sensemaking The Great Wounding What should we call this moment? For in naming it we give birth to its children.
researching Workarounds are sources of new features Observing workarounds is a very efficient way of identifying new features
sensemaking The challenges of democracy are like the challenges of doing user-centered design Here follow some propositions making parallels between the two and why there is a case for governance and politics to draw from the toolkits of user/human centered design. And, to a smaller degree, vice versa.
designing Stupid Machines: a UX design technique Consider the following stupid machines: machine that runs into corners at high speed and yelps upon impact goes up against a person’s leg, looks up at them, and smirks same as above, but sprays water at a leg accelerates towards raised edges and falls off machine composed of two
researching Wise metrics Propositions on sensibly making use of metrics when designing things: (for mathematically minded people) Axioms: Those metrics matter, which matter to the people the metrics are supposedly helping serve Those metrics matter, which represent the fitness of a "solution" to its context Those metrics which represent desired levels
sensemaking Asking good questions: the difference between Trend-hunting & Foresight A friend forwarded me these 10 questions from an ad agency that runs a 'global scout network', soliciting opinions on '10 key elements of Culture' (to be answered, btw, in 10 minutes). Looking at them, it strikes me that the difference between how advertising and foresight practices look forward and
Ancient bugs in PowerPoint As a researcher, I create a lot of PowerPoint documents - apart from its ubiquity in the professional knowledge worker world, it has decent visual editing tools and its one-page-at-a-time format helps structure narratives and data. But there have been some frustrating usability bugs in PowerPoint that I've seen present
6 degrees of inclusivity Just realized if that the 6 degrees of separation hypothesis is true, someone like me is only 6 links away from my polar opposite person (e.g. a militaristic rural religious fundamentalist). This suggests an important measure of social health: how many network links from any given person to someone
designing A new flag for San Francisco I was binge-listening to that most fabulous of design podcasts, 99% invisible, and came across this analysis of San Francisco's flag and how terrible it is. I looked around, and found only one attempt at redesign, which I found unsatisfactory. So here is an attempt to come up with a
How to Inhabit a City Having spent nearly a year in San Francisco as a resident, I started talking with my friend Purva, a long-term San Franciscan, about the difference between her understanding of the city and mine. The discussion resulted in some questions & notes for a booklet or monograph we think it might
