About

I'm Dave Elfving, and this is where I share projects and ideas. I'm a teacher, artist and Experience Designer living in San Francisco. I taught in the Interaction Design program at the California College of the Arts, and I've served on the board of directors at First Exposures and Gray Area. Currently, I'm on the board at SF Camerawork. For a long time, I worked at Apple on their interactive marketing team. If you like, you can learn more about me at LinkedIn.

Speaking

In March of 2023, ChatGPT was announced. With excitement I'd not felt since the early days of the internet, I began exploring and teaching with it:

My AI Co-Teacher
Long Now Foundation, Ignite Talks 2023

Teaching Design with AI
The AI User Group, AI For Designers #26

My AI Teaching Assistant
The AI User Group, AI For Designers #16

Teaching

California College of the Arts — 2021 - 2026
Adjunct Professor II
I introduced new design majors to Interaction Design through two core, required courses. After this work, students were prepared for future projects and classes.

Core IXD: Foundations
Introduces the fundamental concepts of interaction design: research, ideation and testing. Projects included redesigning the SF Muni ticket kiosk and analyzing qualitative user research with AI.

Core IXD: Behavior
Considers how design is informed by human behavior. We discuss the ethics of design and consider the responsible use of AI design tools. Projects included developing an app for better sleep, and a final project using apps and connected devices to change habits.

Gray Area — 2020 - Present
I offer workshops pairing physical computing with "vibe coding". The classes provide a shared experience of building, and a foundation for working with software and code.

The Analog Station
This a workshop-in-a-kit introduces soldering, AI coding and microcontrollers. Students build and take home a working audio meter / climate monitor.

The Everything Frame
An introduction to Raspberry Pi and the Linux command line; students build a fully configured wireless digital frame.

Apple University Associate — 2016 - 2019
Beyond my formal role at Apple, I worked with their internal education program, Apple University. I taught the “What Makes Apple, Apple” curriculum to new employees.

University of Illinois at Chicago – 2004-2007
I taught an undergraduate public speaking course and worked as a Teaching Assistant within the UIC department of Communication