Bill Buxton on design and return on experience

Bill Buxton
Canadian designer and computer scientist Bill Buxton is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. Last month Bill gave a good 20-min keynote at Mix09 that kicked off a longer keynote by Scott Guthrie (corporate vice president of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division).

Bill Buxton is the author of Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design, published jointly by Morgan Kaufmann and Focal Press. He is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and has a 30 year involvement in research, design and commentary around human aspects of technology, and digital tools for creative endeavour, including music, film and industrial design, in particular. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was a researcher at Xerox PARC, a professor at the University of Toronto, and Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc. – where 2003 he was co-recipient of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement. In 2007, he was named Doctor of Design, Honoris Causa, by the Ontario College of Art and Design, in 2008 became the 10th recipient of the ACM/SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award for fundamental contributions to the field of human-computer interaction, and in January 2009 was elected a Fellow of the ACM. More information on Buxton and his work can be found at: www.billbuxton.com

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(via Presentation Zen)

2 Comments

  1. According to Mr. Buxton in his presentation, “experience is engendered in the product”. He described an ideal experience as being just this side of euphoric.

    This may be accomplished when the product is entertainment related, but how are designers and develops to evoke such responses from users in commercial or industrial related fields?

    I’m sure there was great rejoicing when the vacuum cleaner replaced the broom, but I’ve never seen anyone acting giddy over a Hoover.

    Needless to say, our jobs as designers and developers will not end with the achievement of the “dissapearing interface”.

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