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Bill Buxton kicked off the MIX09 keynote with emphasis on design and the design process. His message: "It's a good time for design!"

He drew parallels between the modern user interface design process and the industrial designs process of the last century. One of the key parallels was the emphasis on constructive variation; that is, being able to generate many equally viable design solutions, not as a way of making on particular solution look good, but to tease out the key design questions that lead us toward an optimal design.

Bill Buxton made the point that it is very easy to sketch an object, such as mobile phone or camera, but it is harder to sketch an interface. Even more difficult is to sketch the interaction with the interface, how different states of an interface react to input and transition from state to state.

He showed a simple method that designers have used in the past to demonstrate user interfaces, a flipbook of Post-It notes.

The flipbook is connected by an implicit transition diagram.

However, he pointed out that, though everyone has used this method, this method places too much emphasis on the states and not nearly enough on the transitions. There needs to be a way to sketch the interactions and the transitions. A modern user interface design process needs tools (hint, hint) that better equip a team to focus on the state transitions before making large investments in code.