Amplifying Human Agency: Charlie Sutton

Charlie Sutton, Head of Design at Facebook App, talks with Jesse about key influences, product design experiences, design philosophy, and rewarding collaborations. Charlie shares how his parents--both creative people working in technical jobs--influenced how he thought of the intersection of technical expertise, art, and experience. After studying Arts and Law, Charlie quit the path to law to pursue a career with Apple. He shares stories of how his experience at Apple helped him grow into the fledgling field of product and service design. Charlie talks about moving to Nokia and the Advanced Design studio, where he used provocative design methodologies to push the Nokia product strategy, as well as his eventual move to lead design for the Facebook App.

Charlie shares his insights into building strong product teams, pushing the boundaries of effective design, and navigating a satisfying career. He shares insights into using design fiction, drawing product inspiration from other arts, and engaging in design as a means to create a shared responsibility of agency with consumers.

How do you build effective product teams? How does team diversity improve product quality? What design strategies can you use for improving products? How do you design for augmented reality or virtual reality? How do I resolve conflicts between design and engineering? How do you make products customers will love? Charlie shares his experiences at the intersection of art, technology, engineering, and human experience. 

Guest Bio:
Charlie Sutton is Head of Design for the Facebook App, looking after the 400+ person design organization. As a leader, he has grown and managed teams for almost twenty years at companies including Apple, Nokia and Samsung. He specializes in interaction design for mobile, and has extensive experience in developing for both physical products and AR/VR. Charlie is passionate about teaching and building skills in the new generation of designers, and is currently a Senior Lecturer at California College of the Arts.

charlie-sutton.com
Twitter: @CactusWool

Building Blocks:
In this episode, Charlie talked to us about the two-way exchange of design. He feels it's his responsibility to do great product design, but he also believes people using technology have the responsibility to learn. And he talked about learning as the source of our agency as people, and about how it's this agency that leads us to get the most out of the things in our lives.

With that reflection in mind, please consider and write down two things: #1, What you build in your job, or your hobby, or in your role in one of your communities. It can be a product, service, message, feeling, or anything you build. #2, what people need to learn to do to really get the most out of it. If you style hair, maybe it’s that you ask your clientele to go experiment with a new style you gave them, and try on different looks. If you write books, maybe it’s about the provocations and the reflections you ignite in people. If it’s in tech, well, if it’s in tech, reflect on whether you’re building for sufficient agency or if you’re maybe wrestling too much control from people who are using what you make. Think about it!

If you’d like to share, get it out there on social with the Hashtag #BreakthroughBuilders. Or, if you’d prefer to not share it publicly, go ahead and email it to me at producer@breakthrough-builders.com. I’d love hearing from you and learning from what you built.

Helpful Links:
Charlie speaking about “Designing for Virtual Reality”
Charlie at Facebook Developer Conference: “3 Questions that can Change How Products Get Made”
Charlie at Rethink: “The People Problems Framework”
Learn more about design that expands human agency: “Understanding agency in interaction design materials” by Thorlander, Normark, and Rossitto (2012)
Learn more about Design Fiction