Jim Henson started working as a puppeteer in 1954, a fair 40-50 years before many of us even considered User Experience as a career. He did, however, take it upon himself to apply many of the core principals that UX Designers are falling love with today (or are at least using as part of our everyday lives). Hang out for a quick dive into the life of Jim Henson, with a view into his work from the perspective of how it pertains to what it is we’re doing today, that promises to even leave Waldorf and Statler happy. And yes, there will be muppets.

1. From Muppets to Mastery:
Core UX Principles from Mr. Jim Henson
SXSW 2013 Russ Unger | @russu

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“
You wouldn’t decide to become
a puppeteer, I don’t think.

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A Brief History - The 1950s

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A Brief History - The 1960s

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A Brief History - The 1970s

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A Brief History - The 1980s

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A Brief History - The 1990s & Beyond

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MuppetLean

9. MVK
#UXMuppets | @russu
Minimum Viable Kermit
+ =

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Iterate, Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
1955 1965 1968 1978

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Iterate, Iterate, Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
2005

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Project Ecosystems

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Client
Product Manager
Project Manager
Designer Marketing QA Dev

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Good Experiences Are Invisible

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A Good Experience is Invisible

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A Good Experience is Invisible
Give the audience enough to work with
and they’ll do the rest for you.

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A Good Experience is Invisible
Give the audience enough to work with
and they’ll do the rest for you.

18. #UXMuppets | @russu
A Good Experience is Invisible
Give the audience enough to work with
and they’ll do the rest for you.

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Visual Thinking

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“
I’ve always been most
intrigued by what can
be done with the visual
image. I feel that is
what is strongest about
the work I do...the
visual image.

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Sketching / Storyboarding / Prototyping

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Sketching
Henson started sketching characters and comic strips as a kid.
He never stopped.

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Sketching
Henson started sketching characters and comic strips as a kid.
He never stopped.

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Storyboarding
A storyboard is a graphic organizer that visually tells a story.
Creating a storyboard helps you plan your story shot by shot.

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Patterns

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Patterns
Original Muppets were designed so that ~6 Muppets could be
easily made from a single design.

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Patterns
Original Muppets were designed so that ~6 Muppets could be
easily made from a single design.

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Patterns
Original Muppets were designed so that ~6 Muppets could be
easily made from a single design.

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Hacking

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Hacking
Jim needed to see what the viewer would see, so he started using a
“monitor” to view scenes from where he was located.

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Bernard Tyers
Belén Barros Pena
http://www.diymobileusabilitytesting.net/
~$3,000.00

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WWJHD?
What Would Jim Henson Do?

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(So What?)
Jim Henson made sketching and prototyping a constant part of his thinking process.
He read books, but not rule books.
He hacked things together.
He made it up as he went along.
As a relatively new industry, so do we.

49. Thank You!
SXSW 2013 Russ Unger | @russu