Having a Googler speak at your conference is always a good thing. Having one that can map the stars and act with animals is Circus-with-the-Stars-style-rad. We were lucky enough to pick user experience designer Jon Wiley's brain recently and discuss his colorful work history, as well as Google's secret to success. Spoiler alert: Less is more, if more seems less. Keep reading if you're confused.

Twitter told me you made it to SXSW, and "didn't suck". An impressive feat at the apex of Cool-Kid-Landia. Were you able to impress the hipster tech nerds with your knowledge?

My presentation was about client-side code and internationalization (oh so hip). It was one of the few presentations marked "advanced" in the program. Given the staggering variety of content at SXSW and the rather esoteric nature of my presentation, I was expecting an attendance of about 30 people. Instead, I'd guess about 200 showed up. And they stayed to the end...so I was happy.

Twitter also says you're an astronomer turned actor turned UI designer? That sounds exhausting. What's next?

Volcanologist. Or lemon farmer, if my tweets are to remain an authority on the matter.

Break it down for us Jon: In ten buzz words or less, please explain what exactly user experience design is.

Design for encountering, adopting, learning, and using a software product.

Did you have anything to do with the "I'm Feeling Lucky " button on the search page? What kinds of feedback to you get? I read that feature costs over a hundred million dollars a year in Advertising cash. So why do it?

The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was originally created by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google. If you click on it, it automatically takes you to the first result that you would have seen had you decided to search instead.

Larry has often remarked that a perfect search engine would understand what you need and give you the right answer every time. You would never need to go to a search results page, you would just get the right answer. Assuming such a thing is possible, we're a ways from having that sort of technology. So instead of having a button on the page that says "Right Answer," we have a button that says "I'm Feeling Lucky." It is an allusion to the imperfection of search technology - that you might get just what you were looking for, but maybe not.

People react to it in various ways, generally positive. Some think it is funny or fun, many aren't sure what it does. I think it's good to have a bit of humor or a little puzzle here and there - it keeps things interesting and adds a human touch.

Can you give the folks a preview of your presentation at the Mediabistro Circus?

As a user experience (UX) designer, I often find myself at the nexus of a number of efforts - product strategy, engineering, QA, customer service, marketing, and public relations. That's because, as I mentioned, UX design touches upon the entire life cycle of a product. It's important for design thinking to be strong throughout. Also, Google develops a number of platforms and tools that others may build upon - enabling developers and publishers to create new experiences. In order to help guide good design at Google and beyond, we created a set of design principles.

I'll be talking about how we created our design principles and how we implement them, and I'll highlight a few places where we've lived up to them and few where we still have work to do.

How do you think the simplicity of Google's design model has affected other designers/websites? Does this notion of Simplicity, or streamlined design guide your approach to work?

Simplicity is definitely one of our design principles, so much so that it is often equated with our brand. Some equate simplicity with meager capability, but I think Google (and many other successful companies) have shown that not to be the case. The simple surface of Google Search masks some of the most complex and sophisticated computational power the world has ever known. It is the sheer power of this complexity that allows Google to embrace simplicity - we do the heavy lifting so that our users can have the best experience.

Simplicity doesn't come easy. I think Google has had an influence on design, but many find it difficult to keep things as simple as Google does. It is hard even for Google. Simplicity is one of several factors that must be balanced. In the end, designers must have understanding and empathy for their users and craft an experience that is appropriate for their audience.

You recently raked in some Internet star-cred with a "news report " involving you and a certain animal's excretory activities.

Yeah, being Internet famous is weird, even anonymous Internet fame. Who knew my 15 minutes would involve bird crap? My mother is so proud.

That video makes a little more sense (or, then again, maybe not), once you've seen the making-of video, which includes a fantastic musical number at the end . But my favorite one is our Oscar trailer.

You're obviously dedicated to your craft. Ever have thoughts of returning to "the theatre"?

I often do, but it is a huge time commitment. Those videos were my first foray in front of a camera in several years, and I enjoyed working with Bob Odenkirk and Leon and Andy. Anyway, judging from the comments about my acting on YouTube (and Digg, and Reddit, and MetaFilter, and the rest of the Intarwebs), I shouldn't quit my day job.

But really, what's it like eating bird poo (fake or otherwise)?

We used yogurt and crushed Oreos for the fake bird poop. It was gross on the first take and it was retchingly awful around the 15th take. It wasn't all acting.