The Web is getting richer and more interactive. We all know this. Yet, many organizations still use the same approach to Web development that they used five to ten years ago - a time when Google or Adobe AIR weren't even part of most developers' (or designers' for that matter) vocabularies. Times have changed, and the new type of applications that we will build in the next five years will require engineers and designers to know more about each other's worlds. Experience Design and Rapid Prototyping provide a way to explore solutions quickly and iteratively.

In this session, we look at the concept of Experience Design, the idea of mixing Engineering with Creative to achieve a better end product. We look at a recent pitch by Organic, Inc. for Martha Stewart and review how the team was able to get developers and designers in one room - speaking the same language - to come up with an original concept that ended up winning the work. We look at photos of the blackboard sketches and discuss the Persona-based and Scenario-based approach that the team has become famous for. Finally, we explore the methods used by the team as they dispersed into their respective disciplines to accomplish the task of putting together a working prototype in 2 weeks.

Return to the office with a solid understanding of:

• How to get across the discipline and language barriers of your peers;
• How to use Experience Design and Rapid Prototyping to develop creative and useable ideas;
• A step-by-step approach to a successful design and development process for the whole team.

This session was recorded at The Ajax Experience conference in Boston, Massachusetts, September 29 - October 1, 2008.