Saturday, May 19, 2012

Deadmau5... and UX (User Experience)?

Design has been moving in an adaptive, responsive, and experiential direction. Websites respond and adapt to the screen size (and hopefully eventually bandwidth: The State of Responsive Images). Instead of presenting the user with an aesthetically pleasing site, or even user interface, many designers now craft an entire experience. They ensure a user can get from point A to point B in the right amount of time while balancing other aspects like memorability, choice and challenge.

You may be wondering where Deadmau5 comes into the picture in contemporary design, and to answer your question he doesn't. What he says does though.

In a tumblr post Deadmau5 described how to market yourself as a producer, artist and musician:

anyway, im not sure whats left in me here, its late, early, whatever, i still havent slept… but the TLDR version is basicly… make an entire experience with your work… not just a name and a piece of work. Make an interesting and unique experience, and the people will want to come to be a part of it. and the rest will just happen naturally. think about it. the experience that is yours will “market” itself. -Deadmau5

Instead of just creating a catchy song and giving it a name, an artist has to market him and / or herself as an experience. I'm not trying to extract meaning out of this quote, but one cannot deny Deadmau5's success as a trailblazer in electronic music. Perhaps he just knows what people are looking for.

I would say that people really are looking for a full experience, not just something that they can hear or see. People are longing to be part of something and immersed, and it's our job as artists and designers to craft that for them.

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