design

Systemic Strategy: Systemic Design Methods for Complex Systems Change systems, design, presentations & projects

A presentation from Peter Jones and I at RSD9, virtually in Ahmedabad, India. Review the working paper. Check out the slides ▵ →

The Verge → Google’s ads just look like search results now Jan 24, 2020 highlights & tech & design

In what appears to be something of a purposeful dark pattern, the only thing differentiating ads and search results is a small black-and-white “Ad” icon next to the former.

Hrm. The resulting change seems to work:

Early data collected by Digiday suggests that the changes may already be causing people to click on more ads. […] According to one digital marketing agency, click- through rates have already increased for some search ads on desktop, and mobile click- through rates for some of its clients increased last year from 17 to 18 percent after similar changes to Googleʼs mobile search layout.

Damn. I may start looking for a new search engine.

Systemics and design principles in support of Tiago Forte’s PARA framework Jan 21, 2020 articles, personal knowledge management, productivity, systemics & design

Tiago Forte's PARA system is a popular new approach to organizing your digital materials. I explain its usefulness with reference to some principles from systemic design. ▵ →

→ “Level Up”: Leveraging Skill and Engagement to Maximize Player Gameplay Nov 29, 2019 highlights & tech & research & design

We find that high-, medium-, and low-engagement-state gamers respond differently to motivations, such as feelings of effectance and need for challenge. In the second stage, we use the results from the first stage to develop a matching algorithm that learns (infers) the gamer’s current engagement state “on the fly” and exploits that learning to match the gamer to a round to maximize game-play. Our algorithm increases gamer game-play volume and frequency by 4%–8% conservatively, leading to economically significant revenue gains for the company.

As ever with this kind of mechanism, are we sure we want this to exist..? The potential is no doubt powerful. Imagine interactive TV shows that modulate what they’re presenting based on readings of the viewer… Hrm.

→ Beautiful is Good and Good is Reputable: Multiple-Attribute Charity Website Evaluation and Initial Perceptions of Reputation Under the Halo Effect Nov 29, 2019 highlights & research & psychology & design

The halo effect is essentially how positive—but irrelevant—traits influence our perception of what the thing with the halo actually says or does. These authors explored how charities manifest the halo effect on their websites, and find evidence for four varieties of halo effect.

this study employs charity websites as a multi-attribute donation channel consisting of three attributes of information content quality (mission information, financial information, and donation information) and four attributes of system quality (navigability, download speed, visual aesthetics, and security). Based on the proposed framework, this study proposes four types of halos that are relevant to charity website evaluation —collective halo (attribute-to-attribute), aesthetics halo (attribute-to- dimension), reciprocal-quality halo (dimension-to-dimension), and quality halo (dimension-to-dimension)

Resources education, resources, systems, design, futures & change Updated Nov 14, 2019 Below I’m collecting a set of resources dealing with a variety of topics for shareable reference—a sort of living, semi-public ▵ →

Keeping the buzz in buzzwords Nov 9, 2019 articles, design, podcasts & psychology

A thought-terminating cliché limits conversation by capturing a complex (but potentially debatable) subject within a reductive term or phrase. ▵ →

→ This conflated design seems reasonable at first, but hinders efforts to classify a file in more flexible ways. May 19, 2019 highlights & Design File names and paths in a hierarchical file system serve double duty: they tell the machine how to reach a file to in order to retrieve it, and they show the human how the file is classified. This conflated design seems reasonable at first, but hinders efforts to classify a file in more flexible ways. — https://www.nayuki.io/page/designing-better-file-organization-around-tags-not-hierarchies

Applied Systems Thinking systems, design, workshops & talks

Based on the Applied Systems Thinking workshop, I’ve collected a variety of resources to help you map complex problems below. The buttons link ▵ →

→ design not for what we expect to see, but for what we actually believe we’re seeing Jan 17, 2019 highlights & Design design not for what we expect to see, but for what we actually believe we’re seeing. — https://www.typography.com/blog/turning-type-sideways

