My childhood hero, Shigeru Miyamoto: part game developer, part UX designer.
The profile describes Miyamoto’s (creator of Mario/Zelda/DK, all around awesome dude) background, process, and inspiration, and touches on theories of what makes games compelling. An especially interesting portion is on the importance Miyamoto sees in sharing “kyokan” with users:
“What we demand in development is sharing the common feeling.”…“Suppose someone is talking about his children,” Miyamoto continued. “If I am a father, I can understand personally what he’s talking about. We have kyokan.” … Miyamoto said he wants the game players and the developers to have kyokan: for the players to feel about the game what the developers felt themselves.
Empathizing with the user? Sounds a little like UX design.
Read the full profile on The New Yorker website: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_paumgarten#ixzz19RJCW5pQ
