Hugh Dubberly: Guest Lecture on Design

Jon Pittman is our VP of Corporate Strategy and Engagement - reporting to the CTO. In addition to working at Autodesk, Jon is a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley. On Monday night, Hugh Dubberly was a guest lecturer for Jon's class.

"Hugh Dubberly is a design planner and teacher. At Apple Computer in the late 80s and early 90s, Hugh managed cross-functional design teams and later managed creative services for the entire company. While at Apple, he co-created a technology-forecast film called 'Knowledge Navigator,' that presaged the appearance of the Internet in a portable digital device. While at Apple, he served at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena as the first and founding chairman of the computer graphics department. Intrigued by what the publishing industry would look like on the Internet, he next became Director of Interface Design for Times Mirror. This led him to Netscape where he became Vice President of Design and managed groups responsible for the design, engineering, and production of Netscape’s Web portal. Hugh graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in graphic design and earned an MFA in graphic design from Yale." ^{source: dubberly.com}

You can learn more about Hugh and experience some of his work at:

Hugh shared some insights about the design process.

• "In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing can be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service." -- Steve Jobs

• Designers bridge the gap between what "is" and what "could be" or "should be."

• Models are the tools designers use to bridge between what "is" and what "should be."

• As an example, the success of the iPod is more than product design. It depends on all four measures of product quality.

  1. Manufacturing: fit and finish, craftsmanship
  2. Product Form: interesting, understandable, emotional
  3. Interaction: easy, efficient, effective, delightful
  4. Systems: whole systems - not individual products

• Great design is the product of conversations that build relationships and trust. Over time, these discussions manifest themselves in product or service layers that convert what is to what should be.

As members of the Autodesk community, you use design applications to create 2D and 3D models to imagine, design, and create a better world. Analysis tools help you evaluate the manufacturability, form, and interaction of your designs - all within the context of their environments. By Hugh's definition, Autodesk is indeed a design company.

Self-assessment is alive in the lab.