Research was an integral part of my studies in Interaction Design because it allowed me to think beyond traditional concepts and beyond our immediate cultural framework. These diversions from the norm provided the pathway from Interaction Design to Experience Design, underscoring the importance of each person's perceptions and cultural background and how they affect individual experience. For me, Spirituality and the Internet was the ultimate avenue for understanding how very personal experience might be designed and received through a medium highly perceived as impersonal and a-spiritual. As part of an independent study project with Product Design professor David Kelley, my opportunity to study Italian Multimedia first hand provided insight into how another culture pursues the design and creation of artistic multimedia, and how important their work is to the rest of the world's exposure to great Italian art and architecture. As a research assistant to digital artist Gregory Niemeyer, I had the opportunity to work with him on his project Simulation: The Cultural Anticipation of Our Own Demise, an experience which underscored the critical need for technology to bring us back to our physical surroundings.