Dirk Knemeyer and Andrei Herasimchuk are the founding partners of Involution Studios, a cutting edge and fast growing digital products design firm. Here’s an excerpt what promises to be a longer conversation.

Jeffrey Osborne: Let’s assume that your reputation continues to grow and that Involution Studios ends 2006 with record earnings, happy clients, and a strong outlook on 2007. How is success changing you as a person? And, what are you doing to shape those changes in a positive direction?

Dirk Knemeyer: The company is doing really well and should have a banner year. I credit that to my brilliant business partner, Andrei Herasimchuk: he is an otherworldly interface designer. I learn something new from him every time we work on something together, and the products we build are outstanding because of him.

I don’t really see success changing me as a person. Ever since I was a little boy, my grandfather told me to be prepared for great things. So I was sort of pre-conditioned to expect success to happen and then pretty much have taken my accomplishments in stride as a result. That’s not to say that I will accomplish *great* things, or that I even want to ultimately be that ambitious. But I think any success that I do enjoy will just feel pretty natural for me.

JO: Did you plan to have a career in design and technology?

DK: Goodness no! I was going to be a philosopher and try to solve all of the timeless problems of humanity, dealing with questions about meaning, well-being, and happiness. But life takes crazy turns, and I ended up in business. Roughly, my path started in sales and marketing, moved into consultation and management, turned into design, and quickly took root in digital products. The philosopher in me is still at the center, but now has to share space with my passion for design.

JO: I’m also interested in questions of meaning, and I’ve enjoyed reading some of your observations related to the cultural impact of mobile technology. What is one way that mobile technology is going to make your life better this year?

DK: I’m planning to buy a personal GPS device, something like a Garmin or TomTom. That way I won’t get lost so much! But my personal technology products aside, the relationship between people and technology is really reaching an inflection point, with the proliferation of mobile technology and the ubiquitous digital network truly blurring boundaries of humanity and behaviour. It is a very interesting time to be alive.

JO: I agree. What’s one way that mobile technology could make your life worse?

DK: Lots of ways… it keeps me attached to and focused on the digital network when I could be interacting with people, or thinking, or observing, or actually paying attention to things like driving. It is probably affecting my health, perhaps hurting my eye sight from looking at the monitor, or taxing my back from bending over to read various screens.
I suppose it is a bit like what smokers deal with: I know it is probably not good for me in a lot of ways but just can’t seem to pry myself away from the network enough.

JO: One area where I wish designers had greater input is in the visual state of default Excel spreadsheets. I think a lot of managers underestimate the importance of making spreadsheet information accessible and easily digestable. They produce great data, and they neglect to take a few extra minutes to finish the job. What’s your favorite technique for producing nice looking excel spreadsheets?

DK: Heh. This question made me laugh, but I’ll give you a serious answer anyway. It is all about basic layout choices: smart font usage. Sensible spacing. Thoughtful alignment. I think like an art director but (largely) keep the crayons in their box. Too much colour becomes an Excel nightmare!

JO: You’ve written that designers should stress the importance of paying close attention to their audience. Are there any practices that you do to maintain or sharpen your observation skills?

DK: At this point I don’t really do any exercises, I just try and do my best impression of a sponge and suck up everything that I can. However, the trick is not how much you observe, but how effective you are at deciding:

1. What is important
2. Why it is important
3. How the what and why impact the design and/or strategy

JO: You have a cross-disciplinary academic background, and you’ve completed a graduate degree in social science. How has that affected your career?

DK: I actually learned my research skills in graduate school. I earned an MA in Popular Culture, which is a cross-disciplinary degree spanning English, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. My primary interest was in philosophy, but my secondary interest was in human sexuality.

So I took some different ethnographic research courses and did a lot of research on sexual behaviour. That included observational studies in places like strip clubs, drag shows, and gay bars; quantitative surveys in both mainstream and alternative demographics (and if you think you know what I mean by alternative, you probably don’t!); interviews with people whose behaviours relate to my specific topics of study; intercepts in more everyday places like Hooters. And more.
So I certainly had formal training in these methods that I’ve carried into my professional career. My post-graduate research just hasn’t been as interesting as what I was doing in school, but getting deep into people’s sexual behaviour and motivation is a hard research topic to follow!

But ultimately, designing effectively for people is all about paying attention to them. A poetry professor of mine, Dr. Lawrence Dessner, always used to harp that, “Love means paying attention.” In writing effective poetry, you need to love what you are writing about and who you are writing for and really pay close attention to the details that really matter. Dr. Dessner makes an incredibly insightful point that’s not just about poetry, but very much about designing great products. And beyond all of that, his point is about really loving people well and living a great life.

You can learn more about Dirk Knemeyer at his blog www.knemeyer.com.