I recently had the good fortune to give a talk at the GoDaddy Expand 2021 event. My talk was about user-centric design practices.
Get paid to do better work
One of the primary messages of my presentation was ‘Get paid to do better work’. We all need more time to do the things that we have prioritized in our lives. Some of us want to be spending more time with family and enjoying non-work related activities. Others among us want to be growing our business. Or maybe want to increase revenue, and expand our client base. At the same time, many of us designers want to become more masterful at our design practices. I personally can relate to all groups and my priorities are constantly shifting too.
User-centric design on rethink.fm podcast
This talk sparked some good conversation between the three of us.
As usual we are talking about the positive impact we can make together through usability, research, and design. Listen in and learn from our mistakes. We’ve included a full transcript as well.
Here is a a quick peek:
Monique: “So what I loved about your talk as well, is how you made this relate to your background in art. Both you and your husband have been in art school in Chicago, way back in the 20th century, right.”
Cathi: “We invented the wheel, yeah, hahaha!“
Monique: “Tell me more about that wheel. The wheel is what you mentioned, a diagram that’s based on your husband’s experience art. You can tell this better than I ’cause you were there!“
Software is an Experience Diagram
This diagram is based on my husband Dominic’s art. His work was amazing work and very original. Back in the 1980’s, he was defining art as an experience and not an object. We were sculptors, and we were studying Time Arts. At the time, this was a new dimension (4-D) on the scene. So, his definition of Art as an experience rather than an object, required three things to have an Art Experience:
- An object
- An artist (to build it)
- An audience
Without one of those three things in the equilateral triangle, you could not have an Art Experience. And so I just sort of extended that to the Software as an Experience diagram. Because we’re not just pumping out code. We’re not just making some ‘things’. We’re actually creating ways for people to have shared experiences.
To learn more about the practice of creating great experiences for people through software design/products, give the podcast a listen. I also recommend to check out the presentation at GoDaddy Pro Expand. And remember: Get paid to do better work!