The companies listed below served as partner sites for the quarter-long design project.
Cooper [www.cooper.com]
Cooper is a technology design firm, founded in 1992. We are located in SF near the SFMOMA. We work in teams on a single project at a time per team. We focus on behavior design, visual design, interaction design and experience design. Clients include the Getty Museum, Medical Devices, Software CRM, a broad base of clients across domains. Check out CooperU on our site.
During the timeframe of this course, Cooper teams are working on the following client projects: sales tools for corporate loans and leasing arrangements, job matching tools for a healthcare employment agency, suite of tools for financial portfolio managers.
Students will have the opportunity to o bserve several Cooper design teams in different stages of the Goal-Directed design process from research synthesis and development of early project concepts through concept refinement and implementation support while products are built. They will have a space on-site to work.
Thanks to Alan and Sue Cooper, Lane Halley, and Kim Goodwin
Google [ www.google.com]
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission, Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a new approach to online search that took root in a Stanford University dorm room and quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now widely recognized as the world's largest search engine -- an easy-to-use free service that usually returns relevant results in a fraction of a second. Google's utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best known brands almost entirely through word of mouth from satisfied users. Google's emphasis on innovation and commitment to cost containment means each employee is a hands-on contributor. There's little in the way of corporate hierarchy and everyone wears several hats. The international webmaster who creates Google's holiday logos spent a week translating the entire site into Korean. The chief operations engineer is also a licensed neurosurgeon. Because everyone realizes they are an equally important part of Google's success, no one hesitates to skate over a corporate officer during roller hockey.
Thanks to Ellen Beldner, Dan Russell, and Kevin Fox
IDEO Transformation [ www.ideo.com]
IDEO is a global design consultancy known for its human-centered approach to design and innovation. With offices in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, London, Munich, and Shanghai, IDEO employs more than 400 design thinkers in disciplines of design, engineering, social science, and business strategy. We work within a range of industries, collaborating with such leaders as Procter & Gamble, the Mayo Clinic, Vodafone, and Hewlett-Packard, in addition to startups, educational institutions, governing bodies, and civic groups that aspire to achieve growth through innovation. IDEO helps organizations innovate by designing new experiences — products, services, spaces, media, and software-based interactions—preserving the power and delight of the original idea from concept to expression. We identify opportunities for growth based on human insights, and help companies understand and respond to people's latent needs, behaviors, and desires. We enable transformation within organizations seeking to build the culture and capabilities required to make innovation a way of life. Our current work addresses such themes as design for business, experiential marketing, sustainability, space design, and organizational culture and capabilities. IDEO’s diverse and talented people combine to create a culture rich in expertise, ideas and empathy.
Thanks to Ilya Prokopoff and Kristian Simsarian
SFMOMA [www.sfmoma.com]
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a dynamic center for modern and contemporary art. The Museum strives to engage and inspire a diverse range of audiences by pursuing an innovative program of exhibitions, education, publications, and collections activities. International in scope, while reflecting the distinctive character of our region, the Museum explores compelling expressions of visual culture.
In the April-May timeframe, SFMOMA's Interactive Educational Technology Team will be working on an online feature on the artist Shomei Tomatsu and an interactive space to accompany the Matthew Barney exhibition. They are particularly interested in how their design process involves the museum's visitors.
Thanks to Peter Samis, Dana Mitroff, and Tana Johnson
Speck Product Design [ www.speckdesign.com]
Speck Product Design is an award-winning product design consultancy with three offices located in Palo Alto and Orange, CA and Seattle, WA. Our designs range from large-scale Internet routers for Cisco Systems to tiny, implantable drug delivery systems for Alza. And although our designs have been recognized by Business Week with a Gold IDEA Design award, we focus on the bottom line: designing products that are market successes. Speck was recently named one of Inc.'s 500 fastest growing privately held companies (#173 if you're counting). As our sales have grown, so has the range of services, the depth of talent and most importantly: the list of satisfied clients.
Currently we are engaged in about a dozen projects for clients in California. They range in scope from $5K to $500K. All fun & challenging!
Thanks to Tark Abed, Aragon Burlingham, Feng Hao Yu, Craig Launcher, and Peter Mills
Synaptics [www.synaptics.com]
Synaptics is a leading worldwide developer of custom-designed user interface solutions for mobile computing, communications and entertainment devices. Our mission is to enrich the interaction between users and their intelligent devices. Synaptics products emphasize ease of use, small size, low power consumption, advanced functionality, durability and reliability, making them applicable to a multitude of markets, including notebook computers, PC peripherals, mobile phones, and portable entertainment devices such as MP3 players.
Thanks to John Feland
Tech Museum of Innovation [ www.thetech.org]
The Tech Museum of Innovation is an educational resource established to engage people of all ages and backgrounds in exploring and experiencing technologies affecting their lives, and to inspire the young to become innovators in the technologies of the future. An expansive variety of interactive exhibits and unique floor programs showcase not just how technology works, but how it affects who we are and how we live, work, play and learn. The Tech's 132,000 square feet are divided among themed galleries focused on innovation, the internet, the human body, and exploration. The Tech is more than just a museum. Signature programs include Tech Challenge, an annual student design competition, and The Tech Musuem Awards, which honors and awards people around the world who use technology to benefit humanity. Additionally, The Tech offers award-winning online exhibits, and the Robert. N. Noyce Center for Learning which encourages innovation and experimentation among teachers and students.
Thanks to Greg Brown and Tom Keating
