This document contains notes from Michael Surtees, the creative director of Gesture Theory. It includes information about his background and experiences, an overview of Gesture Theory and the types of work they do, summaries of interviews he has conducted, examples of diagrams and design work, and discussions of topics like agile development processes and iterating on designs.

1. OBSERVING, REMEMBERING & SHARING
PREPARED FOR AOL, Experience Design Studio (XDS)
PROVIDED BY MICHAEL SURTEES
May 13th, 2011

2. HELLO
I’m the creative director and a principal of Gesture Theory
Past experiences include working at agencies, startup’s
and interactive boutique studios
Publish the blog DesignNotes.info and
started #walkingtoworktoday
I have one weimaraner

3. GESTURE THEORY
We design smart, elegant and lightweight user interfaces for
web applications and mobile devices
We create systems that can evolve & scale in an organic way
And hopefully inspire people to enjoy & share their experience
Clients include:

4. BLOG: DESIGNNOTES.INFO

5. I DO IT TO REMEMBER
I DO IT FOR MYSELF
I DO IT TO KEEP MY MIND ACTIVE
I DO IT TO MEET LIKEMINDED PEOPLE
I DO IT BECAUSE I CAN

6. DESIGN NOTES CONTENT TYPES
Interviews
Diagrams
Book Reviews
Experiences
Link Drop
Design Work

7. AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN GARGIULO,
OWNER OF SWICH IN NYC
I always said on my 30th birthday if I hadn’t yet taken a big risk
in life and started a company or something big, I had to quit
my job on that day and figure something out fast. I guess I got
anxious because on my 26th birthday I walked into Cliff’s office
and retired from advertising. I developed a business plan, found
an investor, and a year and a half later in December of last year,
we opened our doors.

8. THE PERSON BEHIND NOOKA: AN INTERVIEW
WITH MATTHEW WALDMAN
If something must be taught, then it is not intuitive… which brought
all the background processes above together and I questioned why
there were only 2 ways to represent time. I sketched some ideas on
a napkin, went back to New York and showed them to my IP Lawyer
who thought they could get design patent protection. There were
some other steps, and then a watch!

9. QUADCAMERA AND TOYCAMERA INTERVIEW
WITH TAKAYUKI FUKATSU, CREATOR
OF IPHONE APPS
So as a first step I want to suggest that “cheap and uncontrollable is
fun”. That’s why ToyCamera only has random effect. I wanted to pick up
the essence of uncontrollable fun of actual ToyCameras. Also I want to
make my ToyCamera as Camera not application. That’s why there is no
Undo, Redo, and import taken photo from album.

10. LEAN POCKET FAIL

11. DIAGRAMS

12. BOOK REVIEWS

13. COMPARING INSTAGRAM TO
THE LUMIX GF1 & FLICKR PART 1

14. DESIGNING FOR THE BROWSER OF TODAY

15. iPAD: GESTURETHEORY.COM

16. DESKTOP: GESTURETHEORY.COM

17. MOBILE: GESTURETHEORY.COM

18. LINK DROP FLOW

19. LINK DROP PROCESS

20. LINK DROP POST

21. LINK DROP MIND MAP

22. #walkingtoworktoday

23. #walkingtoworktoday

24. Silence of the Celebs

25. QUOTE FROM URBANDADDY
Everybody has one.
That person who, for reasons you’d rather not disclose, you just
don’t want to see, ever again. Not even on the Internet.
Well, today’s the day. The day to delete that person forever.
With a little help from, yes, the Internet itself...
Introducing Silence of the Celebs, a browser app for Chrome
that literally erases your least-favorite names from the Internet,
available now.

26. THE PROCESS: MICHAEL SURTEES
RECONSIDERS THE WEATHER (APP)
http://www.switched.com/2010/12/14/the-process-michael-surtees-reconsiders-the-weather/

27. BUILDING PRODUCTS = BEING AGILE +
WILLING TO ITERATE
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there
are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns
– the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
—Donald Rumsfeld

28. AGILE
Process: Weather App
Requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration
Frequent inspection and adaption
Tasks are broken into small parts with minimal planning
Emphasize face to face communication over written documents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development

29. ITERATION
Process: Weather App
Design and build just enough, test it anyway possible
Observe what works and what doesn’t, keep Building after that
Work in advance, loop back for other things
Keep it open and allow for a lot of feedback

30. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

31. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

32. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

33. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

34. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

35. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

36. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

37. LIVE TV HOME SCREEN ITERATIONS

38. IDEAS TO BUILD ON: MOBILE SCREEN ADDITION

39. IDEAS TO BUILD ON: MOBILE SCREEN ADDITION

40. IDEAS TO BUILD ON: MOBILE SCREEN ADDITION

41. IDEAS TO BUILD ON: MOBILE SCREEN ADDITION

42. IDEAS TO BUILD ON: DROPBOX ADDONS

43. IDEAS TO BUILD ON: CHROME EXTENSIONS

44. THANKS!
Please say hi
Michael Surtees
Email: michael@gesturetheory.com
Twitter: @michaelsurtees
Blog One: designnotes.info
Blog Two: gesturetheory.com/blog