SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwire) -- 05/04/09 -- Artefact Group, a Seattle-based design consultancy, today announced that it is collaborating with Carbon Design Group, a full-service industrial design and product development consultancy to create a project with Western Washington University's (WWU) Industrial Design Department.

The special project titled "Education: A Vision for 2015" will give WWU students the opportunity to research and understand the challenges of early, primary, secondary and post-secondary classrooms in Bellingham. Taking on the role of design consultant, WWU students will research and develop educational products that will enhance the learning process in the classroom. Carbon and Artefact will provide mentorship throughout the design process offering their expertise in industrial and user experience design.

"As a WWU ID graduate, I'm very excited to be able to offer an industrial and user experience design project that enhances the program there," said Olen Ronning, user experience designer at Artefact and one of the project managers for the Education project.

Ronning is working with Joe Sullivan, a fellow WWU graduate and Industrial Designer at Carbon. The two teamed up with professor Arunas Oslapas in the industrial design program to develop a lesson plan for the junior-level design class which will enable students to learn user-centered design practices, and experience a real-world design consultancy approach.

"We wanted to work with the university to enhance its design program and felt that asking students to act as design consultants really increased the educational value on the project," said Markus Wierzoch, Lead Designer at Carbon.

Additional information about the design project is posted on the Artefact blog: http://www.artefactgroup.com/blog/2009/04/envisioning-the-future-of-education/.

"Over the past year, Artefact has aimed to enhance its relationships with the design programs at local universities including WWU," said Ken Fry, design director at Artefact and a guest speaker at WWU.

Most recently, Fry presented to WWU students in March to discuss a lecture titled "Understanding People is Fruitless." During the presentation, he offered an approach that can help user experience researchers educate the product development teams they work with. He suggests the success of a user researcher cannot be measured by the depth of their customer understanding. A better measure for user research is the success of the product design itself.

"It was an honor to have the opportunity to speak to these students," said Fry. "It is always very exciting to see the enthusiasm these students bring to the fields of user research and design."

"Ken hooked me in with his controversial presentation title," said design student Ryan Diener. "He gave us a look into one aspect of Artefact, and it was very intriguing."

About Artefact

Artefact (www.artefactgroup.com) is a design consultancy that works with a variety of high tech consumer electronics, communications, and computer software clients to research user needs and design breakthrough software and technology products.

Since 2006, Artefact has partnered with major industry players like Microsoft, Apple, SONOS and Intel to deliver innovation to mobile systems, gaming and entertainment systems (xBox 360, SONOS Multi-Room Music Player), natural user interfaces (Microsoft Surface), client applications (Microsoft WorldWide Telescope), and productivity solutions (Office Live), just to name a few. Artefact is a young company, but with rapid growth, it is becoming a prominent player in user experience design.

About Carbon

Carbon Design Group (www.carbondesign.com) is a full-service industrial design and product development consultancy offering a collaborative interdisciplinary approach to creating products for companies in the consumer, medical and technical markets. Carbon partners with both large and small companies to conceive, develop and commercialize technology-based products. The company was founded in 1993 and has a staff of 25 designers and engineers in its Seattle headquarters and Düsseldorf satellite office.