Dan Brown

Dan Brown, co-founder and principal of Eightshapes, is a virtuoso of design discovery. He works on particularly complex and hairy design problems in his consulting business. The impact of his work and practice, as articulated through his writings and social presence, is felt in the fields of user research, information architecture, and user experience design.

Dan wrote three books to help design teams become more effective and assist in jump-starting their design process. He designed a card game, Surviving Design Projects, for designers to help them improve their conflict resolution skills. He launched another deck of cards, IA Lenses, to assist in inspiring designers working on difficult information architecture problems.

Fun facts about Dan: The book, Designing Together, was borne out of the work on his card game Surviving Design Projects. His definition of adulthood is acknowledging that there are no simple explanations for anything. There are a myriad of reasons for phenomena.

His work is super interesting and relevant for anyone approaching complex problems in the user experience and information architecture problem space.

Do yourself a favor and check out his books and games!

Dan is well known for his writings:

Practical Design Discovery (2017).

Designing Together: The Collaboration and Conflict Management Handbook for Creative Professionals (2013).

Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning (2011).

And his games:

IA Lenses: Useful Perspectives for Information Architects (2018).

Surviving Design Projects: The Creative Team's Conflict Management Training Game (2013).