Watching the talk by Wilson Miner gave me a real insight into the world of innovation and design. He reflects on “We shape our tools and our tools shape us.” As the world develops and moves on our tools for development are becoming more digital rather than physical as they were in the past.

He discusses how the world is forever changing and moving and the products created by interaction designers are shaping and changing the environment we live in and how the tools feel to the users who use them. An example being how a magazine doesn’t come with an instruction manual on how to read it or how it works, humans just know how it works. In a sense, in UX design, you could create the best product in your eyes, that fulfils all its objectives but if it isn’t easy to interpret and use by the average man, the product will not be successful.

He also referred a lot of Marshall McLuhan and his views on UX design and how the environment will forever be developing and changing. How each product we make whether its television, radio or another medium will shape the environment we live in slightly. The new mediums brought into society changes the outlooks and feelings such as Tv changing our culture and new media changing society. An example he used being the car, which I agree is completely true. Today our cars look completely different on the outside to what they did 100 years ago but the mechanics and the inside are the same. They shaped and changed the environment around us with more roads and motorways being built for the more cars that were produced and the busier the roads got.

He also spoke about how cars shaped the 20th century, the creation and use of screens will shape the 21st century environment. What we decide to surround ourselves in, shapes who we become and what we do. For example; if you spend a lot of time at the swimming pool or the football pitch, it is very likely you might become a competitive swimmer or footballer. As for screens, they are everywhere, on your laptop, your phone, your tv, billboards, you must look at hundreds of screens a day as more and more of our environment becomes digitised. It is good for us as Interaction Designers as the pace of technological change is increasing so we must always be open to learning and developing our work further.

He refers to how we are the tool builders of this environment and how you must have the attitude of responsiveness as you could have all the skills in the world but if you don’t respond and work on feedback to make your product better, it wont succeed. As someone who is relatively new to Interaction Design, this gives me hope that if I am reactive and responsive to my feedback for my work and I gradually grow a good set of skills, I will go far.