Several of our designers and developers spent this past weekend attending sessions on art and technology and talking to people about Intridea's methods at Betascape. The event pulled together artists and technologists from various industries and demonstrated what is happening on the bleeding edge of that intersection - from robotics to personal fabrication to data visualization.

The most popular session among the Intridea contingent was Kyle Fritz's talk, "Computers Suck, The Internet Rules: How to make networked stuff that interacts with the real world." Kyle touched on ways to virtually control your home stereo, locks, lights, and other household objects that can be remotely manipulated with just a simple working knowledge of electronics and a bit of hacking. It was a great example to our designers of how technology can be accessible and useful to them.

UI Kits are commonly found in most designer's toolboxes. We use them to bootstrap visual elements of a product before diving into the harder work. They are not as common with developers though, and in the spirit of this weekend's Betascape event of joining Art *and* Technology, I'm here to advocate for UI kits as a simple bridge between the design world and the development world.

Typically, every project goes through three main phases: Discovery, Design and Development. Although each phase defines a distinct position in the process, they do intermix. Generally, development starts as early as the Discovery phase, design continues to happen throughout all phases, and new requirements from the client pop up long after the Discovery phase is complete. This three-phased process is natural and effective but could be kicked up a notch by integrating a UI kit to the discovery phase.