Talk / Life Cycles
Life & Death Design: What Life-Saving Tech Can Teach Everyday Designers
Katie Swindler
Creating products that work with our ingrained human survival instincts during a crisis.
Our brains work differently in a moment of crisis. Good design anticipates and works with our ingrained survival instincts. Landing an airplane, avoiding a car crash, resuscitating a heart attack victim, or escaping a burning building — human-centered design can be the difference between success and catastrophe in these critical moments. Explore how creators of life-saving products use the lessons of past tragedies to inform new technologies. Apply their lessons to your own work to more effectively guide human behavior when your users are stressed.
About the speaker
Katie Swindler
I am an Experience Strategist at Allstate Insurance Company leading the teams that create many of our consumer-facing web applications including our online quoting tool and customer account portal. Originally educated as a theatre director, I bring a unique perspective to digital work. I believe if brands wish to truly connect with consumers they must combine emotion and utility, storytelling and technology. Prior to joining Allstate, I was a UX Director at FCB Chicago where I was the UX lead on the 2016 global redesign of JackDaniels.com as well as leading experience design for many other clients such as Cox Communications, and Toyota Financial Services.