I had the pleasure of attending Ozchi earlier this month presenting at Ozchi. It was a great conference, perhaps more relaxed than some years which I attribute to the temperature in Cairns.

My presentation focused on a reflection into changes in our role as designers, in light of social technologies. In particular I focused on the role of seeding as a design activity in forging a connection between a design project or concept, and the possible “user community” that it might target [[download pdf]]. Seeding describes an aspect of our design process or responsibility that exists in addition to (or perhaps instead of) the actions of constructing and crafting that we might have emphasised in earlier design mediums. The presentation seemed to be well received, though was of rather a different focus than the heavy heuristics analysis that went before it (good, but a very different tangent on design reflections).

Closer to my field was the talk that follow me by Mads Bødker who explored how the different generative design tools that we might provide our user’s in workshop sessions influences how they are able to articulate their thoughts and ideas. Of course the materials and objects we use impact the way people communicate, and it will be great to have some research that goes some way to indicating how some approaches and materials in this area of methods privilege or enable certain aspects over others.