Thanks Will and Jean-Anne for the thoughtful advice! JA, I'll definitely be contacting to hear more about your Berkeley iSchool experience. Thank you!
Here's my specific dilemma (if anybody out there has an opinion!), and why I'm trying to figure out if I need to get an MFA/MS/M.Des degree: I work for Leapfrog toys as a senior designer. I've been designing (and sometimes producing) videogames, and interactive books and toys for them for 6.5 years. It's very idiosyncratic work. Building web sites is NOT part of my job. Instead I do a variety of things like: figuring out social play patterns for a toy, or what the UI should be for a videogame (and also how all the subleveling works, and the level design, etc; really designing the whole thing), or how to best marry the content interaction with the industrial design of a toy. And: I used to be a content person. I have a Master's degree in Literature, not design! I came to design organically by way of editorial. First I made magazines in the mid-late 90s (Game Developer mag), then I worked on web stuff in late 90s til the bust (Gamasutra.com, Macromedia.com), and I've been with Leapfrog since then. So I have 10+ years work experience, and I've learned design by making all sorts of interactive things. I've done tons of designs, scripts, experience flows, ethonographic research, user testing, etc. But I'm worried that elsewhere in the industry my content roots and experience designing interactive videogames/books/toys instead of web will provoke a "tsk-tsk, can she really do interaction design?" response. And heck, some days, I wonder myself. Do I have the skills I need? I suffer from self-doubt. I'm considered skilled at Leapfrog. But it's such an unusual place, making such unusual products. I wonder, some days, if my skillset is appropriate in the wider world. I've tried to make sure I skill up whenever I need to, by occasionally taking a class in say, the Architecture department at Berkeley extension, or a drawing class, or a class or two at the Multimedia Studies program over at SFState. And I read a ton. But I'm not sure this is enough. I want to be sure that I stay competitive, and can do design work for companies other than a toy company :) I can't stay at LF forever. I'd like to be hireable by an agency like IDEO or Jump or Adaptive Path one day, so that I can work on ALL SORTS of products or web projects -- and eventually lead a design team (sometimes I mentor/lead juniors here, and really enjoy that). I enjoy the project strategy work, too --- figuring out how to balance the design, business & production needs. And I'd like to be able to use that elsewhere as well. I'm not sure those same agencies would think my skillset and background was appropriate. So, given that: 1. I have content origins 2. I haven't had to make a web site in 6.5 years 3. I have 10 years experience, including some web experience, and have designed lots of non-web interactive products 4. I'd like to be able to work for companies other than a toy company Do I need to go back to design school if I want to be hireable by a company that values great interaction design? Or do I just need to get my butt in gear and create an awesome online portfolio using as many of the latest web technologies, since I don't have to create web stuff for work? I'm curious what this list thinks :) On Thu, 1 Nov 2007 03:23:15, Will Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Chris wrote: "The theory behind design thinking & d-schools is, to > me, this: "Design is important. Too important to be managed by those > fuzzy people who actually do design. It's time for designers to step > aside and allow themselves to be led by a new generation of MBAs who > have taken a couple of courses about design (but who don't do > design)." > > In all my reading on the ideas, theory, and processes of Design > Thinking, my views are actually the opposite. I think it actually > empowers designers and moves them up earlier in the process. Sure - > some Design Thinking is being applied to business processes much in > the way that TQM and all those other process aconyms became fads over > the past 20 years. But - from the reading I have been doing, there is > the opportunity such that designers/IxD folks are no longer > downstream from the business analyst doing the problem definition and > requirements gathering. Now designers are right up front helping to > think within the problem space, exploring ideas, using abductive > thinking (and teaching it to other team members), such that a > plethora of ideas are generated well before requirements are > solidified. Am I too starry eyed? After all my reading, I have begun > to draft some ideas about a process (nothing new there :-), but to > Dan and Chris' point - we only become design morlochs if we don't > take control of the process. A few classes in design is not going to > ingrain real strategic design thinking in any mba. There is simply no > way that a semester can supplant 10, 15 years of real world problem > solving through design. > > On the other hand - i think this d.school thing is a fad. At least > the name, as such. Plenty of schools have offered combined MBA/Design > masters degrees - I have one and from what I can tell - there isn't > much difference accept for the fact that schools like CM, Indiana, > Bentley, have been doing it alot longer, have a more seasoned > curriculum, and a deep well of connected graduates. > my 2 cents :-} > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=21093 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* > February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA > Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
