The CCO and COO of argodesign asked me to create a workshop on how to workshop (very meta). At the time, I’m sure they thought I’d spend a day to a week on it, put together some lightweight presentation, and call it a day. However, the way to create new thinking, patentable methodologies, and ways of seeing the world is through the synthesis and patterning of large amounts of data, and simplifying it. I looked across a vast number of workshops I led or participated in over a decade, and concluded that the most successful followed eight phases. But I didn’t stop there. I created a toolkit comprised of a set of 100 workshop methods, a method landscape poster to design workshops, as well as an accompanying presentation. Then, I trained the entire company.

Outcome: Proprietary design framework, workshop, workshop toolkit

Twenty years ago, I co-authored a whitepaper called, “Designing for Users, An Emotional Connection.” The paper discussed how, through various research and design methods, companies could understand the drivers of behavior and purposefully design experiences to meet customers’ functional – and emotional – needs. I also contributed to a Forrester Report on emotional design. As I moved from interaction design to immersive research to innovation strategy, I began to see patterns – and not just any patterns, but the needs and feelings of people as they considered both their current experiences and ideal futures.

Companies create emotional engagement only when they deliver what customers recognize as intensely valuable. I call these EVPs (emotional value propositions), and there are 12 that matter most when designing — and evaluating — customer experience.

Outcomes: Proprietary 12 EVP design and evaluation framework, articles, book (not finished)

Stryker asked M3 Design, where I worked as the Director of Design Research and Strategy, to help them rethink how to innovate their line of surgical power tools for ENT surgeons. They shared that for five years the company had been innovating with a mechanical lens focusing on being faster, lighter, and more powerful. They were at a point that innovating along those dimensions was no longer possible because the if the tools were too fast, light, or powerful, they would cut something unwanted.

I was asked to facilitate an innovation workshop. I quickly realized that Stryker was only using a single lens — that being mechanical, and I conceptualized a new model for innovation I called the Triptych.

You can think of this as three interlocking wheels that move. The outer wheel is the product lifecycle, the middle wheel represents the internal and external stakeholders, and the most magical wheel introduces the lens for looking. Stryker had been focusing on the surgeon, at the moment of use, with only a mechanical lens. What if they focused on the tool cleaner, at the moment of cleaning, and his behavior? Or if they focused on the nurse, at the moment of training, and her aspirations? This new model of innovation successfully yielded 200 new ideas, which we prioritized, and then worked with Stryker to pursue.

Without play, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no innovation. I play every day as a designer. And the greatest designers, change makers, and business leaders operate without limits. In other words, they play with possibilities. Frankly, the future favors the flexible. Thus, play is ultimately the greatest natural resource in a creative economy.

This ten-year tale all started when I was asked to represent frogdesign at ToyCon, the annual fall conference for play executives representing companies like Mattel, Hasbro, and Leapfrog. I had seven minutes to present to the audience on the future of play followed by Q+A. After answering everything from the future of bubbles to baby dolls, I was asked by the Parent’s Choice Foundation, which provides annual awards to debuting toys and games, to give a keynote at MIT the following spring on the same topic. I said yes, and spent months researching the known definitions and boundaries of the play and innovation landscape. Additionally, I looked at the forefront of technology and researched play with parents, children, designers, playmakers, and neuroscientists, among others, and then came up with a framework that I felt captured the individual skills or powers we needed to develop as a species, particularly to handle the world’s ever increasing rate of exponential change.

That TED-worthy talk (I was invited to TED Global London in 2010 but couldn’t go), launched more speaking gigs, more articles (in the Atlantic, Fast Co. Design, and others), as well as requests for training materials, a book, and so forth. This ultimately culminated in a set of accompanying play cards as well as an IDSA Silver Award for social impact in 2018.

Outcomes: A dozen articles and speaking gigs, the Periodic Table of Play framework, Play Possible for Schools Card Deck, UT Class on Think By Making, IDSA Social Impact Award 2018, Masters Class for Designers (in progress)

“Laura Seargeant Richardson of Austin's Frog Design tried to titillate observers by pulling out a black lace bra and offering insight into how "users" developed the product. And she gave a good glimpse at how… Kansei engineering and other techniques gauge experience and involve users in the creative process..." The Austin Chronicle, 2001

While working at IBM and pursuing a Masters in Human Computer Interaction, I discovered Kansei Engineering. Kansei has no good English equivalent, but basically means “feeling.” It is a Japanese methodology created specifically for consumer products whose success depended on evoking powerful emotions in customers. To design a product from Kansei meant to understand the primary emotions the new product should evoke.

I studied under Mitsuo Nagamachi, who shared all of his papers in English and advised me from Japan. Later, I earned a certificate from one of the few English practitioners, Glen Mazur.

