Have you ever stood inside an awe-inspiring building? Have you ever gone to a museum and found yourself lost and confused? How about visiting someone’s house and loving the layout of the kitchen or hating the backyard? These are all experiences you have had in a physical space and, more times than not, these spaces have been designed by an architect, who I like to call the “original experience designers”. So what are the similarities between designing a physical space and designing a digital product? What can we learn from architects and how they work? Tune in to find out how an age old profession can teach us how to better design modern applications.

1. Designing
the
future
of
energy.
Architects: The original
experience designers
PROJECT
UXDX Community
DESIGN TEAM
Chris O’Brien, Design Principal
DATE
Feb 22, 2023

6. Evolution of a home

11. Physical
Architecture delivers physical objects
Digital
UX delivers digital products

15. Process

16. DESIGN PROCESS
Research Design

17. DESIGN PROCESS
Discover Define Design Deliver

18. 1. Discover

19. DISCOVER
Client meeting
This is a wide-ranging discussion that questions local architecture
and building traditions, how to design for experience, and covers
everything from the mundane and practical to the conceptual.
• Goals
• Needs
• Emerging themes

20. DISCOVER
Who is our “client”?
We often have two clients: the stakeholders and the people using the
product—each with their own goals. And what methods do we use to
get at these goals and needs?
• Field observations
•Stakeholder interviews and mapping
•Scenarios
•Empathy mapping

21. DISCOVER
Site analysis
A projects success is built on its relationship to its site and surroundings.
Site analysis is the process of evaluating a particular locations’ physical,
mental and social characteristics with the ambition of developing an
architectural solution that will both address and enhance its internal and
external context.

22. General: Geographic location, Site boundary, Entrance
locations and types, Site security, Existing buildings.
Neighboring buildings: Distances, Heights, Uses,
Vernacular, Site lines, Rights to light, Legal restrictions,
Noise levels.
Access: Public routes, Private routes, Vehicle access,
Pedestrian access, Existing circulation routes within.
Topography: Levels, Gradients, Key features/restrictions,
Exposure, Sun paths, Wind patterns, Trees and vegetation,
Site restrictions: Visibility, Light, Views, Neighbors,
Pollution, Flooding, Land slides
Views: Private views out, Public views in.
Hazards: Electricity lines, Drainage, Telephone lines, Sub-
stations, Derelict Buildings, Unfinished building works
Ecology: Protected species, Protected zones, Impacts
SITE ANALYSIS
What to look for

23. DISCOVER
What is our “site analysis”?
Our applications are used by all different people at all different places.
There are physical impacts, digital limitations, accessibility
considerations, technology constraints, etc.
•Where will people be using this product?
•When are they using it?
•What technology do/don’t they have access to?
•What are the limitations: physical and digital?

24. 2. Define

25. DEFINE
The big idea
Partí literally translates as "departure point”. It refers to the project’s big idea or
chief organizing thought for the entire design. It signifies an architect's overall
guiding idea for a design. As such, a parti typically has less to do with technical,
financial and utilitarian issues and more to do with view, massing, scale,
transparency, opaqueness and other architectural issues. Partí isn’t really a
representation of what the project will look like in plan or elevation, but is a road
map of the ideas of the project.
Partí

26. A Parti is ever-changing. We can change it, merge it, or
abandoned it if necessary. Remember, its value is as a launching
or departure point.
A Parti is abstract. Architects take on big and broad subjects
like space, time, memory, culture, politics, and sensations. That
all boils down to defining the experience of a three-
dimensional space, which is often abstract. And that’s okay.
A Parti is scalable. It can inform design both at global and
highly detailed levels. Architects may use it to help give
consideration to how their buildings affect a larger
neighborhood and also impact choices for closet-door handles,
A Parti is imperfect. Just because it can inform all levels of
design, does not mean it has to. You don’t need to force it.
Advancing the project is the point, not perfecting the Parti’s
precise use.
PARTÍ
Our Point of Departure

29. DEFINE
Design concept
A concept is an idea, thought or notion that forms the backbone and
foundation of a design project and one that drives it forward. It becomes
the force and identity behind a projects progress and is consistently
consulted throughout every stage of its development. A strong
architecture concept gives the architect / designer a clear direction
and framework when making design decisions; it provides a
methodology to the thinking process by offering a type of rule book.
• Site analysis
• Design brief
• Building typology

30. Exterior and interior: orientation, massing, form, apertures,
height, light.
The landscape: hard and soft surfaces, types of planting,
scale of painting, arrangement of planting.
Finishes: colors, styles, textures, materials.
Fixtures and fittings: genre, style, scale, amount, material
Structure: light, heavy, traditional, modern, vernacular
Materials: colors, hard or soft, weathering, types, styles,
locally sourced, vernaculars.
DESIGN CONCEPT
Design concepts should influence the whole project

31. DEFINE
UX design concept
• User/Stakeholder needs
• Design principles
• Product definition
• Ergonomics
• Interaction patterns
• Visual design direction

32. 3. Design

33. DESIGN
The architect’s process
Architecture is both an artistic discipline and technical profession. The architect’s
approach is informed by what the Greek’s called Episteme and Techne; knowing and
doing. Study, research, the accumulation of knowledge combined with sketching and
model making, these are intertwined and make up the process of taking an idea to
final proposal.
Episteme
Pursuit of knowledge
Techne
Craft or artistic approach

34. Intimate zone Personal Space Social Zone

38. “Architectural design is iterative.
Everything you do builds on your
previous work as you develop a
deeper understanding of the
issues affecting the design. You’ll
start rough, refine, retool, rework.”
Eric Reinholdt, 30x40 Design Workshop

41. 4. Deliver

42. DELIVER
Engineers and Architects
The professional tug-of-war between engineer and architect isn't
adversarial, rather it's collaborative and makes for a better, more
efficient project.

43. DELIVER
Developers and Designers
The professional tug-of-war between developers and designers isn't
adversarial, rather it's collaborative and makes for a better, more
efficient project.

44. DELIVER
Technical drawings
While diagrams and floorpans are handy from a design perspective,
you need technical drawings to build from. We’ve all seen at one
point in our lives the classic “blueprint” drawing.

45. DELIVER
Design Specs
Just as there are blueprints to build from there are design specs to
develop from. These cut down on misunderstandings and time
wasted from back and forth on how the design should look and work.
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46. Conclusion

47. “You employ stone, wood and
concrete, and with these
materials you build houses and
palaces. That is construction.
Ingenuity is at work.
But suddenly you touch my
heart, you do me good, I am
happy and I say: This is beautiful.
That is Architecture.”
Le Corbusier , Architect

50. Thank you
Chris O’Brien
Principal Designer, IT Fellow
ExxonMobil

51. HOW TO GET STARTED
101 Things I Learned in
Architecture School
These 101 concise lessons in design, drawing, the
creative process, and presentation--from the basics
of how to draw a line to the complexities of color
theory--provide a much-needed primer in
architectural literacy and make concrete what too
often is left nebulous and open-ended in the
architecture curriculum.
Visual Acoustics: The
Modernism of Julius Shulman
Visual Acoustics celebrates the life and career of
Julius Shulman, the world's greatest architectural
photographer, whose images brought modern
architecture to the American mainstream.
30x40
A design-focused, residential architecture firm
founded by award-winning architect Eric W.
Reinholdt. He designs simple, modern, site-
specific homes inspired by Maine’s rugged
surroundings, humble materials, agrarian building
forms, and employs a modernist esthetic.
Book Documentary YouTube