This document discusses using inspiration from art and design to break out of traditional design confines. It presents examples of how artists and designers found inspiration in unexpected places, such as Mozart composing music inspired by chance with dice rolls. The document then suggests some "trigger" exercises designers can use, such as interpreting a website as a natural metaphor or reducing research findings to images, to help find new perspectives and sources of inspiration outside typical design references.

1. Breaking the
(design)
confines
Aleksandra Melnikova @alex_andr_a

2. @alex_andr_a@UXbri
The due diligence slide

3. @alex_andr_a@UXbri
DESIGN
BUSINESS
ART

4. @alex_andr_a@UXbri
DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
EXPERIENCE
DESIGN TEAM
Team of people
who never use
the term
‘wireframe’.
Business that
doesn’t have the
word ‘digital’ in
‘things we offer’
anymore.

5. Art
Design
Me
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

6. My teams felt like this (most of the time).
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

7. “You want to create a
product inspired by
what?”
“What’s the name
of that period
again?”
“We have to look at
competitors.”
“How do we use that
principle?”
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

8. @alex_andr_a@UXbri
How is any of this relevant
to what we do?

9. @alex_andr_a@UXbri

10. @alex_andr_a@UXbri
ARTICULATING
TRANSFORMING
APPLYING

11. WITHIN ART
inspiration
@alex_andr_a@UXlive

12. @alex_andr_a@UXbri
Performing arts
Music, Theatre, Dance
Visual arts, two-dimensional
Painting, Drawing
Visual arts, three-dimensional
Architecture
1
2
3
FINE ARTS

13. A MUSICAL DICE
GAME FOR
COMPOSING A
MINUET (MOZART,
1787)

14. SERENDIPITY + CHANCE
Aleatoric music: some element of the
composition is left to chance, and/or some
primary element of a composed work's
realization is left to the determination of its
performer(s)
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

15. SALVADOR DALI, THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY (1931)

16. EINSTEIN + FREUD
theory of relativity (reconfigured
understanding of the nature of time)
psychoanalytic theories (sleep)
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

17. ( I M A G E )
FRANK GEHRY, GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, BILBAO (1997)
http://www.phaidon.com/resource/guggenheim-museum-bilbao-spain-600x800.jpg

18. FISH
grandmother’s dish
“something that has been there long
before us”
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

19. What would have Mozart composed…
What would have Dali created…
What would have Gehry constructed…
If they were only drawing from
contemporaries?
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

20. WITHIN DESIGN
inspiration
@alex_andr_a@UXlive

21. What do we usually do
when we start a (design)
project?
@UXbri @alex_andr_a
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51janjhtTwL._SY445_.jpg

22. awwwards webbies
favourite
competitors
industry
slightly
outside
of industry

23. What could we do instead?
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

24. TRIGGERS
there’s got to be some
@alex_andr_a@UXlive

25. Usually performed with a partner.You have to
express multiple feelings and emotions in a
single word, repeating it over and over again.
@alex_andr_a@UXbri
Performing arts
Music, Theatre, Dance
1
CHAIR EXERCISE

26. Rule of one
If you were limited to one rule how
would the output look like?
Example: you are allowed to use only
one module, only one shape, only one
word - to express everything.
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

27. EXAMPLE
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

28. @alex_andr_a@UXlive
Metric feet into layouts

29. ABSTRACTION
You start from painting a hyperrealistic still life,
gradually decomposing it with every next
iteration, till you reach complete abstraction.
You have got 7 steps.
@alex_andr_a@UXbri
Visual arts, two-dimensional
Painting, Drawing
2

30. Findings design
We designed our research to reduce
findings to images,
decreasing the length of the bridge
between the research itself, findings debrief
and design.
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

31. @alex_andr_a@UXlive

32. Metaphors
Interpret and portray something
rigid and visually recognisable as
something else.
@alex_andr_a@UXbri
Visual arts, two-dimensional
Painting, Drawing
2

33. what if the site
was a tree?
what if it was a
song?
what if it was a natural
phenomenon?
Site as a metaphor
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

34. @alex_andr_a@UXbri
I’ve designed these trigger cards

35. I LEARNED
if there was anything
@alex_andr_a@UXlive

36. Distill things and operate within
fundamentals, not features.
Understand, interpret, rebuild.
#1
STEAL FUNDAMENTALS
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

37. Venture out of your comfort zone
willingly and frequently. Track your least
and most favourite walks. Use both.
#2
FIND CONSTRAINTS
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

38. #3
SEEK COMPLEXITY
@alex_andr_a@UXbri
Surround yourself with intriguing events,
things, people - train eye to see, nose to
inhale new ways of connecting things.

39. Of what’s usual, usable,
simple, possible and ‘viable’.
#4
PUSH THE BOUNDARIES
@alex_andr_a@UXbri

40. THANK YOU
@alex_andr_a@UXbri