In a week, I will be in Helsinki to attend a sold out Interaction16 conference (my fourth!). As always, I am hard at work, combing through the schedule to find out the most interesting talks, and make the most out of my time. In the coming days I will share my picks. First: day 1.
We’re starting out with a keynote Marko Ahtisaari, a Nokia alumni. Allthough I’m sure his Finnish credentials are up to the task, I can’t really comment, because there isn’t a summary or a title for the keynote yet…
On the first day, a theme does seem to emerge about how we do design. Not the designs themselves, but the methods we use and the companies that use them. Within that theme there are going to be a few interesting talks:
First up are the people behind the much praised gov.uk , with a talk about making design patterns for government, and keeping them up to date. I hope and expect to get a practical talk with usable information about keeping design synced between departments of big organisations.
Completely different is Huge inc. The people behind this big international agency opened a real coffeeshop (not the Dutch kind) to experiment with service design patterns. Interesting, but planned at 10:30, just like gov.uk. So I’ll have to choose.
Matt Nish-lapidus is a well known name in IxDA circles, and an interesting speaker. His talk will be about the design agency of the 21st century. sixteen years late, but well… In the other room, there will be two talks about narrative design and storytelling, so maybe I’ll go there, as a more original choice.
After lunch, Amber Cartwright will tell us more about the kind of ‘data driven design‘ AirBnB uses. More often then not, decisions are based on objective criteria, instead of a perception of what is ‘nice’ or ‘beautiful’. A great development, if you ask me. Following that, straight to ‘Crowds, Algorithms, and Computation: The New Materials of Design‘. Which is probably about the same thing as the talk before, but whatever.
With the finish line for day 1 in sight, we will sit down for the closing keynote of the day: Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino. A well known, but not very original name, especially for people familiar in the world of the internet of things. Anyway, oftentimes I’d rather have a more experienced speaker then a very original one.
After the keynote, a quick visit to the opening reception (nice spot!), and it’s a wrap for day 1.
(photo CC by Peter Bihr)