Notes from Bill Buxton’s IxDA Keynote

Really [a great talk](http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1418571118)…

Stop designing products ([a la Peter Merholz](http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2006/09/29/stop-designing-products/)):

> The foundation of my largest career failures was, I thought my job was to have good ideas. I didn’t realize that my job was actually not to design products, it was to design the culture of my organization [Ed: next bit unclear…] to understand the things I had. – 12:25

Do unto others…

> We have no right to complain about being not being understood if we have not invested at least as much at understanding the goals, objectives, techniques and criteria of the people we want to understand us as we expect them to invest in understanding us. It’s a two-way street: we have to invest as much in understanding them as we expect them to invest in us. – 12:35

Interesting insight that the struggle designers and researchers have to be respected is the same type of struggle women have had to be respected.

But know your specific strengths:

> You have to know what makes you distinct–what makes you different from an engineer, from a business person…if you don’t know what makes you different, then what the hell are you doing, because you clearly don’t bring value to the culture or the organization…your entire value to the organization is [in] what makes you different.

What enables Apple to [produce](http://ryskamp.org/brain/design/design-and-products) great design:

> We’ve got to deal with this Apple issue…Jonathan Ive joined Apple in 1993…[but] when Steve came back [in 1997], first, within 24 hours…he said ‘I’m going to turn the company around through industrial design’…He did it with existing talent…it doesn’t matter how good you are as a designer…unless you change your organization, the more frustrated you’re going to be…the biggest design challenge is your organization…

> Who is responsible for the iPod?…There is not a single person in the company who is *not* responsible.

What can you draw best?

> If you aren’t as fluent at [drawing the experience of using a phone] as you are at [drawing the shape or interface of a phone]…we have a problem.

Everyone can design, but not everyone is a designer:

> There is a distinct discipline known as design. Design is not invention, innovation, or creativity…design is a way of thinking…design is compromise, because it deals with reality in every aspect of the real world…design is choice.

Why sketching is the best resolution for shared ideas–it allows others to still participate in the creation:

> You have to leave holes for imagination to thrive.