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Design is important, but remind me how important?

Two design things in my bin, so I’ll post them (having only one would seem off-topic!).

Yesterday I ran across a mention (if I had my firefox tracker, I’d know where I found it, but alas) of a design conference that sounded somewhat interesting, the Design Research for Product and Brand Innovation held in SF in October. It sounds somewhat like what I do, but I can tell they’re talking to folks with a different general skillset. It’s like listening to Québequoise radio.

I’ll admit my ignorance and say I can’t tell if it’s info design, or user interface, or - most cynically - just up-market web development. I keep attending BayCHI events and other usability things because I’m trying to understand what this role adds. I still need an answer to the question: if I have a sw startup with limited dollars, at what point do I need to have a person with these skills? What do I look for and what value should I expect them to add? I may be skeptical, but at least I continue to be curious, sensing there’s value in there somewhere.

My intial impression from how hazy things are is that the practicioners themselves don’t yet know. Perhaps because of its newness, I have a feeling that this discipline is not monolithic at all, with high variation in level and mix of skills. Like worse than when you talk about Java programmers and try to figure out who’s good or not.

The second design thing is more traditional stuff, mentioned on the Future Salon Blog - a session tomorrow at PARC with David Kelley of IDEO. Now maybe it’s a product of my confusion that I think design-pretty should also be design-useful, but there you have it. Looking at the Stanford Design School’s website I have to wonder. Is this a thinktank? Maybe it’s new-new and all will be revealed later, but I tried to sign up for the “more info ” and got an error from Topica. If I get enough done early in the day tomorrow, I’ll wander by.