David Everly, 2011

UX for Good is a wildly ambitious effort to design systemic solutions for some of the most vexing social challenges. It was founded in 2010 by Labs Dean Jeff Leitner and Jason Ulaszek, User Experience Director at Manifest Digital.

At each event, top user experience designers convene to tackle problems that matter in the only gathering of its kind. Assisting the designers are executives from leading non-profit organizations addressing those challenges,  as well as some of the most interesting, creative thinkers we can find.

This year, we partnered with MusiCares (a nonprofit wing of the GRAMMYs) and the Clinton Global Initiative to help the designers address two challenges facing the music community of New Orleans. Check back here soon to learn more about what they discovered. Until then, read about the problems they tacked at the following links:

Raise the roof - New Orleans doesn’t just have a music “scene” – it has a robust musical culture with more than a hundred of years of tradition behind it. But like musicians all over the country, the artists of the Big Easy are trying to figure out how to get by in a world being transformed by digital – and that’s not even taking into account the damages wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Is this challenge, our designers will consider how to re-arrange the elements of the New Orleans music economy so that artists there can survive and thrive in a digital world.

Don’t lose the beat - One of our partners in UX for Good this year, MusiCares, has proved to be an innovator in serving the unique social needs of musicians. Well-known for their work in addiction treatment, the organization also provides musicians with services related to health care and housing in ways designed specifically to help musical performers. But no one organization can do it alone. To complement MusiCares’s work, our designers will consider how resources to address musicians’ social needs could be better provided for by the New Orleans music economy.

Mark Trammell, Twitter; Jason Kunesh, Obama for America; Brynn Evans, Google; John Kenny, DraftFCB; Carolyn Chandler, Manifest Digital; Ryan Freitas, About.Me; Tanarra Schneider, Manifest Digital; Mark Andrew Wills, Hattery; Brian Winters, Manifest Digital; Lee-Sean Huang, Purpose; Jodi Leo, Bolt | Peters; Rob Chappell, Peter Mayer; Bill DeRouchey; Susan Brecker; Katy Klassman, The Curated Group; Al Herbach, Strategiz; Jason Ulaszek, Manifest Digital; Jeff Leitner, Insight Labs; Howell Malham, Insight Labs; Andrew Benedict-Nelson, Insight Labs