Bill Buxton, principle researcher at Microsoft and author of the Book „Sketching User Experiences“, has recently given an inspiring talk at Microsoft’s MIX09 conference about design and the return on experience.

I highly recommend his talk to everyone who is involved in experience design (which are a lot of people even though they are not initially aware of it) because he clarifies once again what experience design is all about and shows practical examples with a focus on developing software applications.

I have summarized some statements of his talk below, the video of his talk is embedded below as well, enjoy it.

On experience design and the current economic situation

You couldn’t be in a better profession in the current economic climate because by getting the experience right you get this return on investment which will not you let survive but drive economic development.

On the novelty of experience design

Is experience just a new name? Same old stuff in new clothes? No, it’s a refocus of attention, it is what successful products always had but we never called it that.

Industrial designers very often talk about the things but when it’s actually the experience that is induced by this thing that is the true product of you. It’s not the screen, it’s not the graphics – it’s what they prompt.

On the focus of experience design

Any product, service, online thing or object you make – you have to know what is the nature of the grin, or the adrenalin or the smile or the love that you are trying to provoke from your users.

For a better viewing experience you can use the full screen feature or watch the talk at the MIX09 website.