Designing for Emerging Technologies

Preface

Why We Wrote This Book

In this collection of essays, you will discover designers, engineers, researchers, and scientists working with groundbreaking technology, discussing their approaches to experience design. This compilation spans the technological spectrum from robotics to connected environments, 3D printing to synthetic biology, genomics to wearables. It is neither definitive nor all encompassing but rather a rare combination of vision and hard-won experience, identifying nascent domains of user experience and getting down into the primordial ooze.

Consider that when the Internet first began to proliferate in the mid-to-late 1990s, there was little definition or agreement around how design should intersect with it, the emerging technology of the time. Today, we have the panoply of design subpractices that cater to very specific areas of web creation from interaction designers to usability experts, visual designers to frontend coders. The path has been laid; the trail blazed.

If this collage of ideas around emergent technology seems diverse, it is deliberate. As designers, we must cross-pollinate, drawing our inspiration from fields we’ve never before considered, breaking down boundaries to create something new and humane. New forms of design will emerge from this multidisciplinary brew.

Who Should Read This Book

The philosopher and writer Isaiah Berlin in his work “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” described the people who excel in this type of multivariate environment, looking ...