Photo © Gerhard Kassner

The main points of his talk are Chaos, Superhumans and Design. Chaos being the new augmented if fragmented reality we live in, and Superhumans being the melding of human and artificial intelligence. He explains a little about the chaotic ecosystem where the new technologies at our disposal make life faster, denser but not necessarily a better one, and how design can enable people to grow, to evolve.

If in the beginning he thanks designers for making this world a more functional, beautiful place (probably a very smart way to start a talk at a design conference), he now brings up a pertinent argument: “designers are now at a point where they have a place at the table, they have a voice…. and they need to step up”.

Jeff Faulkner

Jeff Faulkner is an award winning brand, web and UX Creative Director/Designer based in Seattle Washintgon, USA. Jeff is currently Creative Director for Xbox, where he guides the brand and UX vision for the Xbox Entertainment Ecosystem. Before Xbox, Jeff's history includes Executive Creative Director for Blast Radius, Artist in Residence at Second Story, Partner and CD at Portland Oregon design firms deepPlay and Parisfrance where he worked exclusively with Wieden + Kennedy and Nike. Jeff has served on several design panels, as competition judge and speaker. He was also Communication Design professor at the Northwest College of Art. Clients inlcude MoMA NYC, Nike, Apple, Starbucks, Virgin, BMW, Gravis and Burton. Jeff's background includes years in the Pacific Northwest music scene, photography, journalism and lots of design. You can get a sense for his personal style and first love, art direction, by visiting his blog http://agiantgirl.tumblr.com.

Speaker page

Faulkner identifies four layers that designers need to get involved in: Platforms, Interaction, Devices and Content; and four points to have into consideration with regards to these: Semantic, self organising databases, CPUs with awareness, Ubiquitous Identity Ecosystems and non-linear UI. And even if all this sounds too techie for you, his presentation makes it all clear, among examples of a well designed service (Kiva) or what is currently a superhuman (Oscar Pistorius).

We have a chance to design the future, “a choice to teach the machine to be like George Bush or Ghandi”. If a bad UX makes things worse, a good UX could change the world. So instead of getting scared or denying AI, we better get engaged and design it as best as possible. Don’t leave it to the engineers, design it and design it good, to create a better, healthier and happier life. His equation AI – Design = Chaos but AI + Design = Superhumans sums this up pretty well.

Do make sure to check out Jeff Faulkner’s visually appetising blog: aGiantGirl. We’ll leave you with a final quote “The world is complex, people are complex, technology is super-complex, so we need design to help us make a better life.”

Text: Ann-Kristina Simon & Ana Viegas | Graphic Birdwatching