My Master’s thesis was on the exploration of Kansei reimagined for the design challenges of today, and I now use Kansei on relevant projects like medical identification, game design, and the like, to design with and measure against people’s emotion.

Collecting Collins was my pandemic project. I used the time alone to double down on a personal passion of mine, which is the history, work, and design of Enid Collins, a handbag and fashion designer of the 1960s.

It started ten years ago when I found my first “box bag” (a category that Enid defined). Realizing she copyrighted her art work, I found myself at the Texas State Library one afternoon and — after thorough research — determined Enid copyrighted 766 designs in an eleven year period. There was no visual record of all of her designs, so I began painstakingly hunting and cataloging all of them. A bit challenging when she used the same name to describe different designs. In other words, she copyrighted over 30 “glitter bug” designs in her career. As I found the designs, I cleaned them, rejeweled then, photographed them, and returned them to the wild. I also researched the important players who helped form the Collins brand, including her family.

I formed a friendship with her son, Jeep Collins, a famed jewelry designer. Our acquaintance led to my photographs gracing the cover of The New York Times Style section (a party in print, as they say), which led to an LA filmmaker and producer reaching out to ask me to executive produce Finding Enid With Love, a forthcoming documentary debuting June 2022 on the Collins of Texas brand, and specifically Enid’s role as a business leader in a male dominated world.

The photograph above is an off shoot of my work, a “purse parody” if you will, for Don’t Count Your Chickens. I am a storyteller at heart, and my fictitious dream job is to be a 1980s window dresser apprenticed to Simon Doonan, the famed window stylist for Barney’s New York. Read Confessions of a Window Dresser (worth the hardcover), I assure you it won’t disappoint.

Outcomes: Website, Documentary, Book (in progress)

Yawns Are Yellow is a children’s book meant to not only introduce synaesthesia to kids, but also to help them “see” differently. The title came from my daughter, who one day asked me, “Mom, what if yawns were yellow?” Any other mother might have laughed and engaged in five minutes of imagination, but with my background, I knew she was exercising not merely imagination, but the more complex idea of conjoined senses.

We need children who grow up to become adults that can handle ambiguity, long-term thinking and flexible thinking, to name a few. Let’s face it - there are no SATs for the presidency. Simply put, what if there is more than one right answer? What if there is more than one way to see?

[BOOK EXCERPT]

“She felt words as textures. Hot dogs felt gritty like sandpaper against her skin, while “momma” was as soft as cotton. And she always felt tickled by soft grass when she said the word, “weasel.” She liked the feeling so much she named her cat, Mr. Weasel, and her little fish, Weaselwish. She heard music in mountains. In the seams of a dress. In the light’s reflection on water.

And yawns, oh yawns, they were yellow. She loved to see someone yawn. Her father’s yawn was the deep golden color of marigold flowers. Her mother’s was the light yellow of lemon drops. Her teacher, Ms. Nuttenbutter, had the lightest yellow of all – like squinting into the bright sun and seeing just the rays. Sometimes, Charlotte would try to yawn just to see the yellow mist it made.”

The examples I provide here came directly from interviews with synesthetes such as Marcia Smilek…who actually does hear music in mountain ranges and the light’s reflection on water. She was once told that her photographs captured the sine wave of a cello, which she had heard but unknowingly captured on the water’s surface.

As a writer, I love words. I came across an anonymous poem years ago. It read, “I see her in soft focus.” I thought to myself, what a great name for a book. I mused this out loud to my husband, and he asked what kind of book. I replied, “A mystery suspense novel.” As my imagination took hold, I added, “I could write that book.” Knowing my penchant for projects, he agreed. That one line turned me into Alice as I went down the side-project rabbit hole.

I was working at frogdesign full time, so I did this in my spare time. The book started with research — I joined Austin’s Citizen Police Academy, went on ride-alongs with detectives, and experienced a live autopsy. I decided my female protagonist as well as the killer were both photographers, so I took a photography class. I visited a museum exhibit on torture devices, researched Austin’s one and only serial killer (google the servant girl annihilator), studied graphology, small Texas towns, a bit of Greek history, and learned rope tying. Simultaneously, I wrote the first 100 pages in a year. Then, I took a two month sabbatical, wrote 10 pages a day for 30 days straight, and used the remaining time to gather reader feedback, update, and take it to the Maui Writer’s Conference where I convinced a Senior Editor at Harper Collins to read it based on two “photographs” I commissioned (see above) to illustrated the book’s premise. This was prior to Kindle, so the book came with 9 “photographs” that gave clues to the reader along the way and could be torn out if desired. It was only at the end, that the reader realized the ultimate and final clue was across all 9 photographs when laid out in a 3x3 matrix. If you’re still reading see if you can find the little girl (you’ll see her eyes and bangs) spread across both photos.