The Future of Digital Product Design
Dirk Knemeyer and a panel of digital product design professionals
(Pabini Gabriel-Petit and Frank Ramirez, organizers and moderator)

Review

By Pabini Gabriel-Petit

Dirk also talked about current trends, including the global knowledge economy, innovation, user-centered design, the expanding possibilities for functionality in digital products, sustainability, invisible design, emotional design; the evolving market for digital products; and future trends, including the demand for simplicity in digital products, optimization, the convergence of science and business, the reduced role of emotional design, on-demand access to centralized content, and the resurgence of specialized products. He discussed the multi-disciplinary nature of digital product design and the necessity for redefining problems and solutions; broad, cross-disciplinary knowledge as well as specialized knowledge; and collaborative mindsets. Again within the context of his evolving diagram, he showed the anatomy of digital product design and the many roles that impact digital product design. Finally, Dirk suggested some things that we can all do to sharpen our skills and sustain our value in the increasingly competitive international arena of digital product design.

The panel, which comprised Sarah Allen, Neil Day, Pabini Gabriel-Petit, James Leftwich, and Luke Wroblewski, then engaged in the promised lively discussion of the issues that Dirk's talk had raised. Frank Ramirez moderated. The audience also joined enthusiastically in the discussion, which focused primarily on what companies and digital product design teams need to do to compete successfully in today's global competitive marketplace. The discussion touched on offshoring, the creative economy, fostering innovation and collaboration within large corporations, the role of startups in innovation, and the importance of cross-functional teamwork in digital product design. During the panel discussion, some panelists and members of the audience made the point that there are a lot of people in different roles who would place themselves at the center of Dirk's diagram. Pabini made the point that we should focus on the product at the center of the diagram and cluster the members of a collaborative team around the product, because great products come from great teamwork.

The topic obviously hit a chord with the audience. People feel very passionately about many of the issues that the panel discussed. Yahoo! made a great venue for this event. About 160 or 170 people attended the event.

Ji Kim videotaped the event and, once post-production is complete, we'll be making the video available on the IxDG Web site. The presentation is available now on Peter J. Bogaards' InfoDesign site. Anyone who wants to blog on the topic of digital product design with Dirk and the other panelists is welcome to do so there.

Original Announcement

Dirk Knemeyer will speak about the present and future of digital product design.

Technology and business trends are rapidly changing the landscape of digital product design. Powerful forces for change are affecting everyone who contributes to the innovation and design of digital products. Products are converging. Organizations are sending technology, design, and usability jobs offshore. At the same time, product development teams are becoming increasingly integrated and multi-disciplinary. Individuals, organizations, and even industries are trying to understand the dynamic forces that are now at work and determine their roles in this new world of digital product design. With change comes opportunity as well as risk. The user experience design community is poised to assume a pivotal role in the design of digital products—ensuring that the products companies bring to market are useful, usable, and enjoyable. To help prepare us all to take advantage of the opportunities at hand, Dirk will offer insights into how current trends in both technology and business will change the work we do.

Following Dirk's presentation, professionals working in various aspects of digital product design will participate in a panel discussion on this topic. In addition to Dirk Knemeyer, panelists include Sarah Allen, Neil Day, Pabini Gabriel-Petit, James Leftwich, and Luke Wroblewski. Frank Ramirez will moderate the discussion.

The following organizations are co-sponsoring this event:

• Interaction Design Group (IxDG)
• American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA):
• AIGA Center for Brand Experience
• AIGA Experience Design
• BayDUX

Every attendee will receive a free copy of the newly published book The Dictionary of Brand from the AIGA Center for Brand Experience, one of our sponsors for this event.

This free event requires no registration.

Bios

Dirk Knemeyer is one of the Founding Principals at Involution Studios LLC, a digital innovation firm located in Silicon Valley and Boston. He is responsible for setting the vision and managing the business success of the firm and also provides clients with design, consulting, and training services. Before starting Involution Studios, Dirk was the Chief Design Officer at Thread Inc., a regional visual communications company. He transformed Thread into one of the best-known information design firms in the world.

One of the youngest thought leaders in the international design community, Dirk has published more than 100 articles—many on the topic of design strategy—and given presentations around the world. He recently contributed to The Dictionary of Brand, a new book from the AIGA Center for Brand Experience.

Dirk is an accomplished designer of information and experiences, with deep experience in brand strategy. He has collaborated with a variety of major corporate clients around the world, such as General Motors Corporation and Mannesmann AG. His award-winning projects span virtually every major interactive, broadcast, and print medium.

A former college professor, radio show host, and television personality, Dirk is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Institute for Information Design (IIID), the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Center for Brand Experience, and the Executive Council of the User Experience Network (UXnet). He also inspired the development of the Web site InfoDesign: Understanding by Design, a popular industry resource.

