Design Research Conference
23/09/07 15:06
It was conference bonanza for Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design as it hosted the Design Research Conference. The conference directly titled brings the Design Researchers from all over the world to Chicago from organizations such as Whirlpool, Frog, BMW and Adaptive Path.
The conference was well organized by ID students Ido Mor and Caroline Little (Thanks guys!) and had great gatherings of attendees and speakers in the evenings. Bin 26, Hotel Sofitel and English.
The speakers always gave a me a little something new to think about and sometimes a great show - thanks Dan and Alec. Most enjoyable for me though were the conversations with Alec Bernstein (BMW), Stuart Karten (Stuart Karten Design) and Steve Knox (Tremor). Other favorites included those from Hot Studios ( a favorite of mine) and David Armano from Critical Mass (read his blog Logic + Emotion he has a lot of great clips from the event). The conversation topics ranged from my recent favorite of leadership to the time horizon for Design Research as a management competency. Alec puts its adoption at 3 -5 years. Amazing considering the brief history lesson he gave me about the field. Alec was on the team that tested the first ATM machine!
At any rate, aside from the information the speakers shared I found myself recognizing a couple of broader elements that were occurring.
#1:
The speakers are giving away their tools to experts and scholar in their field. This tells me:
A. the tools have a long way to go
B. there is a seriously untapped user community. There is tons of info and many events about Design Research, however, there is no community for product and service development like there is for web design. If there is please let me know! I am still finding the edges of the field.
#2:
ID holds a Design Research Conference and A Strategy Conference but where is the one that brings it all together? From user research to brand messaging? Each conference needs to make that a focus.
#3:
Our biggest strength needs to be communication of concepts. Without this we will lose the good fight for the value of user research. Alec directly addresses this in his presentation, however it is apparent from all the speakers presentations. This includes taking the time to understand our personal mental model as well as our intended audience's.