Andy Polaine
Bio
In 1994, Andy Polaine co-founded the award-winning new-media collective Antirom in London and worked with clients such as the BBC, Levis Strauss and Co., Tomato and The Science Museum as well exhibiting several interactive installations and performances around the world.
Andy was also a producer at dotcom giant, Razorfish, in the UK before moving to Australia where he started the interactive department of visual effects company, Animal Logic.
He became a Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media at The University of New South Wales, Sydney and Head of the School of Media Arts and its Digital Media programme before leaving to move to Germany, although he still teaches for UNSW online.
He has also been a Guest Professor at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany and his research spans cultural futures as well as interactivity and play.
Aside from his academic life he works as an interaction designer, education consultant and writer and co-convenes the Omnium Creative Network, a critical forum for ethical art and design projects.
Session
A Interaction Designer's Guide to Play
Over the past few years play has become a common theme in designers' presentations.
It's no wonder - play is a pre-verbal, powerful and universal activity and is our starting point for interacting with the world around us.
Play can lead to some of the most pleasurable and intuitive interactive experiences. With a plethora of interactions demanding our attention, the playful ones are the ones that will survive.
It's not for nothing that the iPhone's icons do a little jiggle dance, after all.
But why does play feel so natural and intuitive and how can we use it in interaction design? What is play and why is it so hard to pin down?
This presentation will take you on a journey through the why, how and what of play and remind you why you started fiddling with computers in the first place.
From metaphors to games and the rules of play, Andy extrapolates a set of play principles that can be a powerful approach to interaction and experience design.
These can be applied to an entire spectrum of interactions, from art installations to die-hard, intuitive user interfaces. You'll never need another methodology or process again.