November 2008

Spore’s Creator: Great For Kids

by Paul Sherman on November 30, 2008 · 2 comments

in Design

Say what you will about Wil Wright’s Spore. One thing he and the team got right: the creator interaction. Ever since I downloaded Creature Creator, my 5- and 9-year old have been building ships, buildings, and creatures endlessly. And more importantly, they’ve discovered how to do this with minimal intervention from me.

Video of Hattie’s creature is here. His name is “Spino Jerry.” Not sure where she got that, exactly.

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Mr. Sherman Goes To Washington

by Paul Sherman on November 13, 2008 · 1 comment

in Design

This week I went to Washington DC to attend the U.S. National Design Policy Summit, a gathering of academics, government employees and representatives of professional associations who were focused on raising the profile of design in the United States. The gathering was organized by Dr. Elizabeth Tunstall of the University of Illinois – Chicago, a design anthropologist who wants to “create an actionable agenda of U.S. design policy for economic competitiveness and democratic governance among professional design associations, design educational bodies, and the design-related Federal government agencies.”

I’m still processing and internalizing my reactions to the meeting and what it all meant. I’m glad I went though. I met interesting people and learned about the trials, travails and tribulations of other professional associations like the DMI, AIGA, and the IDSA.

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My User Friendly 2008 Kick-Off Presentation

by Paul Sherman on November 3, 2008 · 9 comments

Long time no post. Sorry. Been too busy obsessively following the U.S. election at www.FiveThirtyEight.com. If you’re a hardcore stats junkie, this is – or was, after Tuesday – the site for you.

Anyway, since my last post I traveled to Hong Kong and Shenzhen to take part in the User Friendly 2008 conference, put on by UPA China, a group of China-based UPA chapters.

As current UPA President I was asked to give the kick-off talk. I took the invitation as an opportunity to focus the audience on how far our discipline has come, and how far it has to go to be truly strategic in scope and reach.

You can download the presentation from this link or the one below.

User Experience: Drive Change, Become Strategic ::? Paul Sherman

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