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Erik is an independent designer, researcher, and strategist based in Grand Rapids, MI, USA. His background in anthropology, semiotics and human-computer interaction help him make sense of complex situations and create meaningful interactions and experiences for his clients and their customers.
Erik’s work has covered websites, applications, products, wearables, environments, and services across domains from personal electronics, military, financial, medical, industrial robotics, farming and agriculture, education, and cooking.Erik has particular interest in ethnographic research, information visualization, embodied interactions, emotions, and product strategy.
His clients have ranged from small startups to Fortune 500 companies, including companies like Yaskawa Robotics, Panasonic, General Dynamics, Case New Holland, Select Sires, Target, Extole and Bluebox among others. While Erik was at MAYA Design in Pittsburgh, he helped develop the initial Human Centered Design curriculum that became the core of what is now the Luma Institute.
Erik has spoken and run workshops around the world at Interaction, UX Week, MidwestUX, IA Summit, EuroIA, UX Lisbon, among others, on topics ranging from general theory and practice, ethnography, research, culture, embodied interactions, and Arduino.
In 2010, Erik co-founded the MidwestUX conference, an intimate, regional UX conference creating a space for distributed design practitioners to form connections at a human scale. I
n 2018, he finished serving a 2-year term as President of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), where he has previously served as a Board Member and Local Leader.
Jose Chavarria is an Interaction Designer and Creative Technologist with a background in Industrial Design Engineering. He's a CIID alumni and has been working in the Interaction Design field since 2015.
Jose started as an Interaction Engineer and later became an R&D Lead at a design studio in San Jose, Costa Rica where he created interactive art installations. He then joined CIID as resident faculty, managing the digital fabrication lab and mentoring students.
After that, he worked as a Creative Technologist and Strategist for an architecture firm, designing AR and VR solutions, digital products, and interactive installations.
Jose's work has been recognised by the Core77 Design Awards in 2021 for Speculative Design and Costa Rica Design Week in 2022 for Interactive Design.
Passionate about human perception and Life-Centred Design, Jose aims to create technology solutions that benefit all forms of life, not just humans.
But in short, he builds stuff and wears hats.
