Date: September 3, 2008
Speaker: Matt Cottam — Tellart
Many design methods strive to help designers better understand their users’ needs, such as ethnographic research and participatory design. Matt Cottam has put these approaches to the ultimate test: while working on a project for the healthcare industry, Matt trained to be a certified paramedic, giving him a whole new perspective into the needs of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. Matt will share his experiences and how they allowed him to identify truly innovative design opportunities.
About the Speaker
Matt Cottam co-founded Tellart and serves as its Creative Director—he works closely with clients using information architecture and design methods to research challenges, discover opportunities for design, and build strategies and tactics for design interventions. Matt received Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and Bachelor of Industrial Design degrees (BID) from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). From 1998 to 2003 Matt was a Core Instructor at the Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics. Since 1999 he has been a member of the Part-Time Faculty at RISD, and is also a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the Design Institute Umeå, Sweden, where he teaches “Experience Prototyping.” Matt is an Emergency Medical Technician – Cardiac (EMT-C), a National Ski Patroller, and is federally employed as a Medic for the National Disaster Medical System (RI-1 DMAT/HHS.) He has chaired conference sessions, lectured, published, and led workshops internationally on topics including information design, physical computing, collaboration strategies for engineers and designers, design for extreme environments, and design for emergency and disaster medicine.