David J Gilmore

Helping to improve user experiences through design

I have been working on innovation, product design, user experience, human factors and human-computer interaction for over 40 years..

In the mid-1990’s I led a team that demonstrated the need for something richer than usability … and we were working with Don Norman at Apple on this and related ideas and it was around this time that Don coined the term ‘User Experience’.

At IDEO I was part of the Human Factors leadership that revealed how contextual, empathic research could identify users’ implicit and latent needs in ways that designers could act upon.

Since IDEO I have worked at Intel, Logitech, GE Research and Elekta, leading developments in user experience across hardware and software, in consumer products and in complex industrial domains (for example, gas-fired power stations and radiation therapy). 

It is a lot more than User Interfaces

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Solving Real Problems

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Prototypes for early concept exploration

Are you building prototypes early enough? Do you assume that engineers should build your prototypes? Do you know how to build prototypes that help you explore your concepts before you commit to engineering development?

Authentic Conversations

Are you hearing authentic responses? Or are you hearing what your customers and users want you to hear, or what they think you want to hear?

Strategic UX or UX Strategy

Are you using your UX capability strategically? Or are they delivering great UI in places where it might or might not matter?

Some previous work

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Apps for physical products

Speakers are physical and minimally interactive – how might an app enable one to add features and interactions without cluttering up the physical design?
Speakers are physical and minimally interactive – how might an app enable one to add features and interactions without cluttering up the physical design?

The internet at home

In the 2000’s it was still very unclear what the role of the internet was at home, or how it would be accessed.
In the 2000’s it was still very unclear what the role of the internet was at home, or how it would be accessed.

Universal Design in 1980

Ensuring new coins are appropriately valuable and can be easily handled by blind people led us to the realisation that everyone benefits if they can identify money without looking at it.
Ensuring new coins are appropriately valuable and can be easily handled by blind people led us to the realisation that everyone benefits if they can identify money without looking at it.

Some publications

Read more of my past work and thinking

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21st Century HMI

The Human-Machine Interface (HMI) went graphical many years ago, but it never quite went fully digital, which makes bringing the enhancements of data analytics and AI to bear much harder. This poster summarises GE Research’s efforts to explore what a digital HMI might be like and how users would respond to it.

Usability engineering for a complex, medical device

This paper summarises the activities required and complexities encountered while undertaking the usability engineering process for a large, complex, and new-to-the-world medical device – namely Elekta Unity, the first high field Magnetic Resonance (MR)-Linac.

HFES 2018 User-Centred Design Award

The HFES Product Design SIG awards the Stanley Caplan Award every year and in 2018 Elekta’s MRLinac (Unity) was the winning entry, celebrating work that is documented more completely in other publications.