Today’s landscape of competitive design requires a new breed of thinker. Solutions-minded individuals who can easily cross the once distinct, left-brain, right brain boundaries. The proliferation of RIAs and 2.0 apps cause the need for specialized roles to be replaced with cross-disciplinary functions, such as the “Devigner” (Developer/Designer). But how does a team of cross-functional minds work in today’s adhocracy? Mickey Moran, User Experience (UX) Strategist, Interaction Design (IxD) Professional and Creative Director, presented on how to empower today's new breed of mavericks and how to merge these cultures into successful design teams.

1. Keys to Successful Design Practices The Multi-Disciplined Team Environment

2. A Place for Everything…

3. …and Everything In It’s Place Information Architecture Developer Graphic Artist Business

4. Changing Practices The Issues of Today

5. Documented Bureaucracy

6. Bureaucracy means… …a collective organizational structure, procedures, protocols and set of regulations in place to manage activity (usually in large organizations and government) Source: Wikipedia

7. Application Development Collective Output Bureaucratic Design

8. Bureaucracy Issues I want ROI! “I know what the business needs and I have to keep things in check so that we don’t lose site of our investments.” I want practical! “I know what user’s need and I have to mediate our internal egos so that we stay focused on our constituents.” I want innovation! “Business thinks they know what creative means, IA has too many rules, and development keeps telling me my ideas are impossible…” “…BTW if someone else refers to me as the “Make it pretty person” I’ll puke!” I want reality! “You want me to do what, by when? I have to deal with creative retreating in their hole after dumping me with rounded corners and dynamic flash, business thinks in can all be coded in a few days, and IA has too many rules.”

9. “Same crap. Different day.” Apathy…has arrived!

10. Adhocracy means… …any form of organization that cuts across normal bureaucratic lines with the intent to capture opportunities, solve problems, and get results fast and efficiently Source: Wikipedia

11. Characteristics Highly organic structure Little formalization of behavior Roles not clearly defined Tendency to cluster groups in functional units for the purpose of deploying them in small, market-based project teams A reliance on liaison devices to encourage mutual adjustment Low standardization of procedures, because they stifle innovation Selective decentralization Work organization rests on specialized teams Power-shifts to specialized teams Horizontal job specialization High cost of communication Culture based on democratic and non-bureaucratic work Source: Wikipedia

12. Multiple Hats? Passion. Ability. Goals. Stay Ahead of the Curve.

13. Self Taught? Passion. Ability. Goals. Stay Ahead of the Curve.

14. Who Am I?

15. A New Breed of Thinking The Multi-Disciplinary Individual

16. “The more you know about the medium you work in, the better you work in that medium.” while (!(succeed = try()));

17. “For optimum efficiency, as a designer I will not only be concerned with painting the bigger picture but also building it!” Creatives Should Code

18. “Translating a written language to something that can be visually seen is truly an art form.” Code Is Poetry.

19. ? ? Emerging Content ? Communities Text Messaging Social Networking User Generated Mobile Apps iPhone SOA Office Online Open Source Mash-ups Blogging SAAS/Cloud Computing Web 2.0 Touch Screen You Wanted Innovation…

20. “The effect of rich Internet applications has been incredible, both in breadth and depth. We're seeing everyone from Internet hobbyists to large enterprises building RIAs—and seeing their business improve dramatically as a result..”

21. Constantly Changing #WHATDOESITMEANFORME #WHATCANIMAKEWITHIT

22. “Not only should creatives code, but they should understand usability and human factors.”

23. Game Changing Interfaces

24. Turning Thoughts Into Practice The Multi-Disciplinary Team

25. Leah Culver CEO, Pownce Social networking site Rob Kalin CEO, Etsy.com eCommerce engine and site for handmade artisan goods Kristopher Tate CTO, Zooomr.com Photo sharing site Dalton Caldwell CEO, imeem.com Music and video social networking site Matt Mullenweg CEO, WordPress.org Blog Tool and Publishing Platform Una Kim CEO, Keep (keepcompany.com) Non-Pink shoes and clothing geared towards the urban, athletic, surfer cultured-female Game Changers.

26. Goals Be extremely productive in application development Create expressive applications with effective interface patterns Deploy applications through a well-distributed, high-performance, cross-platform, cross-browser runtime environment Use tools and technologies that scale with the size of the project and complexity of the task

27. Solutions-Oriented Roles Information Architecture User Experience Strategist Interaction Designer Developer Graphic Artist Devigner Business

28. The Devigner Workflow

29. The Devigner Workflow

30. Enable Hand-Off Strategies HARVEST MODEL(Designer is removed from source – short term goal) Developers can “Harvest” assets from designers in cases where designers cannot check in files to a source repository The designer may be handing off exclusively graphic assets exported from a tool, or the designer may be creating actual WPF animations, styles, and templates that are then incorporated by the developer

31. Enable Hand-Off Strategies COLLABORATION MODEL (Designer interacts with source) The designer is actually authoring the solution in tandem with the developers The designer may be checking XAML files into a source code repository and likely will be able to compile and run the application Boundary between designer and developer is blurred as designers can code the presentation layer and UI developers can handle graphic and interaction design

32. My Current Situation

33. User Experience Strategy We own everything front-end, from: User Research/Ethnography Best Practices in Design Product Brand Design and Creative Prototype Development Client Testing and Validation Pattern Library Definition

34. Thanks! “Now, Let’s Talk About it! ”