Models—good ones, anyway—are valuable in a number of ways.
The best resource I know on the topic is the paper Models of Models by Hugh Dubberly.
What is a model?
Presentation on IxD in 21st Century Work
My talk at the MWUX Conference, Pittsburgh, October 2015 was an opportunity to present a proposal with rationale for the “literacies” that are required by IxD practitioners:
- Systems Literacy
- Collaboration Literacy
- Internet of Things Literacy
- Coding Literacy
- Frameworks for Interaction & Conversation Literacy
Designing for Conversation
“Designing for Conversation” is a rich phrase with multiple interpretations—does it mean, designing to foster conversation? Why would that be a good thing?
Designing the first Design Conversation
Let’s imagine we are the catalyst for starting a new project, some design challenge relating to a new app.
First, we all recognize the value of the participants in a conversation. We all experience the improvement in thinking and outcomes when we work with someone else. This seems to say, “more participants means better outcomes”—hah, you know that’s not such a good idea. Too many voices, too much distraction. So, how would we decide whom to have in that first conversation?
“How to engage designers to ensure great products”
The title of this post and the diagram comes from Hugh Dubberly and his slidedeck about how design is centered on models and conversation and politics. Not kidding.
Continue reading ““How to engage designers to ensure great products””
Ethics and Design?
I was struck by the depth of reaction to mentions of ethics and design at recent presentations at Carnegie Mellon and an IxD conference.
In all four situations, overwhelmingly the group Q&A as well as 1-on-1 follow-up discussions after my talks resonated with the responsibility of designers in navigating between “controlling choices” of users vs. “enabling bad choices”.
How do we help design students understand their responsibility? What historical concepts and values ought we to offer for this “age of tech”? Could there be a design elective on “Ethics and Design”?
What is Interaction Design?
When I say I teach Interaction Design, I’m usually asked, “What’s that? What is Interaction Design”—I’m asked right away about the interaction part, as if there’s no question about the design part, about what “design” is.
The Future of Conversation (Generally)
This is a useful review by Jonathen Franzen called “Sherry Turkle’s ‘Reclaiming Conversation’”, about Turkle’s new book.
Franzen says “Conversation is Turkle’s organizing principle because so much of what constitutes humanity is threatened when we replace it with electronic communication.”
Turkle praises one user interface that, “instead of encouraging us to stay connected as long as possible, would encourage us to disengage.” But this is a utopian approach, not a pragmatic one.
Since today’s “electronic communication” is far from conversation, a pragmatic approach would be to make digital interfaces—which are inevitable in our lives, and ever more so, and for more of the world’s population—better at facilitating “human conversation.” While this may not answer all objections, it’s a way to manage “satisficing” our design goals.
Bio-cost—An economics of human behavior
PDF: Bio-cost, an economics of human behavior
Businesses talk a lot about the cost of a product or service. Behind the talk is the concept of “value exchange”, that is, giving a benefit in exchange for a cost. We could spend $2.00 on a bus ride but fork over $12.00 for a taxi, because the value to us—convenience, comfort—is at least the difference in price. In both cases we pay to get what we want, which is to get from one place to another. What’s that about?
What’s the most important element of a startup?
Bill Gross of Idealab fame reports on his study of 200 startups reviewed from 5 lenses:
- Quality of the idea
- Quality of team, including adaptability and execution
- Business model
- Amount of funding
- Timing
The most important feature according to his research? Timing.
Very useful but begs the question: how can we use this finding to execute better startups? In other words, how can we shift our actions to become more “evolutionarily current”, fitting with the times?
[Disclosure: I was founding CTO at one of Idealab’s companies in 2004-2005, Snap.com. It did not succeed in overturning the predominant search UI paradigm of the time then; or of now, for that matter.]