As design moves deeper into the dimensional world, new frameworks are needed to describe interactions that involve the human body beyond the mouse and touchscreen. This workshop is centered around Laban Movement Analysis, a framework that both describes physical movement of the human body and explores our emotional relationship with that movement.

In the first half of the workshop, we will learn a vocabulary for how human beings move through physical space in our everyday lives with hands-on experiential activities, as well as how certain patterns of movements may have an effect on our cognition and emotions. This will be highly interactive and you will be moving your bodies to experience first hand the various elements of the framework. The second half of the session moves the framework into the research and design world by applying Laban Movement Analysis to design problems in interface design, emerging technologies, or service design spaces. We will also look at how internalizing the Laban framework can help you understand body language of both colleagues and research participants. 

By the end of the workshop, participants will walk away with an increased awareness of their own physical movement as well as a much more involved understanding of the relationship between their cognition and physicality. They will be able to start to apply this new framework and experience to a wide range of design issues. 

While there are no requirements for attending the workshop, the first half of the workshop will involve a fair amount of physical movement and walking. Participants should be prepared to move their bodies.

Design is increasingly gaining influence in the companies we work in and the world at large, which means our actions as designers have an increasing influence on shaping the world around us. All of our individual choices, collectively form our manufactured world. Do you know where the choices you are making are leading, not just on the scale of your project, but on a larger scale? Are you making choices that matter or choices that lead to desirable outcomes? Are you designing mindfully for our larger collective futures or are you just “checking a box” or blindly chasing the latest design craze or “silver bullet” process? The success of good design isn’t new and relies on a core set of first principles that if followed lead to better outcomes, but it is up to all of us to make it happen. Join Erik as he discusses these first principles of good design as we collectively shape our future.