Although she doesn’t know it, Tori Breitling is one of my favorite Austin folks. She’s an excellent interaction designer and leader of the Austin IxD community, she was on Twitter early enough to get the name ‘Tori,’ and most importantly, she makes faces like the one below. What’s not to love?

Tori asked me to present at the 3rd IxDA meeting in Austin at Vignette, who was kind enough to offer the perfect meeting space for our purposes. My topic, of course, was visual thinking – what, how, why – and I engaged the group in play that would help them visually articulate something they may otherwise write down or hold in their minds. This group, like so many others, was at first reticent to draw, but after reassurances that visual thinking is a valuable skill to have (and offers of free hugs), they dove in and produced some great pieces. Some created process maps, others drew relationship maps, and others used typography to indicate that they wanted beer at the next presentation. My goal: to make the case that (a) visual thinking will be a sought-after skill, (b) that it significantly contributes to learning and communication and (c) that it is attainable by ANYONE with functioning hands, eyes and mind. I think my mission was accomplished. Click on the slideshow below to view the content.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 10:55 am and is filed under Appearances & Interviews, Visual Thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.