[Applause]
earlier this year my family and I moved
to the southeast part of Colorado
Springs
that’s a beautifully diverse part of the
city with amazing views of the mountains
it’s also the land of expansive parking
lots tired-looking strip malls and
residential areas that are largely
separate from pretty much anything it’s
one within within walking distance so
when my family and I moved to this part
of town there was something a little bit
different that stood out large empty
commercial lot not too far from our new
home began to think of it as a blank
canvas an opportunity for something a
little bit different in our part of town
now I’m not a city planner but as long
as I can remember I’ve thought about
what it is exactly that makes a city
great a great place to experience as a
visitor or as a resident you see I think
about experience a lot in my line of
work I’m a user experience designer for
software products now real quick user
experience design is not just about the
visual side or the aesthetic of a piece
of software no user experience design is
really of all about the human being on
the other side of the software the end
user it’s all about understanding this
end users behaviors understanding of the
world sort of the language that they
they speak in interacting with other
things on the web and other software
that they use it’s about understanding
their needs and their goals also that we
can create software that’s empowering
maybe even more fulfilling for them so I
began to think
of how we might apply these human Center
design principles to how we design our
physical spaces around us in our cities
and in our neighborhoods now the first
step and arguably the most important is
to understand that human being that
comes into contact with our cities now
in software we typically come up with
maybe one to five typical user profiles
that are based on behaviors or roles and
responsibilities within an organization
or a society their backgrounds and so on
but when it comes to a city it becomes
much more complex you see we have people
who are visiting a city from out of town
just for a weekend and families who have
been established in a community for
generations there are folks at all
different points along a socio-economic
spectrum there are those who have
different career paths world views
belief systems goals needs frustrations
but there are a few things that we all
share in common we all need access to
food clean water shelter we all need a
way to get from one place to another but
aside from these basic physiological
needs that we all have we all need
healthy social interaction
we all need a sense of belonging to a
community and to a place we all need
opportunities for meaningful work and
self-expression and we all need a sense
of purpose a sense that we’re living for
something beyond ourselves and the
physical space in which we live can
either detract from or enhance these
pursuits
now the next step of the design process
would be to understand the problem that
we’re facing in our cities around the
globe see after the Industrial
Revolution our cities began to implement
zoning policies made a lot of sense at
the time you didn’t want to have
factories spewing toxic chemicals into a
neighborhood right next door where
you’re raising your children but our
zoning policies have done much more than
simply separate away these industrial
areas from the rest of the city these
policies have partitioned our cities
into residential areas commercial areas
central business districts arts and
entertainment districts and so on so you
end up with some negative consequences
to our society
thanks to these zoning policies and
increase use of the personal automobile
you get scenes like this large expanses
of homes separate from anything within
walking distance that has meaning to how
we live our lives so in order to get to
a store a workplace a community
gathering place we end up having to hop
in our cars and travel 15 30 60 maybe
even 90 minutes to get to some of these
places I call this a destination culture
it’s a culture in which we spend very
little time within our own neighborhoods
and our cities are much more designed
around the machines that we use our
vehicles rather than around us the
citizens the human beings and our needs
and our culture’s end up becoming much
more transactional in nature and instead
of our communities being based off of
proximity they become much more about
affinity which raises some interesting
questions how do we love our neighbor if
we don’t even know him and how do we
tackle these big community issues that
we’re facing if we don’t have a sense of
belonging to our communities that’s
based on personal relationships but
there’s some other negative aspects to
the user experience of a destination
culture as well when we’re all trying to
get from point A to point B in our cars
we end up with traffic jams increased
I’m isolated in our car bubbles away
from friends and family and meaningful
activities and those who are left
without access to a vehicle for whatever
reason are also left without access to
many other important things in life
things like opportunities for work and
opportunities to get to some of these
social gatherings but let’s begin to
move into the solution space now I began
to take inspiration from mixed-use
communities around the country that I’ve
visited or frequented over the years
places like 12 South in Nashville ivy
Wilde in Colorado Springs and Fremont in
Seattle now in a place like Fremont
there are residences surrounding a sort
of cultural and commercial mini hub that
looks a lot like a couple main streets
so within walking distance from these
homes you have access to opportunities
for entrepreneurship and cultural
expression through weekend markets and
events that take place throughout the
year you have access to meaningful jobs
