Take aways from Amitava Sinharay. I’ve added some of my own…

Alan Cooper
– Create the insurgency!
– Software is not a problem to be solved, it is a process.
– Programming is craftsmenship.
– programmers respect competence not authority — they can’t be managed, only “facilitated”
– there is no real scarcity of time and money, yet we are confronted with that scarcity every day

Gretchen Anderson
– Keep the momentum … go for it!

Sarah Allen
– Create fans not users.

Sigi Moeslinger
– Design is a form of intervention.

Bill DeRouchey
– Inspiration is around us.

Bill Buxton
– Experience shouldn’t suck.
– Designer rhymes with whiner- but STOP WHINING!
– Everybody is not a designer.
– There is no such thing as low fidelity or high fidelity prototype- only right or wrong prototype.
– The only way to engineer the future tomorrow is to have lived it yesterday!
– Your value lies in your distinctiveness

Gretchen Anderson
– the difference between a newspaper report and a story
– synthesize detail
– “don’t be afraid to be wrong, be afraid of not making a statement”

Carl DiSalvo
– most people have no experience with design: you don’t go home and prototype dinner, you just make it

Bill DeRouchey
– make a specific button the “hero”

Gabriel White
– provide people with an understanding of their own behavior

Aza Raskin
– don’t force users to ask for more content, just give it to them!
– create a “moment of delight”

Jenny Lam
– software is both art & craft
– emotion and idea are supreme
– designers think with their hands and have the ability to communicate through actions

I’ve posted slides from my talk at Interaction08. It’s not as much fun without all the examples, but some folks who were there requested the slides…

Here are links to the examples from the talk:
* IBM : the content has changed but the interaction is the same
* iShares Index Returns Chart
* Netflix (you need to have an account, but there is a free trial)
* LzPix
* Pandora
* Behr Color Smart
* H&R Block’s Tango

JP Rangaswami (confused of calcutta) writes “Interesting, but of no commercial value”: The problem with emerging social media tools: A Saturday Evening Post (via Cloudy Thinking).

Rangaswami relates how often the bleeding edge technical trends are hard to recognize as significant until they are adopted by the masses. From email to web applications to social networks — all were considered odd fringe elements at first. I enjoyed reading his whole post.

He also highlights some gems collected by JD Paul. I followed the link and enjoyed reading all of them, but here are my faves:

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
–- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
–Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” –David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” –H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Bill Gates, 1981