about using research for more than merely informing design decisions.
*Open to SVA students with valid ID only
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Friday, November 20
12-1PM
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Location
MFA Interaction Design Department
(View Map)
132 W 21st Street, 6 Floor
New York City
About the Speaker
Steve Portigal
Portigal Consulting, PrincipalSteve Portigal is the principal of Portigal Consulting, a bite-sized firm in the San Francisco Bay Area that helps organizations to discover and act on new insights about themselves and their customers. In addition to consulting with innovative businesses like Sony, Belkin, Nestle and Plantronics, he writes regularly for interactions magazine, Core77 and the Portigal Consulting blog, All This ChittahChattah. Steve is an avid photographer who has a Museum of Foreign Grocery Products in his home.
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Design Criticism Lecture: Jake Barton
Faculty member Jake Barton will speak at the MFA Design Criticism Department at The School of Visual Arts on “Collaborative Storytelling and the Dissolution of Technology” on November 17. As Principal of Local Projects, Jake has been spearheading projects such as StoryCorps which generates content from the audience into a single curated archive.
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Tuesday, November 17
6-8PM
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Location
MFA Design Criticism
(View Map)
136 W 21 Street
Second Floor
New York City
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About MFA Interaction Design
The MFA in Interaction Design program trains students to research, analyze, prototype, and design concepts in their business, social, and cultural contexts. It explores the strategic role of interaction design in shaping everyday life, and intends to increase the relevancy of design to business and to society so designers can make a difference.
Recently
- IN/VISION, 2012 MFA Interaction Design Festival
- The Next Step for Design: Social Entrepreneurship
- On the Verge: Geoff Manaugh and Jer Thorp
- Interaction Salon: Notes on the Design of Participatory Systems - A Talk with Usman Haque
- On the Verge: Zach Frechette and Molly Wright Steenson
- On the Verge: Dennis Crowley and Mark Shepard
- Workshop: “Intro to Designing and Prototyping with NFC and RFID”
Read more in the Archives.