like a chocolate factory in an
international software company and you
have access to social gathering places
like pubs and coffee shops so I began to
draw inspiration from places like
Fremont and think of how we might apply
a similar mixed use model to suburbia to
the sprawl begin to think about what it
might look like to repurpose abandoned
shopping malls what it might look like
to use some of the space now taken up by
unsightly parking lots I began to think
about what it might look like to
implement this sort of planning
philosophy as our cities continue to
grow and expand in new development and
finally I began to think of what it
might look like in this large empty
commercial lot near our new home in
Southeast Colorado Springs I began to
think about social gathering places that
could go in this lot like an
amphitheater like parks like coffee
shops and pubs I began to think about
access to government services within
walking distance I began to think about
access to entrepreneurship through lower
barrier to entry venues such as tiny
house businesses and creative co-working
space
but I don’t see this as one isolated new
trendy area of a city if that’s how we
continue to implement this mixed use
model could actually add to some of the
sociological stress that we have in our
cities now I see this is more of a new
normal I imagine a network of these mini
hubs throughout a city so that a
majority of residents can have access
within walking distance to all of these
things that we need for life and I see
these neighborhoods being connected
through meaningful transit lines that
are more cost efficient more innovative
more natural more human I think of
repurposing our arterial roadways to
have bike paths and trees side by side
with more innovative transportation
perhaps light rail lines or a technology
that we haven’t thought of yet but
really this is just one man’s vision
perhaps a framework for how we view our
cities of the future but I’d really like
to invite all of us into this space of
human centered community design I’d like
us all to consider the people around us
who are coming into contact with our
neighborhoods and our cities I’d like us
all to consider and research and
understand the problems that we’re
facing whether they be unique to the
communities and cities that were in or
shared by many of the cities that we
come in contact with around the globe
and then I like us all to move into this
space
as creatives as innovators as
entrepreneurs as neighbors of AI da ting
innovative solutions to these problems
that we’re facing implementing testing
and iterating along the way so I’d like
to leave us with one final challenge in
the spirit of those famous words of John
F Kennedy I’d like to challenge us to
ask not what our cities and our
neighborhoods can do for us but what we
can do to design better experiences for
all who come in contact with them thank
you
[Applause]
earlier this year my family and I moved
to the southeast part of Colorado
Springs
that’s a beautifully diverse part of the
city with amazing views of the mountains
it’s also the land of expansive parking
lots tired-looking strip malls and
residential areas that are largely
separate from pretty much anything it’s
one within within walking distance so
when my family and I moved to this part
of town there was something a little bit
different that stood out large empty
commercial lot not too far from our new
home began to think of it as a blank
canvas an opportunity for something a
little bit different in our part of town
now I’m not a city planner but as long
as I can remember I’ve thought about
what it is exactly that makes a city
great a great place to experience as a
visitor or as a resident you see I think
about experience a lot in my line of
work I’m a user experience designer for
software products now real quick user
experience design is not just about the
visual side or the aesthetic of a piece
of software no user experience design is
really of all about the human being on
the other side of the software the end
user it’s all about understanding this
end users behaviors understanding of the
world sort of the language that they
they speak in interacting with other
things on the web and other software
that they use it’s about understanding
their needs and their goals also that we
can create software that’s empowering
maybe even more fulfilling for them so I
began to think
of how we might apply these human Center
design principles to how we design our
physical spaces around us in our cities
and in our neighborhoods now the first
step and arguably the most important is
to understand that human being that
comes into contact with our cities now
in software we typically come up with
maybe one to five typical user profiles
that are based on behaviors or roles and
responsibilities within an organization
or a society their backgrounds and so on
but when it comes to a city it becomes
much more complex you see we have people
who are visiting a city from out of town
just for a weekend and families who have
been established in a community for
generations there are folks at all
different points along a socio-economic
spectrum there are those who have
different career paths world views
belief systems goals needs frustrations
but there are a few things that we all
share in common we all need access to
food clean water shelter we all need a
way to get from one place to another but
aside from these basic physiological
needs that we all have we all need
healthy social interaction
we all need a sense of belonging to a
community and to a place we all need
opportunities for meaningful work and
self-expression and we all need a sense
of purpose a sense that we’re living for
something beyond ourselves and the
physical space in which we live can
either detract from or enhance these
pursuits
now the next step of the design process
