The Complexity of Simplicity, Lecture - January 20th, 2011, 5:45pm to 7:30pm
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." So said Albert Einstein. But how? How can you take complex pieces of functionality, put them all together and make them as simple as possible...without alienating experienced or power users? This talk will outline ways of framing...
[read more] The Complexity of Simplicity, Lecture - January 20th, 2011, 5:45pm to 7:30pm
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." So said Albert Einstein. But how? How can you take complex pieces of functionality, put them all together and make them as simple as possible...without alienating experienced or power users? This talk will outline ways of framing problems, working through concepts, and creating affordances and interface layouts that emphasize and promote simplicity—even with difficult, powerful systems. Creating simplicity is, as it turns out, pretty complex.
Brainstorming and Design Principles Workshop - January 21st, 2011, 8:30 am to 1pm
One of the core skills of design is the ability to rapidly generate concepts. This hands-on workshop will look at some of the best practices for doing just that, and, just as importantly, what to do once you have those concepts, both in clustering and categorizing them, but also in selecting the best. How do you go about deciding which concepts to prototype? One answer is Design Principles. By generating design principles, you can create criteria for determining your best concepts, but also "guiding stars" for making design decisions throughout the prototyping and production process. (Location to be determined)
About our Speaker
Dan Saffer is an interaction designer and the author of two books: Designing Gestural Interfaces and Designing for Interaction. He is the co-founder and one of the principals at Kicker Studio, a design consultancy in San Francisco that does "interaction-infused" product design.
Since 1995, Dan has designed devices, software, websites, and services that are currently used by millions every day. He speaks at conferences and teaches workshops on interaction design all over the world. He and his products have been in BusinessWeek, Fast Company, and Wired, and his design innovations have received several patents.
Unfinished Business Series
Unfinished Business Events are monthly lectures and workshops co-organized and designed by Torch Innovation, Normative Design, and Strategic Innovation Lab at OCAD. The lectures share perspectives on creativity, design and innovation and the accompanying workshops provide attendees with practical skills that they can use in their teams and organizations.
