Karilyn Owens
The Discernment Process

Discernment is a tool in our spiritual arsenal – one of the Holy Spirit gifts to us. It guides us to the will of God, which is to say the best possible outcome for us.

The Discernment Process
open heart, love
Karilyn Owens
Word of the Year: Blossom

This year I choose blossom as my Word because it represents my intention to grow from the roots I planted as a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5) and build back what was broken through the vehicle of relationship.

Word of the Year: Blossom
Karilyn Owens
The Power of Decisions

It was the morning of the most important interview of my career; with emotions running haywire and hormones adding a dizzying effect, I decided that I just couldn't go to my interview that afternoon. The fear shouted so loudly that I couldn't hear the voice of wisdom that knew to show up despite the very big feelings. This was my dream job, after all!

The Power of Decisions
Karilyn Owens
Drop the Baggage

God recently revealed to me that I am holding onto the weight of my past. By holding onto my past, I’m not only carrying around a weight I was never meant to carry, but I am blocking the blessings of God’s plan for me in the future. So today I ask you: What weight are you carrying that is hindering your upward momentum?

Drop the Baggage
Karilyn Owens
10 Ways to Manage Depression

Covid-19 caught nearly all of us by surprise, leaving us ripped of our routines, schedules and normal circumstances — everything we typically rely on for stability and consistency. If we weren’t already prone to or struggling with depression, COVID-19 certainly stirred up prime circumstances for depression to show up (many of us without any prior experience with mental illness or the coping skills to deal with it in healthy ways).

10 Ways to Manage Depression

interaction design

From Good to Great: Digital Experiences That Don't Suck

The whole notion of evolving as an interaction designer to make better products is a constant in my mind. I was traditionally trained, earning a BFA in Graphic Design. While I gained an incredible foundation for design, both traditional and digital, experience design had not yet emerged in a real way. I designed websites for the sake of translating information onto the web. I could not devote my life's work to something so primitive. Fast-forward eight years (which might as well be a lifetime in the technology world) to embracing experience design wholeheartedly. While I had dabbled in interaction design early in my career, I did not jump in entirely until I joined Terralever, a digital marketing firm (now LaneTerralever) in 2013. I dig interactive experiences, but what I am truly motivated by is the thought process behind scenes. How do you make a memorable experience that impacts people in a profound way? How do you create a product that is not just useful but makes someone feel raw emotion?

David Gillis, product designer at Facebook, wrote an extensive article on design process while at Teehan +Lax. Everyone wants to make cool shit that sells, but what if our goal wasn't merely creating something with cool experience chalk full of trendy design patterns?  He references Robert Fabricant's talk, "Behavior is Our Medium." In essence, his message was:

 "...we as interaction and user experience designers shouldn’t think of computing technology as our medium —the ultimate goal, and where our craft needs to evolve, is all about impacting, eliciting and shaping human behaviour. In other words, we shouldn’t be designing merely functional or usable things, but persuasive and transformative things."

To learn more about Fabricant's belief that "interaction design is not about computing technology," watch the entire video here.

Back to David. He argues that compelling products have three factors behind them: ethos, pathos and logos.

  1. Ethos is an appeal to the speaker’s personal credibility. It’s about trust.
  2. Pathos is an appeal to the passions and emotions of the audience. It’s about engendering empathy.
  3. Logos is an appeal to reason. It’s about the logic of the argument itself.

Let's get back to the idea of creating better products. My desire to evolve as a designer, from good to great, is not just about the volume of my work or my design taste. As inspiring as Ira Glassman's video on the creative process is, the heart of the matter is behind scenes. It starts miles before we put pen to drawing pad or open up Photoshop or Sketch. I want to move people and evoke raw emotion. I want my work to leave a lasting impression on them. Push yourself to delve deeper and start by reading the entire article here. And while you do, take in the stunning redesign of Medium's site.