The High Ground Product Design Workshop "Designing the Product Experience", held June 19-27, 1999, was a resounding success based on attendees' evaluations. The sixteen participants represented a broad spectrum of industrial design, and included office heads, department heads, designers and educators. They came together at the High Ground studio conference facility for nine days of intensive lectures, high energy team studio projects and a bit of mountain recreation. The faculty team of Michael McCoy IDSA, Bill Moggridge IDSA and Tucker Viemeister FIDSA gave a total of five lecture presentations on tools and strategies for more effective experiential design.

Then the teams of four designers each went to work in the studio, transforming the faculty presentations' content into actual product concepts, using scenarios as a team ideation technique. The teams' project presentations included actual enactments of their final design concepts to the group at the end of the week using product mock-ups as props in their theatrical productions. These strategies enabled them to test their product concepts in a context of use with very specific personalities and situations instead of generalized user profiles.

The designers were asked to create the narratives that would choreograph the interaction of the smart products with users, with other products and with the internet. The results were groups of interactive products centered around key moments and routines in users' lives, designed to sense users' needs and desires and respond appropriately, often connecting seamlessly with web services in the background.

The High Ground programs are structured to give designers innovative concepts and methods for developing breakthrough products that they can take back to their practice and immediately apply to professional projects.