ROB GIRLING – Interaction Designer
Co-founder of artefectgroup
www.artefactgroup.com

Hailing from one of the first Interaction Design (IxD) graduating classes from the Royal College of the Arts in London, Rob Girling carries over 16 years of deep curiosity, instinctual understanding and massive love for technology. All of which clearly made him the most technical-minded individual in the building on the day of his symposium talk. Hands down.

Interaction Design is the study of how people interact with a “thing,” be it an object, a system, or an interface. With marketing and advertising moving more and more away from traditional mediums and delving deeper into digital and experiential space, the POV of a well-trained Interaction Designer can mean success or failure in the hands of the consumer.

Rob walked us through some of the basic tenets of Interaction Design, the importance of understanding the core human needs and desires (latent and otherwise) that live behind consumer choices, as well as his belief in rapid prototyping to test ideas early and move quickly from iteration to iteration.

With digital messaging and executions often moving between screens (TV, monitor, phone, iPod) and into the real world (holograms and projections), leveraging the unique POV of an Interaction Designers mind can illuminate new answers and opportunities not found in the typical agency playbook. And we like that. No, we heart it. A lot.