Designing a Life You Love

UX Cake

This week, I had the opportunity to speak with Ayse Birsel, a renown designer and the co-founder of Birsel + Seck, an award-winning design and innovation studio in NY, working with Herman Miller, IKEA, and Toyota, among others. Ayse is also the creator of Design the Life You Love, which is a guide for anyone who wants to create their very best life. Ayse developed this transformative process when she decided to try out a design methodology she created called Deconstruction-Reconstruction, on her own life. Also, we talked about how this is a process you can apply to designing anything - a product, a team, a company, even a family! We did not, however, sing a song. Next time.

Ayse is going to be a keynote speaker at Interaction19 in February, IxDA’s global conference, which I’m excited to say will be held in Seattle this year! This year’s conference looks amazing - Go to interaction19.ixda.org to learn more and register.

Show highlights:

• As designers and leaders, we should improve people’s lives and help people find more joy and simplicity in their lives.
• Ayse says she used to design products, and now she designs lives! Fear and excitement went hand in hand when Ayse made a shift in her career.
• There is something about the intersection of life and design that people are drawn to, as Ayse has discovered through meeting others through her workshops or who read her book.
• Deconstruction-Reconstruction teaches us the key to doing more with less, says Ayse. You can’t have everything, but you can be intentional about what you choose to have in order to create something unique. This process is for everyone – any age, any stage of life, no design experience required!

Step 1: DECONSTRUCTION. Taking the whole apart.

Step 2: POINT OF VIEW. Seeing the same things differently.

Step 3: RECONSTRUCTION. Putting it back together.

Step 4: EXPRESSION. Giving it form.

• Design The Life You Love shows people how to use proven design principles to curate the lives they most desire.
• Ayse’s method provides a roadmap of sorts for channeling your creativity and inspiration into steps that end with practical goals and action steps for creating a more personally fulfilling life.
• The Hero Exercise Ayse uses in her workshops is often a revealing process which helps people discover their values.
• Ayse shares that our values are the foundation of everything we do. Without them, we wouldn’t know how to make choices. This is important for any kind of design.
• Designing the Company You Love is based on using non-threatening tools to help businesses solve problems, and helps build trust and ownership.
• Ayse has a course on 42courses.com you can access if you do not have access to her workshops.

Resources:

Design The Life You Love, by Ayse Birsel (you really need the physical book for this one)

Ayse’s website

Link to Ayse’s podcast, Design the Life You Love, on salon.com

Design the Life You Love on Itunes

Ayse on Design Matters podcast with Debbie Millman

Ayse on Twitter

Design the Life You Love on Facebook

Many thanks to UpTop user experience consulting firm in Seattle for use of their location for recording!

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