UX for Good: New Orleans

Redesigning social services for musicians

In New Orleans, music can easily be mistaken for a natural resource. It seems to emanate from every cobblestone and corner bar. But every note of every song is a product of human beings, many of whom are living in a system that is increasingly inhumane. At the second annual UX for Good event, user-experience designers from across the country convened in New Orleans, where they applied their unique brand of unrelenting empathy to the problems musicians face in their everyday lives. By the end of the event, the team of designers had devised three original ways to connect New Orleans musicians with the prosperity they deserve. Read more about what they came up with at http://www.uxforgood.com.

Foossa's Lee-Sean Huang served as one of the user experience designers for UX for Good 2012.

UX for Good is a wildly ambitious effort to design systemic solutions for some of the most vexing social challenges. Top user experience designers convene to tackle problems that matter in the only design event of its kind. Assisting the designers are leading philanthropic change makers and some of the most interesting, creative thinkers we can find.

In May 2012, we convened leading user experience designers from across the U.S. to construct models to address two big problems facing the New Orleans music community: adapting its unique artistic mix to the digital economy and ensuring support for musicians who fall on hard times. Partnering with The Grammys and MusiCares, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, the UX designers' unique skills and perspective were leveraged to advance the greater good - ensuring music remains an abundant and treasured resource in this great American city.