Jackson Bostian
Jackson Bostian
Assistant Professor of User Experience Design
Jackson Bostian is an Assistant Professor of User Experience Design at William Peace University, where he teaches both UX and game development and serves as co-chair of the university's AI Task Force. His background focuses heavily on designing and developing for XR technologies and immersive spaces, with a concentration on embodiment, interaction philosophy, and game UX. Jackson spends his spare time reading, cooking, and wondering why people keep walking away when he starts talking about design systems.
Familiar Futures: Cultural Artifacts as Mental Models for Innovation
This talk discusses retrofuturist skeuomorphism. From the flip phone's Star Trek roots to the uncanny familiarity of anthropomorphized AI assistants, cultural artifacts shape how users expect new technologies to behave before they ever touch them.
When we expand our understanding of context beyond the device in someone's hand or the room they're sitting in, and start considering the films they grew up watching and the fictional technologies they've always wanted to touch, we unlock a powerful design lever. If we're clever, users' futures might already feel familiar. Come see how nostalgia can be a design resource beyond aesthetics.