→ I don’t think that data scientists and data engineers at most organizations that I’m working with have figured out how to communicate with anybody Nov 21, 2018 highlights & Design & Science I don’t think that data scientists and data engineers at most organizations that I’m working with have figured out how to communicate with anybody. So, not even with each other, but how does a data scientist and a data engineer fit into, a modern one, that’s building some new systems, how are they interacting with different lines of business? How are they interacting with marketing, sales? How are they interacting with product design? ….even this at a fundamental level, there’s major problems in the industry. And how they’re interacting with each other? — https://blog.dominodatalab.com/collaboration-data-science-data-engineering-true-false/

→ Today’s interview is with Rie Nørregaard, a Managing Creative Director of SY Partners, a consultancy based in New York and San Francisco Oct 30, 2018 highlights & Design Today’s interview is with Rie Nørregaard, a Managing Creative Director of SY Partners, a consultancy based in New York and San Francisco. For 20 years, they’ve helped business leaders, teams, and individuals pursue growth and greatness. Rie has recently started a podcast: Designing for Humanity, which aims to explore designing a future that’s made for all of us—and the best in us. They also say that design, at its heart, is an act of service and is the work of solving problems for the benefit of others. — http://customerthink.com/design-is-how-we-treat-each-other-interview-with-rie-norregaard/

Finding the Emic in Systemic Design Projects, systemics, design, ethnography, ethics & presentations

A paper presented at RSD7 in Turin, Italy. I argue that an under-emphasized but crucial variable of success in systemic design is the ▵ →

Leverage Analysis in Systemic Design Projects, systemics, design, systemic design & presentations

Applying graph theory to understand the structure of complex problems ▵ →

The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment’s (2018) systemic theory of change Projects, systemics, design & apps

A systems model I helped visualize for the Global Steering Group on Impact Investment in 2018 ▵ →

→ design can be directly weaponised by the design team itself Sep 1, 2018 highlights & Design design can be directly weaponised by the design team itself. — https://flowingdata.com/2018/08/30/weaponised-design/

→ The corollary to this is to never solve the problem at the wrong level Jul 12, 2017 highlights & Design The corollary to this is to never solve the problem at the wrong level. It’s always a recipe for pain when you, say, have a data issue and you decide you’ll solve it with some clever code. Or perhaps you have a fundamental design problem, but maybe you can just tweak the data… — Mastering Programming | Hacker News

→ Here is one thing I gained from this Analysis. Jul 11, 2017 highlights & Design

Here is one thing I gained from this Analysis. At times we encounter ‘a Code problem’ partly caused by ′ a workflow problem’ and partly caused by ‘a Design problem’ .

We may do a CODE patch fix for time being (ex. production bug), but having it documented as ‘40% Workflow problem, 60% Design problem’ will help to consolidate all these ‘contributing percentages’ to come up with permanent fixes at a Later time.

— Mastering Programming Hacker News

Multiple scales. Jul 9, 2017 tech, Design & Leadership Move between scales freely. Maybe this is a design problem, not a testing problem. Maybe it is a people problem, not a technology ▵ →

→ In a 2016 book, “The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty,” the professor and design theorist Benjamin Bratton sets out to, in his words, propose a “specific model for the design of political geography tuned to this era of planetary-scale computation,” by drawing on the “multilayered structure of software, hardware and network ‘stacks’ that arrange different technologies vertically within a modular, interdependent order May 9, 2017 highlights & Design In a 2016 book, “The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty,” the professor and design theorist Benjamin Bratton sets out to, in his words, propose a “specific model for the design of political geography tuned to this era of planetary-scale computation,” by drawing on the “multilayered structure of software, hardware and network ‘stacks’ that arrange different technologies vertically within a modular, interdependent order.” In other words, Bratton sees the world around us as one big emerging technological stack. In his telling, the six-layer stack we inhabit is complex, fluid and vertigo-inducing: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface and User. It is also, he suggests, extremely powerful, with the potential to undermine and replace our current conceptions of, among other things, the sovereign state — ushering us into a world blown apart and reassembled by software — New Technology Is Built on a ‘Stack.’ Is That the Best Way to Understand Everything Else, Too?

Creative Education Futures Projects, systemics, design, ethnography, ethics & presentations

In 2015, I supported Kinetic Café in developing OCAD University’s latest Vision and Mission statements. As part of that work, I helped scan for ▵ →

→ We can build software to eat the world, or software to feed it Mar 21, 2016 Design & Science & systems & design & highlights We can build software to eat the world, or software to feed it. And if we are going to feed it, it will require a different approach to design, one which optimizes for a different type of growth, and one that draws upon – and rewards – the humility of the designers who participate within it. — Kevin Slavin, Design as Participation. MIT’s Journal of Design and Science.

