Designing for Life: A Lecture and Design Workshop.

Let's face it: The world is a pretty complicated place. As designers, we play an increasingly important role in how that complicated world is shaped, understood, and experienced by millions of individuals every day. The software interfaces, web sites, physical products, and intangible services we create have a huge impact on the way people live their lives. How does this prepare us to address the profound issues humanity is facing?

IxDA Boston and Roundarch are proud to welcome distinguished interaction designer and former CMU and IIT professor Marc Rettig as the first half of a two-part event addressing these issues and more. In the September event, Marc will talk about his experience in changing the way he and his firm define the success of their work: from “ship something people like,” to “establish a measurable improvement in quality of life.” This means applying research and design methods to the social contexts of daily life, and to the social contexts in which products and services are created. It means working with complex, inter-related systems that are larger than the scope of any single organization. It means finding ways to understand the world beyond mechanistic, entity-relationship kinds of approaches. It means attention to human relationships and quality of communication become threads in the project plan, peer to design and development. And it means embarking on a deeply personal journey.

Please join us as we explore the ways that designers can create a meaningful, sustainable, positive difference in life. Note that there is a limit of 40 attendees for this event, you must RSVP and there is a cover charge of $10. Food will be provided courtesy of Mad*Pow

Where: Involution Studios, Arlington, MA
When: 6:30 on the 24th of September 2009
RSVP

About our speaker
Marc Rettig is a co-founder of Fit Associates, LLC. Fit’s intention is to lead, nurture, connect and equip conscious organizations for the greatest impact for the common good. Marc’s 26-year career has been guided by an interest in people, systems, communication, anthropology and the power of design. After a first career in software systems, he has spent more than a decade as a designer of projects, interactions, products, services, experiences, and transformations. He has taught both lecture and studio courses at Carnegie Mellon’s Graduate School of Design (where he was the 2003 Nierenberg Distinguished Chair of Design) and the Institute of Design, IIT in Chicago. Marc served as Chief Experience Officer of the pace-setting user experience consultancy HannaHodge, where he was responsible for the firm’s user-centered process, team culture, and research initiatives. He was a Director of User Experience at Cambridge Technology Partners. Prior to that he was a consultant with seeSpace, VP of Design for Digital Knowledge Assets, and a Senior Architect in Andersen Consulting’s Advanced Technologies Group. He frequently speaks and conducts hands-on workshops in industry and academic settings around the world. Marc currently serves on the advisory boards of UXNet, The Interaction Design Association, and Rosenfeld Media, and is a Contributing Editor to Interactions magazine.