Underlying the beginning to the social media era of computing is the wide realization that there's more to digital than compelling visual design: it must work with the intended audience and their expectations.
Among even the most removed from the day-to-day of making Websites, widgets, and mobile apps, brand leadership is finally starting to move away from brushing Interaction Design (IxD) under the magic rug of "Look and Feel," and understanding the value in quality persona, sketching, wireframing and prototyping work.
First widely promoted by Frog in the 90's as the pre-pre-production conceptual design phase, having solid Interaction Design means focusing on specific users, use cases, and quickly iterating through rough sketches of interactive systems when making many changes cost the least and contain scope in production while building products that people love to use.
More than a decade after Frog began building on DaRPA's production methodology, we're on the eve of a sold-out, multi-track Interaction10 conference produced by the Interaction Design Association in Savannah, Georgia. One of the kickoff events is a workshop called "The Right Way to Wireframe," in which four major-brand interaction design leaders (Russ Unger, Fred Beecher, Todd Zakiwarfel, and Will Evans) each developed a Website design with the same personae and client in mind. If you're going to SXSW, I highly recommend seeing their panel there.
As part of the presentation, each panelist will be showing a video of their process. I was asked to create the video for Will's, which I share below as some valuable insight into the effort, deliverables, and methods behind making digital work as well as it looks.
What do you think? Share your ideas in the comment section or on Twitter @mleis.
