Making Things in a Digital World | HOBBS

Session Title:
Making Things in a Digital World
TOM HOBBS

Many designers are drawn to the profession because of an innate desire to create things. Real things. They’re the kind of people that as children loved to create pictures, build models, construct Legos or explore programming computers. It’s the pursuit of tangibly affecting the world around us by actually adding new things to it. Ironically, the practice of fully fledged designers is a little more abstract, particularly for interaction designers. It is less about exploring an analog of the actual thing. Instead it is about creating descriptions, diagrams and specifications of what we believe the end result should be. As we move to a design world that is dominated by creation of digital experiences and devices that house them, what does it mean to make our design practices about making things?

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