[IxDA Discuss] Bill Moggridge talk at Ideo tonight

[Bill DeRouchey]

> Hiya,
>
> It is rare in the UX community to really look deeper into its pre-Web
> past for a more solid grounding in design theory and UCD practice. This
> has been (my interpretation and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone) something
> that the IA community in particular has faced.
>
> ...
>
> As someone who is soon to be moving away from the Web world and into the
> device world, we need to be cognizant that the Ideo's, Smart, Design
> Continuum's, Ziba's, and Frog's of the world are barely connected to the
> UX community as IDSA has no real connection to this world, but all of
> these organizations have been and continue to do vibrant and relevant UX
> work that has very little to do with the web but everything to do with
> good IxD.

As someone from ZIBA, I feel like I should chime in here. I can't speak 
for the other fine companies, but it's true, ZIBA as a whole isn't 
formally tied to the UX community. Until just a handful of years ago, the 
UX community was mostly concerned with the onscreen world and the product 
design companies with the offscreen world. But only recently have these 
two worlds begun to overlap. Recognizing this overlap, they've been 
gracious to send me to the last two IA Summits and I'll be there again 
next year. This time, I will hopefully be co-running a workshop, 
representing a ZIBA angle on experience architecture.

So while the formal, corporate-level allegiance isn't there, we're 
connecting to the UX community through our IxD group. But I do actually 
doubt that you will see a grand allegiance with the UX community (although 
I shouldn't speak for the company as a whole here) because we're also 
trying to see beyond the silos. We use IxD when appropriate, IA when 
appropriate, industrial design when appropriate, environmental design when 
appropriate. The only real goal is to create the right design, 
cross-pollinating whatever tools that make the most sense to use for 
tackling the challenge at hand.

And on a side note, back to your note about the UX community rarely 
looking into its pre-Web past, that's exactly why I've been researching 
the history of the (push)button. Interaction design and information 
architecture are practices far older than the terms themselves. Looking at 
how we tackled analogous problems of 20, 50, 80 years ago helps us to 
understand where we are now. We can't avoid just the silos of fields and 
practices, we have to also avoid the silos of time.

> Peter Merholz's recent organizing venture of the IDEA conference should
> be commended as an attempt by an IA leader to get the IA community to
> see beyond itself and gain insight into others who are working to solve
> information space (virtual or physical) problems.

I really wish I could've attended this and I look forward to the audios.

Bill
ZIBA Design, IxD Group
History of the Button