→ When designers center around the user, where do the needs and desires of the other actors in the system go? Mar 20, 2016 design & systems & highlights

When designers center around the user, where do the needs and desires of the other actors in the system go? The lens of the user obscures the view of the ecosystems it affects.

’[…] The experience for a Sprig customer is super convenient, almost magical; the experience for a chef or courier…? We don’t know. We don’t get to know. We’re just here to press the button.’

For users, this is what it means to be at the center: to be unaware of anything outside it. User-Centric Design means obscuring more than it surfaces.

— Kevin Slavin, Design as Participation. From the shiny new MIT Journal of Design and Science.

LABS | InVision Feb 6, 2016 design

→ Luck is the residue of design Jan 28, 2016 design & highlights Luck is the residue of design. — Heard in Predestination (2015), but it appears to be a quote from Branch Rickey. The full context is worth reading: https://motivationalspeaker1.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/luck-is-the-residue-of-design/

→ The view that negative impacts are an inevitable consequence of development has blinded us to the obvious Oct 24, 2015 systems & design & highlights The view that negative impacts are an inevitable consequence of development has blinded us to the obvious. We could design development to increase the size, health and resilience of natural systems, while improving human health and life quality. — Janis Birkeland, “Positive Development: From Vicious Circles to Virtuous Cycles through Built Environment Design”. As quoted by James Greyson.

→ [T]he anthropologist characteristically approaches such broader interpretations and more abstract analyses from the direction of exceedingly extended acquaintances with extremely small matters Oct 19, 2015 design & highlights [T]he anthropologist characteristically approaches such broader interpretations and more abstract analyses from the direction of exceedingly extended acquaintances with extremely small matters. They confront the same grand realities that others – historians, economists, political scientists, sociologists – confront in more fateful settings: Power, Change, Faith, Oppression, Work, Passion, Authority, Beauty, Violence, Love, Prestige; but they confront them in contexts obscure enough to take the capital letters off them. — Clifford Geertz on the microscopic perspective of ethnography.

→ [I]t is not necessary to know everything in order to understand something Oct 19, 2015 design & highlights [I]t is not necessary to know everything in order to understand something. — Clifford Geertz on the utility of ethnography.

→ Understanding a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity Oct 19, 2015 design & highlights Understanding a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity. … It renders them accessible: setting them in the frame of their own banalities, it dissolves their opacity. — Clifford Geertz on ethnography and thick description.

→ Our reaction to these atrocities can cloud our judgment, biasing us in favor of war Oct 5, 2015 design & highlights Our reaction to these atrocities can cloud our judgment, biasing us in favor of war. The benefits of war—including avenging those who have suffered—are made vivid, but the costs of war remain abstract and statistical. We see this same bias reflected in our criminal-justice system. The outrage that comes from empathy drives some of our most powerful punitive desires. — http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/09/the-violence-of-empathy/407155/

How Empathy Makes People More Violent - The Atlantic Oct 4, 2015 design & science

Purpose’s gender-neutral bathroom signs Sep 29, 2015 design

→ When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe Sep 26, 2015 systems & design & highlights When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. — John Muir as quoted by Ecoliteracy.

→ Designers … seek to choose rather than predict the future Sep 25, 2015 systems & design & futures & highlights Designers … seek to choose rather than predict the future. — Jamshid Gharajedaghi, Systems Thinking.

→ [S]chools are designed based on the average Aug 22, 2015 education & design & systems & highlights [S]chools are designed based on the average. But the problem is that no student is average on every dimension, “Every student has a jagged learning profile.” [Todd] Rose said, “We blame kids, teachers, and parents, but it’s just bad design.” — Nobody is average, every student deserves personalized learning.

