10 Insights from my First SXSW Interactive
Everyone has their own reasons for being excited at the prospect of being able to attend SXSW: discovering new tech trends at Interactive; being among the first to see the debut of a TV show or movie and hear from the cast at Film; seeing your new favorite bands in intimate venues all Music weekend. When just out of your reach, the entire experience has this glossy, exclusive veneer. As a music-loving, pop-culture enthusiast who works in interactive tech and design, my usual SXSW experience is geeking out over scraps from internet reports in my pajamas. So when a platinum pass granting me access to the entire festival landed in my lap a few days before SXSW 2017, I was beside myself with excitement.
Full disclosure: I’ve always been the nerd who was just as psyched to hear about the latest trends from Interactive as some of my friends were for the visiting musicians. Like poring over this stuff in WIRED Magazine in high school, nerdy. It was such a rush to finally be in “the room(s) where it happens” during Geek Week.
Some of the Interactive panels I attended:
HI + AI: What’s the Future of Intelligence
The future of digital assistants, “growing” technology with biology, and giving our brains (HI) a boost to keep up with AI.
Design Like a Scientist A/B Testing at Netflix
A discussion led by a Netflix product designer about how the company treats their design testing process like the scientific method, and how the team gets the most out of their “experiments.”
Beyond the Interface: Designing Wearables We Love
Wearables as a way to influence behavior and fix existing problems (instead of creating new ones)
Good Type and Its Influence on Style
A roundtable discussion led by local lettering artists; commentary on the origins and usage of current typography trends
Close Enough to Touch: Immersive Storyworlds
Considerations of making an interactive story; not just fiction, but the stories that we tell around our products as well.
Now, I thought about giving a chronological rundown of my entire Interactive experience, but that seemed a little tedious. Plus, I’ve heard that people on The Internet like lists. Please let me know if my title was clickbait-y enough. (Alternate Titles: “They Let Her into SXSW: What Happens Next Will Shock You,” “What the Lamestream Media Doesn’t Tell You about SXSW”).
10 Insights from Interactive
1. Lines are your life pt.1 — The Downside
It took me almost the entire first day to figure out the rhythm of SXSW Interactive. Going to panels or meet-ups wasn’t as easy as just showing up 15 minutes early; in order to figure out the “right” amount of “early” to be, I learned that I had to guess the capacity of the venue while gauging the popularity of the speakers/topic. After many near misses the first day of the conference, trial and mostly error proved that showing up 45 minutes early was usually a pretty safe bet; over-cautious for a large venue, but sometimes cutting it a little close if it was a very popular talk (RIP Museums of the Future). Scrolling through the #SXLines tag on Twitter, where users would post of-the-moment pictures and reports of lines at the conference, helped improve my accuracy and helped me reach peak millennial status.
But when all of my methods failed me, I also learned that it’s not wise to just hop into a still-open room if you didn’t make the session you wanted — which is how i ended up briefly attending (and then leaving) a talk about how our infrastructure and roads need to change to accommodate self-driving cars. My Civil Engineer roommate chastised me for heading out early, because in her opinion, “[infrastructure] is the best part of the new technology!” I opted to get a snack instead.
2. Lines are your life pt. 2 — The Upside
On the flip side, the best part of long lines is the fact that you have a 100% chance of being sandwiched between interesting people. I had some of my best chats of the conference in line for panels, and there are two that stand out in particular. I had a really solid chat about the presence of design within a larger company, and its triumphs and hiccups, with a design lead from Bloomberg in NYC; talking in line led to a larger conversation later, which was awesome. I also had a brief conversation with an experience designer from Mattel, who specifically designs zany, high-tech concepts for the Barbie line! With her work, kids these days have it pretty good. She talked about an “internet of things” Barbie Mansion and something that involved a hologram!? I remarked that back in the day, I used to get excited about the ones you could dip underwater and watch their hair change color; she assured me they still make those. On the IBM side of things, everyone who talked to me was very interested in hearing about Watson, and I was able to expand on my experience with the Cognitive Build Challenge, and the travel app we designed with Watson APIs.
