Breaking the Design Confines - Aleksandra Melnikova

Breaking the (design) confines

Aleksandra Melnikova @alex_andr_a

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

The due diligence slide

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

DESIGN

BUSINESS

ART

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

EXPERIENCE DESIGN TEAM

Team of people who never use

the term ‘wireframe’.

Business that doesn’t have the word ‘digital’ in ‘things we offer’

anymore.

Art Design

Me

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

My teams felt like this (most of the time).

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

“You want to create a product inspired by

what?”

“What’s the name of that period

again?”

“We have to look at competitors.”

“How do we use that principle?”

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

How is any of this relevant to what we do?

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

ARTICULATING TRANSFORMING

APPLYING

WITHIN ART

inspiration

@alex_andr_a@UXlive

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

Performing arts Music, Theatre, Dance

Visual arts, two-dimensional Painting, Drawing

Visual arts, three-dimensional Architecture

1

2

3

FINE ARTS

A MUSICAL DICE GAME FOR

COMPOSING A MINUET (MOZART,

1787)

SERENDIPITY + CHANCE

Aleatoric music: some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some

primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its

performer(s)

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

SALVADOR DALI, THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY (1931)

EINSTEIN + FREUD

theory of relativity (reconfigured understanding of the nature of time)

psychoanalytic theories (sleep)

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

( IMAGE)

FRANK GEHRY, GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, BILBAO (1997) http://www.phaidon.com/resource/guggenheim-museum-bilbao-spain-600x800.jpg

FISH

grandmother’s dish “something that has been there long

before us”

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

What would have Mozart composed… What would have Dali created…

What would have Gehry constructed…

If they were only drawing from contemporaries?

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

WITHIN DESIGN

inspiration

@alex_andr_a@UXlive

What do we usually dowhen we start a (design) project?

@UXbri @alex_andr_ahttps://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51janjhtTwL._SY445_.jpg

awwwards webbiesfavourite

competitors

industry

slightlyoutside

of industry

What could we do instead?

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

TRIGGERS

there’s got to be some

@alex_andr_a@UXlive

Usually performed with a partner. You have to express multiple feelings and emotions in a

single word, repeating it over and over again.

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

Performing arts Music, Theatre, Dance 1

CHAIR EXERCISE

Rule of one

If you were limited to one rule how would the output look like?

  Example: you are allowed to use only one module, only one shape, only one

word - to express everything.

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

EXAMPLE

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

@alex_andr_a@UXlive

Metric feet into layouts

ABSTRACTION You start from painting a hyperrealistic still life,

gradually decomposing it with every next iteration, till you reach complete abstraction.

You have got 7 steps.

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

Visual arts, two-dimensional Painting, Drawing 2

Findings design

We designed our research to reduce findings to images,

decreasing the length of the bridge between the research itself, findings debrief

and design.

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

@alex_andr_a@UXlive

Metaphors Interpret and portray something

rigid and visually recognisable as something else.

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

Visual arts, two-dimensional Painting, Drawing 2

what if the site was a tree?

what if it was a song?

what if it was a natural phenomenon?

Site as a metaphor

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

I’ve designed these trigger cards

I LEARNED

if there was anything

@alex_andr_a@UXlive

Distill things and operate within fundamentals, not features.

Understand, interpret, rebuild.

#1

STEAL FUNDAMENTALS

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

Venture out of your comfort zone willingly and frequently. Track your least

and most favourite walks. Use both.

#2

FIND CONSTRAINTS

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

#3

SEEK COMPLEXITY

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

Surround yourself with intriguing events, things, people - train eye to see, nose to inhale new ways of connecting things.

Of what’s usual, usable, simple, possible and ‘viable’.

#4

PUSH THE BOUNDARIES

@alex_andr_a@UXbri

THANK YOU

@alex_andr_a@UXbri