CS547 Human-Computer Interaction Seminar   (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design)

Fridays 11:30am-12:30pm PT · Gates B3 · Open to the public
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Kim Goodwin
Cooper Design
Designing a Unified Experience: Bringing Interaction, Visual, and Industrial Design Together
January 8, 2010

Interaction design, visual design, and industrial design are distinct disciplines for good reason: Each excels in different ways. Interaction designers must be good at imagining structure and flow, which requires strong analytical skills and a high degree of rigor, especially for complex systems. Visual designers and industrial designers are masters of visual and physical usability but are also masters of emotion: They know how to evoke caution, attract attention, and instill desire for a product at first glance. Users have just one experience of a product, though. All three aspects of the design must work in concert, or the product will fail to satisfy. Integration of the three disciplines is a central theme of Kim's recent book, Designing for the Digital Age.

Kim Goodwin is the author of Designing for the Digital Age, a comprehensive book on designing digital products and services. In the course of her career, Kim has been an in-house and freelance designer, in-house creative director, and VP Design at Cooper, leading a practice of interaction, visual, and industrial designers. Kim has led projects involving a tremendous range of design problems, including Web sites, complex analytical and enterprise applications, phones, medical devices, services, and even organizations. Her clients and employers have included everything from one-man startups to the world's largest companies, as well as universities and government agencies. This range of experience and a passion for teaching have led to Kim's popularity as an author and as a speaker at conferences and companies around the world.