3. Wearables: Solving problems, not just creating new ones
To be fair, it appears that wearables are well on their way out on the “trend” scale, at least for now, but I don’t see it going away completely. It’s an obvious application of technology that just hasn’t been done well (yet). My main complaint for wearables thus far is that they seem to create more problems than they solve, which is why Intel’s MAMA project really piqued my interest. The purpose of the project was to keep mothers and children in impoverished parts of India safe from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Since the man of the family typically takes the one device the family might have access to during the day, and there is limited available electricity, the team’s solution was making a bracelet with a battery life of just over a year that gives speech alerts. Additionally, the design team made sure that the bracelet was fashionable and culturally appropriate to encourage women to wear them (and discourage the man of the family from taking it). This particular presentation convinced me that the future of wearables should be solving wicked problems that necessitate a non-screen, portable solution.
4. Wearables: Influencing Behavior
Another speaker talked about wearables as a way to change people’s behavior, not just monitor and collect data, which was another perspective I hadn’t really considered before. Her example was a jacket she had made (and was very conveniently, wearing), with the purpose of encouraging her to be more present and not look at her phone so much. Curiously, there was no “interface.” The jacket would log how many times the wearer was taking her phone in and out of her pocket, and when it “decided” that she had done that action too much, a portion on the upper back of the jacket would vibrate gently to remind the user to be more “in the moment.” As a product, the jacket does feel a little “art school” but the concept of using wearable to encourage behavior, beyond fitness tracking, is fascinating.
Another example this speaker provided was a second jacket (she was from the Netherlands, and I know it’s cold enough there to warrant a nice collection of jackets year-round) that collected energy from the sun and then could be lit up later in the day. She said as a wearer, she found herself moving to the sunnier side of the street, at first on purpose, and then by habit. Designing these sorts of screen-less experiences feels very forward thinking, and I’d like to keep noodling on this potential beyond wearables…
5. Observe what users do, not what they say
This insight came from Netflix’ ‘Design like a Scientist’ panel, which was one of my favorites — and one of the most popular talks i attended! I was lucky to catch an encore of product designer Navin Iyengar’s presentation with 499 other people, which was just as cozy as it sounds. Mr. Iyengar, detailed how Netflix designers treat their process like the Scientific method; testing hypotheses with A/B testing and then iterating with extreme variations. I know that IBM Design Researchers use A/B testing when they can, but I understand its much easier to do this with a consumer-facing product like Netflix. Plus Netflix is a service I use more frequently than I’d like to admit, so I was psyched to get a peek at their process.
Mr. Iyengar’s main example, “a user’s actions are more valuable than what they say” surprised me, because in most cases, you would think that a user would be able to articulate exactly what they want. Since this isn’t necessarily true, I found the example that Mr. Iyengar used to be particularly captivating. In this case, the users were saying one thing: “Yes, before committing to a Netflix subscription, I would like to be able to explore the catalogue”; while their actions showed different results: the users got lost in a “shopping” experience which took them away from the decision making process of committing to a subscription.
The speaker also noted what I’d always suspected; Netflix is always testing their users with new layouts and UX, by changing them for some users, and not others. That way they’re always able to keep iterating on the design with new data! But the main thing I got out of that was that “your” Netflix probably looks different from “my” Netflix but we’ve always thought that we were viewing the Netflix; all of which seems very Black Mirror to me (and just as awesome).
6. Stretch your hypothesis as far as you can — makes for better “experiments”
In the previous example, the hypothesis that was being tested was “If people knew what was in the Netflix catalogue, they would be more apt to buy a subscription.” The way they got to their conclusion was through A/B testing many different versions of the hypothesis — “stretching” it into extreme variations. Mr. Iyengar positioned using extreme variations as a way of testing the boundaries of your ideas, which helps you better understand the product space. Identify the core idea of the hypothesis, which is the bit of the idea that if it was taken out, the whole effort wouldn’t work. Interpret and stretch this idea to the point where it seems to break down, and those are the hypotheses that you want to test. So for example, if the original hypothesis was “Personalizing the content displayed on the homepage will result in more people retaining their Netflix subscription” variations would be “Putting an emphasis on original content on the homepage…” or “Showing a genre of content on the homepage…” etc. Test all of these hypotheses, pick a “winner,” and then further stretch that new hypothesis, and repeat the process.
