Mark Baskinger, an associate professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, discusses the importance of Interaction Designers learning to draw better in order to better communicate ideas. With Interaction Designers coming from many different backgrounds to the relatively new field, it is rare that they have been classically trained in sketching like their counterparts in Industrial Design. Mark also talks about the advancement of Interaction Design as a discipline and how through confidence in purpose, Interaction Designers can build report in the business world.

Dan Hill, designer and urbanist, talks at Interaction ‘10 about urban landscapes and the information that inhabits them. Dan loves to identify all of the data points that are embedded in cities and expose them through meaningful ways. In this video, he provides a wonderful tour of the many projects that he and others have worked on. After watching the video, it is difficult to ignore the pervasive bits of information that you once passed by without ever considering how exposing them might change people’s behaviors.

Gabriel Biller and Kristy Scovel from the IIT Institute of Design have created an excellent primer for those getting into the field of Ethnography. Their primer provides an overview of the practice, interview tips, as well as anecdotal stories from the field. While it is a little slow at the start, once it gets going, it is both educational and interesting. Definitely a must watch for those getting into the filed of Human Computer Interaction.

Aaron Forth, VP of Product at Mint.com, speaks at UX Week 2009 about the importance of user experience as it applies to managing personal finances with Mint.com. Aaron talks about tying the user experience to business objectives and how it influences everything from the people they hire hiring, creating their business model, and all aspects of Mint.com. Through several anecdotes Aaron talks about building the brand, building trust, and how the emotion of personal finances has a large impact on how Mint approaches design. A few of the most important factors have included the name, the light color tones, and framing the topic of finance in the light of ‘hope’. One of the most interesting insights was hearing how Mint.com chose to no longer support Internet Explorer 6.0 after discovering they were spending nearly 20% of their time working specifically to support it.

Rachel Hinman, Mobile Design Strategist for Adaptive Path, talks at UX Week 2008 and imagines the future of mobile technology. Rachel covers three emigrant and important themes. 1) Re-thinking the relationship with devices and how to make them less consuming of people’s attention and more of an enabler of contextual tasks. 2) Instead of looking for answers, it is much better to seek understanding when it comes to mobile needs. 3) Senses can play an important role in creating powerful experiences for mobile devices.

From the IxDA library, Robert Fabricant, Creative Director at Frog Design, talks about Interaction Design and why he believes that behavior is what it is all about. With his own examples dating back to ancient history, Robert believes the practice of Interaction Design can and should be communicated through examples of behavior beyond that of technology.

MEGAphone is… phone-call controlled, real-time, multi-player gaming on big screens. At UX Week 2008, Dan Albritton talks about the challenges related to designing for such an experience. With mobile servers linked to the phone network via a measly 3G connection, the system must account for the differences between button presses on various phones, handle volume normalization, and be responsive with a large number of users.

Don Norman, one of the Godfathers of user experience and known well for ‘Norman Doors’, talks at TED in 2003 about beauty, fun, and emotional design. Don talks about the three ways that good design makes you happy, including the visceral, behavioral, and reflective aspects of design. For more, check out his now ubiquitous book The Design of Everyday Things.

Designed by Silke Hilsing, Impress is a display system which allows physical manipulation of the display surface for input purposes. Learn more about this project from concept to prototype on Silke’s Website.

Will Evans, Principal User Experience Architect for Semantic Foundry, talks about designing for Social Media Networks. Will talks about using social psychology principals to create interfaces and influence social behavior through rewards and punishments. Two case studies include the failed Kayak.com and the success of Gather.com.