Ultimately, we want to provide a perfect experience—one devoid of flaws and full of delight. This is where experience design and professional magic have much in common: both are driven by the desire for perfection.
What you may not realize, however, is that professional magic has a hundred-year jump on experience design. That field’s drive for perfection started before the time of Houdini, in the late 1800s. The methods, philosophies, and culture behind that drive has gone through many years of refinement and maturation. Experience designers have a lot to learn from the ways professional magicians approach their craft.
In their one-of-a-kind presentation “The Best is the Enemy of the Good,” the father and son team of Jared Spool (who studies design) and reed spool (who studies and practices professional magic) will discuss the similarities of these two fields and their drive for perfection.