7. AI, voice interaction, and chatbots are super trendy, and everyone is convinced we’ll all be replaced by robots in 2030
This is just an overall observation. When skimming the catalogue of events, the programming was dominated by talks centered on AI, digital assistants, voice commands, and chatbots. The AI topic didn’t really surprise me because it felt very sci-fi and SXSW. The extreme focus on chatbots felt a little silly. It’s probably just from my personal experience with chatbots thus far, but I don’t think it’s always the prime interaction that a user can have with a service. As experience designers, I hope we’ll always be able to identify a user’s pain points and come up with a solution specific to that problem. Using a chatbot is only one of a vast array of solutions, so why such an emphasis? Plus, as a highly visual person, it’s hard for me to envision a future without some kind of heavy reliance on visual interfaces.
However, this focus does belie an underlying anxiety about robots replacing human labor; the chatbot is an obvious example. I never really saw a chat on this topic, but all of the speakers seemed to accept an automation-dominated future as an inevitability, which i thought was interesting. I’m still sorting out my feelings on this, but as the field of design evolves alongside this technological progress, I’m excited to see how my role continues to morph.
8. There’s an argument for improving human “software” so humanity can continue to advance alongside AI
“HI + AI: What’s the Future of Intelligence” was probably the most sci-fi of all of the panels I attended; if I hadn’t witnessed something like this would my overall experience have even counted as going to SXSW? The panel included the inventor of Siri and the founder of a biotech company focusing on “growing” new tech using biology, but the panelist who really captured my interest was Bryan Johnson, who believes that the combination of human and artificial intelligence will define humanity’s future. I really liked his idealized view of a world where humans co-evolve with technology, and are able to solve tougher problems with more ease. That mental edge feels almost necessary in a future that will surely be dominated by climate change, drug-resistant illnesses, and other wicked problems. Specifically, his current work at Kernel is building the world’s first neuroprothesis to enhance Human Intelligence; something like this could also have medical implications like helping Alzheimers patients (a subject very dear to my family). He said that the reason AI is evolving so quickly is because there aren’t as many moral dilemmas when updating software versus updating a human; which feels very ‘Gattaca’ and ‘Limitless’. On this point, Johnson acknowledged that while entertainment is already telling these kinds of stories, he stressed the importance of having positive narratives as a necessity for making progress in this space. This technology opens up incredible discussions for some really tough ethical problems, but as a generally optimistic person who overwhelmingly tends to believe in the good of humanity, I found myself (mostly) buying Johnson’s argument; can’t wait to follow this product’s trajectory.
9. The experience of using Retro Typography trends is fuller when you know the origin story
“Good Type and its Influence on Style” was such a fun change of pace. Three local lettering artists gave commentary on the utilization of current typography trends while expanding on their historic origins. I loved Bobby Dixon’s section on the popularity of fonts based on iron-on lettering from 80s-90s hip-hop culture (see Kanye West’s Pablo Tour merch). Lauren Dicken’s segment covered how basketball’s hiphop influences have impacted mainstream fashion, and how that feeds into a larger style trend. Her best example was classic logos making a comeback; first in basketball (Golden State), then in other industries. Drew Lakin talked about the trend of looking back to vintage lettering and sign painting. While he doesn’t have an answer as to why this has suddenly come back in fashion, he listed tons of resources to draw on for inspiration.
10. Museum experience design is overwhelmingly popular
I wanted so badly to be able to see the “Museums of the Future” panel that I planned my whole schedule around it. This is a continued interest of mine, as a lifelong museum nerd. Personally, I already find exhibits incredibly engaging, because my favorite way to interact with a museum object is, from the information given, to construct a mental narrative of how it was used in the time period. Museums have always been a collection of stories to me, and I’ve always been interested in the design challenge of making that engaging experience more universal for all visitors. Case in point: My college thesis was a tablet-based museum experience where a user is able to digitally interact with an object and get a glimpse of its backstory in a short animated cutscene (all done by yours truly). I’m hoping to revisit this project in the future, and I’ll provide a link then.
