Snibbe Interactive founder Scott Snibbe recently spoke at the San Francisco campus of the California College for the Arts in an evening dubbed “What Does an Interaction Designer Do?”

In essence, an interaction designer is a storyteller.

“Every person’s life is a kind of hero’s journey. Every person was born, every person is going to die and when you can look at people like that, you have so much more love and compassion towards them,” said Snibbe in a post-panel interview.” I think that’s what’s missing a little bit in this kind of online world. It kind of flattens the world.

Snibbe suggested finding a way of crafting stories for individuals, which, counter-intuitively, can be achieved by subtracting information rather than sharing too much, too soon.

“By only sharing small bits of information you piquing curiosity and you tell a story,” said Snibbe. “Stories often begin by knowing how things turn out, but then your curiosity is engaged as to how you got there.”

What’s your story?

Watch Scott Snibbe’s talk on Social Immersive Media at Stanford University’s Seminar on People, Computers, and Design organized by Professor Terry Winograd last May. The talk gives an in-depth presentation of a theory and practice of Social Immersive Media – augmented reality that focuses on social interaction – with specific applications in museum exhibits, and marketing, and art. The Academic CHI Paper on which this talk is based won best paper of the conference in 2009:

Art and Tech in the Public Realm
panel discussion including Scott Snibbe and Steve Dietz

Saturday, September 12, 3pm at the Third IMC Expo in New York
The StudioIMC Lab and Gallery, 95 Morton St 7th Floor, New York City

Social Immersive Media
lecture by Scott Snibbe

Friday, September 18, 2:30pm at UXWeek 2009 in San Francisco
The Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94105

On Friday, May 15, at 12:30pm, Scott Snibbe will be presenting the Social Immersive Media research paper published at CHI 2009 at Stanford University’s Seminar on People, Computers, and Design organized by Professor Terry Winograd. Scott will also present a variety of new interactive products and experiences from Snibbe Interactive and analyze them within the structure of the Social Immersive Media framework. See the talk webpage for more details. It may also be possible to watch this video online.

The talk abstract appears below:

Based on ten years of experience developing interactive camera/projector systems for art, science and culture museums, Snibbe will discuss a distinct form of augmented reality focused on social interaction: social immersive media. His work builds on the language of cinema, casting users as actors within simulated narrative models. He will discuss design principles and interaction techniques to create strong emotional responses and social engagement through visceral interaction. He will also describe approaches to clearly communicate cultural and scientific ideas through the medium, and how to promote specific distinct social behaviors in users.