You may have already caught on to this, but in case you haven’t, MIX09 is gravitating around the theme there’s return in user experience.  You’ll see this message woven into our content stack and our keynotes. 

Deborah Adler, creator of retailer Target’s ClearRx Prescription System, brings a story to the table that embodies the MIX09 conference theme like no other. We won’t steal her keynote thunder, but providing a preview of her story is too tempting to resist.

While Deborah was earning her M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York, her grandmother mistakenly took some medication meant for her husband.   When Deborah dug further into the mix-up, the problem couldn’t have been more clear to her: prescription drug bottles exemplify bad design.  Bad design is everywhere and we’ve learned to live with that, but in this particular case, design becomes a matter of life and death. Fast forward to 2004, when Deborah teamed up with Target to put her innovative design into production. The rest, as they say,is history. Her work is redefining the pharmacy experience and undoubtedly saving lives,not to mention it’s also making Target’s shareholders happy.

If you recall, a couple of weeks ago we announced that Bill Buxton was going to keynote at MIX.  Do you remember Bill’s mantra?

Ultimately, we are deluding ourselves if we think that the products that we design are the “things” that we sell, rather than the individual, social and cultural experience that they engender, and the value and impact that they have. Design that ignores this is not worthy of the name.  – Bill Buxton

Strike a chord?!? It’s like Bill is talking about ClearRX (only he wrote that a decade or two ago). We may be getting ahead of ourselves by saying this, but the keynotes at MIX09 this year are going to be brutal (in a very, very good way). 

If you haven’t already, register now or you’ll miss a heck of a show.