[added Sept. 28th - for an "outsider" view of the the recent Design Research and IDSA conferences, read the Conference Crasher blog]
Rather than giving a play-by-play of DRC2008, I refer you to John Kolko's well-written review, which includes his detailed notes from all of the presentations. While I didn't agree 100% with all of John's opinions (e.g. I'm not "equally as witty" as Don Norman), we both found the conference to be excellent. John's analysis includes a comparison to the recent IDSA national conference, but I feel that's like comparing apples to oranges. That is, a small, focused conference like DRC is always going to have an advantage over a large , multi-focused event like a national conference, and given the choice, I'd go for the smaller conference (a choice I made this year).
Some of the highlights of the DRC for me were:
- The workshop that John Kolko and Ashley Menger gave on "Design Synthesis". Though it had to be rushed through, they provided valuable guidance and materials for diagramming and visualizing concepts and research findings - certainly an area that needs this kind of guidance.
- Liz Sander's presentation that provided a framework for the various types of research-led an design-led methods. This actually built off of an article she wrote for Design Research Quarterly a couple of years ago.
- Luis Arnal's anecdotes on conducting research in Latin America - including do's and dont's for visiting Favelas(slums), an interesting cultural perspective.
- Don Norman talking about social design, which includes social aspects of systems (like waiting in line at a bank), as well as the "social" relationships between products (e.g. products that are designed well independently, but fail technically and/or aesthetically when put together).
The conference schedule, pacing, location and materials were all thoughtfully chosen and effective. Highly recommended for next year. And for those who didn't make it this year, I'll let you know when the conference presentation videos are put online. In the meantime, you can check out the growing number of photos tagged to the conference on Flickr (displayed above).