would be to understand the problem that
we’re facing in our cities around the
globe see after the Industrial
Revolution our cities began to implement
zoning policies made a lot of sense at
the time you didn’t want to have
factories spewing toxic chemicals into a
neighborhood right next door where
you’re raising your children but our
zoning policies have done much more than
simply separate away these industrial
areas from the rest of the city these
policies have partitioned our cities
into residential areas commercial areas
central business districts arts and
entertainment districts and so on so you
end up with some negative consequences
to our society
thanks to these zoning policies and
increase use of the personal automobile
you get scenes like this large expanses
of homes separate from anything within
walking distance that has meaning to how
we live our lives so in order to get to
a store a workplace a community
gathering place we end up having to hop
in our cars and travel 15 30 60 maybe
even 90 minutes to get to some of these
places I call this a destination culture
it’s a culture in which we spend very
little time within our own neighborhoods
and our cities are much more designed
around the machines that we use our
vehicles rather than around us the
citizens the human beings and our needs
and our culture’s end up becoming much
more transactional in nature and instead
of our communities being based off of
proximity they become much more about
affinity which raises some interesting
questions how do we love our neighbor if
we don’t even know him and how do we
tackle these big community issues that
we’re facing if we don’t have a sense of
belonging to our communities that’s
based on personal relationships but
there’s some other negative aspects to
the user experience of a destination
culture as well when we’re all trying to
get from point A to point B in our cars
we end up with traffic jams increased
I’m isolated in our car bubbles away
from friends and family and meaningful
activities and those who are left
without access to a vehicle for whatever
reason are also left without access to
many other important things in life
things like opportunities for work and
opportunities to get to some of these
social gatherings but let’s begin to
move into the solution space now I began
to take inspiration from mixed-use
communities around the country that I’ve
visited or frequented over the years
places like 12 South in Nashville ivy
Wilde in Colorado Springs and Fremont in
Seattle now in a place like Fremont
there are residences surrounding a sort
of cultural and commercial mini hub that
looks a lot like a couple main streets
so within walking distance from these
homes you have access to opportunities
for entrepreneurship and cultural
expression through weekend markets and
events that take place throughout the
year you have access to meaningful jobs
like a chocolate factory in an
international software company and you
have access to social gathering places
like pubs and coffee shops so I began to
draw inspiration from places like
Fremont and think of how we might apply
a similar mixed use model to suburbia to
the sprawl begin to think about what it
might look like to repurpose abandoned
shopping malls what it might look like
to use some of the space now taken up by
unsightly parking lots I began to think
about what it might look like to
implement this sort of planning
philosophy as our cities continue to
grow and expand in new development and
finally I began to think of what it
might look like in this large empty
commercial lot near our new home in
Southeast Colorado Springs I began to
think about social gathering places that
could go in this lot like an
amphitheater like parks like coffee
shops and pubs I began to think about
access to government services within
walking distance I began to think about
access to entrepreneurship through lower
barrier to entry venues such as tiny
house businesses and creative co-working
space
but I don’t see this as one isolated new
trendy area of a city if that’s how we
continue to implement this mixed use
model could actually add to some of the
sociological stress that we have in our
cities now I see this is more of a new
normal I imagine a network of these mini
hubs throughout a city so that a
majority of residents can have access
within walking distance to all of these
things that we need for life and I see
these neighborhoods being connected
through meaningful transit lines that
are more cost efficient more innovative
more natural more human I think of
repurposing our arterial roadways to
have bike paths and trees side by side
with more innovative transportation
perhaps light rail lines or a technology
that we haven’t thought of yet but
really this is just one man’s vision
perhaps a framework for how we view our
cities of the future but I’d really like
to invite all of us into this space of
human centered community design I’d like
us all to consider the people around us
who are coming into contact with our
neighborhoods and our cities I’d like us
all to consider and research and
understand the problems that we’re
facing whether they be unique to the
communities and cities that were in or
shared by many of the cities that we
come in contact with around the globe
and then I like us all to move into this
space
as creatives as innovators as
entrepreneurs as neighbors of AI da ting
innovative solutions to these problems
that we’re facing implementing testing
and iterating along the way so I’d like
to leave us with one final challenge in
the spirit of those famous words of John
F Kennedy I’d like to challenge us to
ask not what our cities and our
neighborhoods can do for us but what we
can do to design better experiences for
all who come in contact with them thank
you
[Applause]
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