Panelists:

Sarah began developing Internet software over nine years ago as an engineer on Macromedia's Shockwave team. She led the development of the Shockwave Multiuser Server and, later, the Flash Communication Server, introducing streaming video and multi-party communication in Flash Player 6. She has also developed software tools for multimedia, digital video, and graphic arts at Adobe, Aldus, and The Company of Science and Art (After Effects). She was named one of the top 25 women of the Web by SF Wow (San Francisco Women of the Web) in 1998.

Neil Day, Senior Vice President of Engineering and CTO for Velosel, is responsible for spearheading their technology strategy and product development.

Previously, Neil was Senior Vice President and CIO at Walmart.com, the Internet and e-commerce division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., where he drove the company's technology strategy, software engineering, and site operations. Neil led the company's implementation of new technologies and applications in order to deliver additional products and services to Walmart.com customers and was responsible for building the scalable technology platform that has accommodated the dramatic growth in customer traffic experienced by Walmart.com in the last few years. Neil also served as CTO and Vice President of Engineering at Homewarehouse.com, Inc., an e-commerce site focusing on the Do-It-Yourself and home improvement market, where he designed the core technology platform that was subsequently acquired and implemented by Walmart.com. Previously, Neil worked on a wide variety of technology strategy and implementation projects for companies including Apple Computer, Inc., Oracle/NCI, and Sony Electronics. He was also a member of technical staff at The 3DO Company and Apple Computer.

Pabini Gabriel-Petit is Principal and User Experience Architect, at Spirit Softworks, a user experience design and usability consultancy in Silicon Valley. Spirit Softworks provides comprehensive user experience strategy and design services for digital products, including desktop and Web applications, Web sites, and intranets.

With over 15 years of software-industry experience, Pabini has designed a wide variety of innovative desktop and Web applications. Previously, as User Experience Manager at WebEx Communications, Pabini designed Web applications for online meetings, training sessions, seminars, and remote collaboration, including the award-winning Meeting Center and Training Center. These Web applications comprised both Web pages and platform-specific client software and presented many unique design challenges. Other clients and employers include Cisco Systems, Whistle Communications, Chemdex, Kaleida Labs, Apple Computer, and Ashton-Tate. Pabini is highly skilled in interaction design, information architecture, and visual design. Product domains encompass authoring, hypertext, collaboration, graphics and imaging, networking and communications, and more.

A strong advocate for user-centered design, Pabini enjoys envisioning and designing creative solutions for complex user experience design challenges. Pabini is passionate about creating elegant, usable software products that meet users’ needs.

James Leftwich, IDSA, is founder and principal of Orbit Interaction, a pioneering and broad-based interaction design and intellectual property development consultancy located in Palo Alto, California.

Trained as an industrial designer, Jim has over 20 years of broad consulting experience in the area of human interface development. From April 2004 through November 2004, he was Director of Design and User Experience at PalmSource, Inc., in Sunnyvale, California, where he was involved in a proprietary project. From 2001 through March 2004, he served as Director of Human Interface and Industrial Design with PEMSTAR Pacific Consultants, Inc. In 2004, his work on the industrial design and human interface for the Natus ALGO®3i Newborn Hearing Screener won two major design awards. The first was a Medical Design Excellence Award (MDEA2004), the highest design award given by the medical industry. The Natus ALGO®3i also won a Bronze Award in Business Week Magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America's IDEA 2004 (Industrial Design Excellence Awards). His interaction architecture and design has spanned an extensive range of products, devices, systems, and software and has been part of numerous award-winning products. Much of his design work has involved developing non-PC interfaces, ranging from wearables, palmtops, gestural slates, webpads, and gyroscope-based remote controls in the fields of consumer, industrial, military, and medical devices and systems. His clients have included Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer, Macromedia, Starsight Telecast (Gemstar), Polaroid, Kensington, Gyration, Acuson, Coherent, Pinnacle Systems, and Avica. Mr. Leftwich holds nine utility patents in human interface system methodologies and has numerous patents pending. A native of Missouri, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Design at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1983.

Luke Wroblewski is currently at eBay where he leads user experience strategies for eBay Europe and the eBay Platform. He is also the User Experience Director of LukeW Interface Designs, a consulting firm he founded in 1996. Luke authored a book on Web interface design principles titled Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability (Wiley & Sons, 2002) and multiple articles on interface design including those featured in his own Web-zine/blog, Functioning Form.

Previously, Luke taught Interface Design courses for the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and worked as a Senior Interface Designer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), birthplace of the first readily available graphical Web browser, NCSA Mosaic. At NCSA, Luke designed interface solutions for Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Kellogg's, and co-developed the Open Portal Interface Environment (OPIE). Luke's research on Web-based interface designs has been published and presented at national and international conferences.

Moderator: