• Read more about Betascape Debriefing - Art Meets Tech

Several of our designers and developers spent this past weekend attending sessions on art and technology and talking to people about Intridea's methods at Betascape. The event pulled together artists and technologists from various industries and demonstrated what is happening on the bleeding edge of that intersection - from robotics to personal fabrication to data visualization.

The most popular session among the Intridea contingent was Kyle Fritz's talk, "Computers Suck, The Internet Rules: How to make networked stuff that interacts with the real world." Kyle touched on ways to virtually control your home stereo, locks, lights, and other household objects that can be remotely manipulated with just a simple working knowledge of electronics and a bit of hacking. It was a great example to our designers of how advanced technology can be accessible and useful to them.

Kyle's talk inspired Charles and Ted to help out on the screenhead project. So they partnered with Jonathan Julian of 410Labs, forked Kyle's project, integrated the Google Street View API and the Tropo API. These additions allowed users to send a text with instructions like "name + map" (to open the recipient's browser and bring up a Google street view of the person's geographical location) or "name + image" (to open the recipient's browser and display a Google image search of the given name).

Overall, the presentations focused on the interactivity of art and science and the advantages gained from fluid, collaborative relationships between artists and technologists. We enthusiastically supported this event because we understand the intrinsic value of the relationship between art and technology. This is why we employ agile methods in both design and development, ensuring that our UX and Development teams work together closely throughout the entire cycle of design and development. Our goal is to create applications that are both visually stunning, usable, and technologically sound. We achieve this goal project after project by joining our designers with our developers in every step of the process. Design and development don't happen asynchronously on our teams - they happen congruently, and the results are always incredible.

When the two teams work closely together to create working systems an interesting thing happens: the designer begins to understand the mind of the developer and can intuit their feedback. This helps the designer work more effectively. Additionally, the developer begins to understand the mind of the designer and begins to think of their code with visual form and clarity.

A French composer understood what could come of the innovator and the creator working together:

I dream of a collaboration that would finally be total, in which the librettist would often think as a composer and the composer as a librettist.

Jacques Ibert

We've learned a lot from working with each other and through cultivating a mutual appreciation for the idiosyncratic talents we all bring to the table. That is why we enthusiastically support events like Betascape and it's why we're always happy to talk about our process and strategy with others. We're interested in hearing how others are working collaboratively with art and technology, so please add your thoughts to the comments below!

• Read more about UI Kits For Heavy Lifting

UI Kits are commonly found in most designer's toolboxes. We use them to bootstrap visual elements of a product before diving into the harder work. They are not as common with developers though, and in the spirit of this weekend's Betascape event of joining Art *and* Technology, I'm here to advocate for UI kits as a simple bridge between the design world and the development world.

Typically, every project goes through three main phases: Discovery, Design and Development. Although each phase defines a distinct position in the process, they do intermix. Generally, development starts as early as the Discovery phase, design continues to happen throughout all phases, and new requirements from the client pop up long after the Discovery phase is complete. This three-phased process is natural and effective but could be kicked up a notch by integrating a UI kit to the discovery phase.

UI Kits are packed with features that enable stylized rapid development. Bootstrap, a UI kit that was recently released by Twitter, is an all-inclusive HTML and CSS style guide that includes forms, alerts, block messages, grid columns, and even flyout menus - many of the elements that are often put off during the initial design and development process of a web app.

Using a UI Kit will completely change and enhance your design and development experience. Here's how:

• Product Aesthetics: During the initial phase the client usually receives a few rounds of prototypes before the final approach is decided upon. With the aid of a UI kit developers can work with styles before they've even begun to work with their models and controllers, leading to better looking iterations and proofs of concepts. Adding enhanced design elements to otherwise graphically sparse POCs gives the client a better feel for their product before it even becomes a product.
• Survival: There's a half-serious theory that babies are cute so we won't eat them. Your application, even in its infancy should be something to behold. Applications that are visually pleasing will naturally inspire the creativity of those working on it. UI kits give you style guides that include typography, palette guides, and forms so you can quickly add visual organization and style even during the rapid prototyping stages. Pretty applications are just more fun to work on.
• Cohesive Teams: Getting a base user interface in place at the beginning of a project opens up communication and collaboration channels between designers and developers. The development team will have an earlier idea of the UI approach and be able to align the engineering of the application more closely with the design vision. Disconnects between architecture and UI will be revealed earlier in the process, allowing greater flexibility for changes and tweaks.
• Promotes Creativity: With a good UI kit designers can put layouts together with ease and then spend their time pushing the bounds of creativity rather than pushing pixels.

A UI kit is something that should be in every designer *and* developer's tool box; it should especially be a core part of your team's Discovery phase. It allows the product to take visual shape earlier in the process, aiding both designers, developers, and the client. Style guides take care of the heavy lifting on the front-end, enabling the artists and the scientists to collaborate more effectively.