Session type: 45 minute talk

Much like the physical environment, the digital experience for the guests at Disney Parks is one that should feel personal and make their vacation unique. Our team at Disney Parks and Resorts Digital was challenged with that task: create a digital ecosystem as dynamic as all the facets of a Disney vacation, which encompasses a hotel, restaurant, eCommerce, transportation hub, photo service, and entertainment planner. Improving an experience with a large feature set requires a strategy rooted in a growth mindset. Creating an intuitive ecosystem that both scales for the unknown and addresses a broad demographic requires alignment across multiple teams and tiers of leadership. Designers often play a crucial role in organizing and solving these challenges, but the greatest momentum is gained when a larger team can share a unified vision. Two product design leaders at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Digital will show how a team can strategize, gain consensus and alignment, then execute a large scale update of the information architecture, navigation and visual design of the Disney Parks mobile apps. This talk addresses and details a common problem in our discipline: How to use design techniques to gain momentum and alignment on a new, lasting shared vision.

• How strategic thinking, active listening, and holistic design builds trust with leaders and forges new paths for an organization.
• How regular alignment introduces system-wide improvements, without rebuilding an entire app ecosystem.
• How strong IA can address past mistakes, current needs, and the future ambiguity; all while empowering your team to put a strong, agreeable, stake in the ground.
• How breaking complex experiences down to simple design patterns can align business and user goals.

In 2002 I passed through a gate labeled "Information Architect" (a smaller sign read "now leaving Content Strategist") and ever since the IA worldview has informed my approach to the design and building of digital spaces. Since then I passed through additional gates with names such as "Interaction Designer" and "Pattern Detective," and "Design Manager" among others, most recently a gateway called "Head of Product." The journey has (in retrospect) been a quest to understand and build meaningful online spaces, leading up to a startup trying to scale compassion globally. In this talk I will share how the skills I learned as an IA have helped me on this career journey and through this series of gates in search of meaning.

A formerly secret IBM-funded research project 0f 1978 was the earliest interactive design in arts education and was among the last and least known projects from the legendary designers Charles and Ray Eames. The game led viewers to recognize the styles of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters through random selection, simple interactions, and feedbacks ranging from "good guess" to "no way" for the response to a given work in a given artist being studied. A fascinating project from the dawn of interactive design and IA, the Art Game employed a combination of systematic structure with a hand-crafted behind-the-scenes information architecture to the traditionally "soft" subject of art connoisseurship. Never published until recently, this approach may inspire new applications in other areas involving visual discrimination and recognition.

Immersive technologies like augmented, virtual, and mixed reality are creating new intersections between the physical and digital worlds, and as digital experience designers and architects it is essential that we start to think beyond the screen. In this session we'll explore lessons learned by studying immersive design at Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece residence built on a waterfall. Wright coined the term “organic architecture” to describe a philosophy in which the environment and physical structures become a combined, unified experience. Topics covered will include how all of seven of our senses are engaged by our environments (including two senses we generally don’t consider in traditional UX design), learning to see the world and sketch like an architect, and techniques for low-fidelity physical prototyping that can substantially accelerate our production workflows. Whatever our role in crafting digital content, we have the opportunity to pioneer this new frontier, and learning fundamental concepts and techniques of architecture will help us design for physical and virtual environments that in turn become impactful and memorable experiences.

Designers, information architects, and researchers deserve a seat at the table, where they can shape and influence the strategic direction of the company. But what are the primary indicators that your organization is prepared to listen, change, and evolve? This presentation will address how design has established itself as a competitive business differentiator for those looking to strengthen their own arguments, but will focus on a series of questions, observations, and gut-checks to determine if your organization--and you--are ready to take action on exactly what you ask for.