The Ten Most Common Mistakes In Setting Up A Social Lab - Social Labs Aug 16, 2015 design & social The Ten Most Common Mistakes In Setting Up A Social Lab - Social Labs ▵ →

Design In Tech Report 2015 Aug 14, 2015 design & tech

Design Kit Jul 30, 2015 social, innovation & design

Social Innovation Lab Guide - The Rockefeller Foundation Jul 30, 2015 social, innovation, systems & design

→ Mike Monteiro, “Why you need design”. Jul 25, 2015 design & highlights I once worked with a designer who bought frames with photos of strangers at thrift stores. She stashed the photos in a box under her desk. When she started a project, she flipped through them until she found people she felt matched the users we were designing for. She kept those frames on her desk for the project's duration to remind her that she wasn't designing for herself. She was designing for them. —

Mike Monteiro, “Why you need design”. (https://medium.com/@monteiro/why-you-need-design-77dce41e0e0c)

A little weird and very clever.

→ Mike Monteiro, “Why you need design”. Jul 25, 2015 design & highlights Designers aren't artists. Design isn't self-expression. —

Mike Monteiro, “Why you need design”. (Again: https://medium.com/@monteiro/why-you-need-design-77dce41e0e0c)

I’m really interested in this “dichotomy”. I like Mike’s emphasis on the non-art of design: to him, it is a practice.

“A good designer behaves like a skilled professional with analytical, persuasive, creative, and social skills. You can count on them to solve problems, present good work in a timely manner, be accountable, and argue from an informed point of view.” - Mike Monteiro

And I agree with him wholeheartedly. Yet, working with artists and contemporary art at Eastern Edge over the last few weeks has led me to a great appreciation of contemporary art, and the capacity of art to do… well… something.

I guess that’s sometimes the point: art doesn’t necessarily achieve an intentional goal. Design does. Or rather, it should.

[Contemporary] Art can be designed.

However, art can be designed. But can design be contemporary art? What would that mean?

Off-the-cuff, it would mean that the design pushes contemporary boundaries. It would make you think about something you hadn’t thought you’d think about. Or, it would make you feel something you hadn’t felt before. Or that you feel a lot.

However, design still can’t be self-expression. By definition, it is intentionally the expression of something else—the expression of a solution to a problem, perhaps. Design can be art, but it shouldn’t necessarily try to be.

(Aside: I’m reminded of instantiation validity. A design is a version of a solution to a problem, but if it fails, we should remember that a design is distinct from the theoretical solution, and that the design can fail separate from the solution itself. This is convoluted, but it means we can try the same solution with a different design.)

→ Calling someone a creative doesn’t elevate Jul 25, 2015 design & highlights Calling someone a creative doesn’t elevate. It marginalizes. The label excludes designers from conversations about strategy, product definition, business goals, and metrics. It sets them apart from other employees as people who aren’t bound by the same expectations and requirements. It diminishes their opportunity to be seen as people capable of analytical, rigorous thought. — Mike Monteiro, “Why you need design”. (https://medium.com/@monteiro/why-you-need-design-77dce41e0e0c)

How the world sees itself Jul 23, 2015 Articles & design

This is absurd. With everything that’s happening in the world (see the list with a bluish background from Wikipedia), why are half of Facebook’s ▵ →

Your Calendar Needs an Upgrade Jul 22, 2015 design

Lab journeys as a design tool Jul 21, 2015 design

Climb Every Mountain Jul 18, 2015 design

Jack of all trades, Master of none? Jul 15, 2015 design

Insourcing: Why organisations are looking to design Jul 13, 2015 design

Microtainer: lab resources (July 2015) - Social Innovation Generation Jul 13, 2015 social, innovation & design

Why Is a Designer Using Medium?!? Jul 12, 2015 design

→ “Generalists change the world; specialists perfect it Jul 6, 2015 design & highlights “Generalists change the world; specialists perfect it.” — @RossFloate for Dear Design Student https://t.co/5YjlSL2sE1 — I like this sentiment. Looking forward to reading the article.

→ http://t. Jul 4, 2015 Social & Innovation & Design & highlights From @TimDraimin on Twitter: Hot-Off-Press: Frances Westley & San Laban (WISIR) publish Social Innovation Lab Guide #PSILab http://t.co/NM6fQEmRt7 #systemchange #SocInn —

via http://twitter.com/TimDraimin/status/613311560556130305

Excited to read this guide as soon as possible.

The World’s First and Only Completely Honest Résumé of a Graphic Designer. Aug 6, 2014 design

Material Design is Google’s new visual look for Android, Chrome OS, and more Jun 25, 2014 design