To think and reframe.

My name is Allison Shaw. I am an urban environmentalist; I rock climb and ride bikes, buses, and trains. I am also a graphic designer and professor, and while I wear jeans and t-shirts to work, I’m a consummate professional.

Although I recently moved to a new company, it was my position at Threespot Media that defined me as a designer. During our weekly meetings, the design director conducted exercises to foster creativity and critical thinking. The most memorable task was simple: share a brand experience. As a diverse group of people, the team talked about good and bad experiences with companies ranging from Amtrak to Zappos.com; one co-worker shared her life-changing encounter with Fruit Roll-Ups.

Although I was always focused on creating beautiful, usable, on-brand visual solutions, I now think of my visual output as a piece of the greater brand experience.

The exercise proved a hypothesis I developed during college: as humans, experiences shape our loyalties, and for brands to survive, they must gain our loyalty. To do that, they must create engaging, compelling emotional experiences that people enjoy and want to repeat.

This is interaction design.

After that discussion, I saw my work in a new light. Although I was always focused on creating beautiful, usable, on-brand visual solutions, I now think of my visual output as a piece of the greater brand experience.

In my creative process, I complete the majority of a project before working out a visual solution. I research the client and the challenge. Then I try to anticipate how people will use my work, and what their goals will be. From start to end, I ask why. Why organize the information into topics, if task-based makes more sense? Why use this color, if it’s off-brand? Why emphasize this piece of information, if users want to know something else?

This is what separates “good design” and “good brand experiences” from ones that simply look good. I’ve been successful thus far, but I want to learn more and apply the concepts not only to brands, applications, and websites, but also to larger problems.

As an urban environmentalist, I want to foster public transportation and change the way people feel about riding it. As a design professor, I want to improve the way we teach our students—and what we teach them—so they leave school better prepared not only for the workforce, but also for life. As the sister of a severely disabled woman, I know we need to apply a critical eye to the way our healthcare system is run. We can improve not only the keeping and accessibility of patient histories, but how practitioners use that information. We should even rethink the medical chain of command.

I believe the course of study in the Interaction Design MFA program will help me further my creative process to the point where it can be applied not only to graphic design, but to any experience that can be designed. I would be an asset to the program because I want to think beyond predefined problems—no matter how large or small—and reframe the way people seem them.