So, given that background, I thought I was a prime candidate for the “Museums of the Future” panel featuring two directors of the American Museum of Natural History and the deputy director of the New Museum. I showed up 45 minutes early, and my dreams were immediately dashed; the line had started 45 minutes before I even arrived! I was ready to be visibly bummed out, but then i overheard the people in front of me grumbling about not getting in, and they were directors of an actual museum!
In a chat I had a year ago with Allegra Burnette (previously the director of digital media at the MoMA for a decade), she’d talked about this from the perspective of museums trying to keep up with an increasingly digitally-literate public, but I still couldn’t believe that I’d underestimated the popularity of this topic. Museums are (usually popular) cultural institutions that are ripe for increasingly interactive experiences, and that is a frontier that the tech world is very hungry for. I’d like to do a deeper dive in another post about the new interest in this topic — but personally, it served as a sign to keep following my passion, and spurred me to finally visit the Harry Ransom Center the following week (more on that coming soon).
So, 10 is a nice, round, listicle-friendly number of insights to write about. It’d be a shame if I’d intentionally mis-numbered this list to draw your attention to my favorite one… and if I talked about Film and Music in a SXSW Interactive article…
Surprise!
11. Balance your vegetables with some candy
I’ve heard that next year, SXSW is making an effort to make the entire experience more interdisciplinary; no more distinct weeks, with different kinds of events peppered across the 10 day festival. Maybe it is a shameless money-grab, as a way to get people to spend more on passes that give them more access… but it’s also a great way to encourage a well-balanced conference diet, which is my #1 (well, technically eleventh) takeaway from my entire SXSW experience.
Having the privilege of a Platinum pass meant I was able to attend the whole festival: Interactive, Film and Music. While waiting in line for the Netflix panel, I heard myself saying a really dumb metaphor to a very impressive stranger, while recounting what I’d done at SXSW so far. I said I was trying to “get a good serving of vegetables and candy” with SXSW Interactive panels being the vegetables, and everything else, candy. Upon reflecting, that’s not really fair to either category! If interactive panels were vegetables, the majority of them were richly-flavored, small farm grown, locally sourced, organic, bought-from-a-real-human-at-the-farmers-market vegetables; i.e. damn good vegetables that are good and good for you. I learned so much (see: insights 1–10), and as a designer, that’s really what I was supposed to be there for.
But labeling everything else as candy isn’t fair either. I’ll spare you the metaphor on this one, but for instance, the best empathy exercise I attended was a speech given by Van Jones about encouraging understanding between both ‘poles’ of American politics. Seeing the cast of STARZ’s American Gods talk about the immigrant narrative’s new relevance in a country that is increasingly hostile to newcomers was as brain-bending as some of the talks I attended on AI. Even seeing upcoming R&B star Jidenna and the young female punks in The Regrettes question their place outside of the American status quo through their music was an exercise in empathy with perspectives other than my own.
But of course some of my experiences were a pure sugar rush; geeky Pixy Stix right from the tube. Meeting a personal creative hero, Bryan Fuller, previously the brains behind my all-time favorite TV shows Pushing Daisies and NBC’s Hannibal (and now American Gods), was such a highlight for me. Ideally I would’ve loved to have had enough time to tell him how much I appreciate his attention to diversity in casting and storytelling, his sense of visual style, etc… but while I only got to squeak out something kind of generic, I hope the embarrassingly giant smile on my face helped me communicate a little. I also got to see one of my favorite comedians (Chris Hardwick! The Nerdist himself!) and a few musical goddesses (BANKS! Brandy!), and spent time in the Twin Peaks Lodge… Admittedly, minimal nutritional value, but some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time.
So, what I mean to say through all of this is that if you do get the chance to experience SXSW, try to have a balanced diet of content; your mind will thank you, and having a varied collection of experiences to draw upon never hurt anyone. Plus, take it from someone who knows, the best way to banish FOMO is to see a few things you think are totally awesome, and look at everything else you could potentially see as just gravy on top of an already incredible experience.
