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Adaptive Design
At the Heart of Interaction Design
Design Coalition
Envisioning the E-Quarium
The Interdisciplinary Dance
Quality of Experience
Lectures
Publications
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Jim Faris speaks about how working within the dynamic and technocentric
environment of California's Silicon Valley has radically changed his
approach to design. In 1990, AlbenFaris moved from New York to Santa
Cruz, California with the intention of designing interactive products. They
also hoped to enjoy the more relaxed lifestyle Californians are known for.
Since that time, they have indeed designed an interesting variety of
interactive projects for Apple, Netscape, Hewlett-Packard and many other
companies. But rather than slowing the pace of their lives and work, they
found that the software industry is an environment of rapid, unrelenting,
and radical change. In recent years, the web has accelerated this trend.
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Here's where we given
this lecture.
Vision Plus 4 Symposium
1998
Netherlands Design Institute
2D Lecture Series
1996
ATypl '95
(Association Typographique Internationale)
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Jim and his staff are constantly engaged in using design to create order,
beauty and meaning in this environment. They have discovered that one way to
better function in the new economy is to be in a mode of continual
adaptation to changing circumstances. They have come to expect that during a
design project there will be significant changes to technical constraints,
marketing requirements and usability criteria, among other things. As a
result, AlbenFaris has had to challenge their own beliefs about how to
design. They have come to embrace the requirements and practices of the new
software development process. They work on multidisciplinary teams in which
venture capitalists, marketers, programmers, human factors specialists, and
users themselves have direct influence on design decisions. AlbenFaris has
embraced these changes and found ways to turn potential liabilities into
assets. A linear design process has mutated into a continually cycling mode
of research, analysis, design and implementation. We call it Adaptive
Design.
The tempestuous web industry has caused Jim to question not only how
designing can be more adaptive but how designed artifacts themselves can be
made more robust in the face of change. Product lifecycles are incredibly
brief. Rapid obsolescence is guaranteed. Adaptive Design is a strategy for
design quality in the midst of apparent chaos, and a strategy for product
survival and company growth.
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