Norm Cox
Designer
Norm Cox
Norm Cox is an expert and pioneer in the fields of experience design, design thinking for innovation, and visual communication. Educated in Architecture and Design at Louisiana State University, he began his career at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center as the visual designer for the Xerox “Star”, the first personal computer to introduce a graphical user interface. After leaving Xerox in 1982, Norm began his own consulting practice to expand his knowledge, experience, talents, and influence in this budding fields of user interaction, experience design, and visual communications, and has consulted to dozens of high profile international and domestic companies.
He is named as innovator and inventor on 29 design patents relating to user experience design, and has won numerous industry awards for product design, graphic design, and illustration. He is a frequent lecturer to universities, companies, design conferences and special interest groups, and has served as juror for international design competitions. He is also an avid fisherman and bluegrass musician, and serves on the boards of several charitable, non-profit and educational organizations.
How did you discover your curiosity?
I discovered a curiosity I didn’t know I had when I enrolled at Louisiana State University in the fall of 1969. I wanted to be an architect, because I loved drawing house plans and building birdhouses, so a degree in Architecture seemed to fit my interests. When I realized that LSU offered hundreds of classes in every subject imaginable, my curiosity kicked in like a kid in a candy store. I wanted to take them all. Except accounting… I hated accounting. And history. But I was curious about everything else from archeology to zoology. I abandoned my architecture degree plans and became a professional student learner for the sake of knowledge and an insatiable curiosity about many things.
A few years later, I went to work for a design manager at Xerox. He was a Ph.D. nerd, but was the life of any office party because he had such a breadth of general knowledge and could talk to anyone about any subject. I was envious of his command of trivia, and was inspired to be just like him. It seems that the people I admired most were those who knew stuff, and I wanted to be a guy who knew stuff, too.
What is curiosity?
To me, curiosity is an “I wonder…” mindset rooted in an innate desire to know and fully experience the world around us. “I wonder what, why, when, where, who, how?”
How has being curious affected your life?
Well, like my former manager, I can now talk to anyone at dinner parties about nearly any subject, but my family won’t let me play trivia games with them anymore. Now everyone expects me to know everything, so even when I make up a bogus answer they tend to believe me. It’s my new superpower.
What advice do you have for designers?
Never pass up an opportunity to learn something new. Have a mindset that constantly whispers, “I wonder…”.