December 2010
28 posts
Design for networked cities and citizens →
Adam Greenfield launches Urbanscale:
As we see it, though, there are critical gaps in the disciplines that cities and citizens might naturally call upon to help them grasp this opportunity. As a profession, interaction design has tended to have problems thinking beyond the screen; it lacks any account of large-scale physical, spatial or social environments. Meanwhile, the fields that...
Manage yourself →
Seth Godin on being your own boss:
If you had a manager that talked to you the way you talked to you, you’d quit. If you had a boss that wasted as much as your time as you do, they’d fire her. If an organization developed its employees as poorly as you are developing yourself, it would soon go under.
And:We are surprised when someone self-directed arrives on the scene. Someone who...
Lab for apps →
Russ Maschmeyer, MFA Interaction Design candidate, founded “AppLab” at SVA, an exchange outside the standard curriculum:On any given Thursday night, students gather to exchange knowledge on both design and programming in kind. Improvising the curriculum as they go, a few of the second-year students — most of whom are learning the process themselves — have already tackled topics such as...
The secret of "Doing" →
The Do Lectures blog presents “The Path of a Doer,” a pocket guide to helping you to achieve more, to help you understand the ebb and flow of making something happen:Each of us is given the same number of hours every day, but some people make more things happen in the same time. Why is that? Well, they have learnt an important, and yet mostly untaught, life skill. They have learnt how...
Visualization report →
The graduate interaction design curriculum is organized into four themes — Behavior, Business, Experience, and Systems — and each semester students take courses within each. The lines are blurry (e.g., is a course on “Prototyping User Experiences” part of Behavior or Experience?), yet it’s been a useful way to frame conversations.
In the Systems theme is “Information...
The quotation litmus test →
Ben Casnocha on the “I’m Proud of You” Litmus Test:
How many people in your life can say, “I’m proud of you,” and you take it fully and without any sort of resentment or dismissal? Whoever those people are, they are probably your mentors. …. Someone who credibly says “I’m proud of you” usually has two characteristics. First, he is...
On reading →
We asked interaction design students this season to name which book influenced their pursuit in interaction design. As a result, a holiday book list that instigated 32 paths:
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak; recommended by Stephanie Aaron
Moral Animal, Robert Wright; recommended by Clint Beharry
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Mad-Made Landscape, James...
Calling all users →
After a year of the new graduate program, I moved the Research Methods course from second to first semester, after it was clear from observations and student feedback that knowledge of the methods was critical right from the outset (not after a bit of prototyping, which had been my intention). Alex Wright took on Research Methods, leading students to present prototypes to the Museum of Modern...
Teaching New York City high schoolers →
Second-year students Katie Koch and Carmen Dukes co-founded Project: Interaction, a 10-week after school program that teaches high schoolers to use design to change their communities:
They will learn valuable skills in storytelling, communication, creative thinking and problem solving while being exposed to interaction design as a potential career opportunity. Using New York City as a catalyst...
Glass houses →
Philip Johnson and David Whitney invited great minds to their home to discuss topics from architecture to the art world. A few years ago, the Philip Johnson Glass House reopened, continuing the tradition. And in 2009-2010, The Glass House approached us, MFA Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts, to extend these until-then-physical Conversations to a broader platform:
The Philip Johnson...
Talking out of class
I don’t talk much here about my day job as chair of the MFA Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts. Mostly this is a place that runs alongside of that, peripheral material that keeps me going in the work I do every day.
As the year wraps up, I’m looking at what I’m talking about most. It’s not pointing to what others have written, it’s not pointing...
Knowledge by example →
The Economist’s “Prospero” interviews Oliver Sacks about face-blindness (a condition he is affected by) and writing about experience:
You write about conditions that are familiar but also very foreign, which many people have not experienced. Can one ever really know the experience of someone else through description?
I sort of sit in the middle here. I think I quite like...
Threat of life →
The 1970s photographs of Anthony Hernandez capture stories largely ignored otherwise, people who ride buses in an auto-dominated culture:
“To me it’s not unpleasant or unbeautiful, it’s just life—which has to be threatening sometimes if it is going to be interesting.” —Anthony Hernandez
There is a quiet dignity in the simplicity of his black and white depictions, a...
The craft of service →
Michael Ruhlman on the importance of food versus service:I expect good food in New York, really good food. But when it misses the mark, I don’t really care! I’m not a critic. It happens. I’m on the cook’s side. …. On the other hand, if service is unprofessional or simply inexperienced, it can change … everything.
And so:
[S]ervice is more important than the food. Thousands of restaurants...
Off the record →
Chuck Klosterman interviews Jonathan Franzen on an Acela between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.:
… I allow him to give his answer off the record. During the three minutes my recorder is off, he provides one of the most straightforward, irrefutable, and downright depressing answers I’ve ever experienced in an interview. His posture relaxes. His language simplifies. Nothing is...
A long time ago, today was the future →
Laura Brunow Miner celebrates Pictory’s first anniversary with secrets of inspiring women:
Best thing I ever learned from Scrabble: Apparently it’s considered bad manners to complain about your tiles at the National Scrabble Tournament, because everyone’s luck balances out in the long run.
Maybe that’s not always true. But the fact is, we don’t ever really know the hand someone else is...
A primer for the punctuation of heart disease →
Jonathan Safran Foer:
~ Placed at the end of a sentence, the “pedal point” signifies a thought that dissolves into a suggestive silence. The pedal point is distinguished from the ellipsis and the dash in that the thought it follows is neither incomplete nor interrupted but an outstretched hand. My younger brother uses these a lot with me, probably because he, of all the members of my family, is...
Optimized for the tribe →
Seth Godin announces The Domino Project:
We are reinventing what it means to be a publisher, and along the way, spreading ideas that we’re proud to spread.
And:
Our goal is to offer ideas that people need and want to spread, to enjoy and to hold and to own, and to change conversations.
So:
The Domino Project is named for the domino effect — ideas can quickly spread, moving through a...
The science of cities, or superlinear scaling →
Think New York is an exceptional city? Think again say some:
The Big Apple is just about average for a city of its size, and so are Los Angeles and Houston. But San Francisco is exceptional? Its inhabitants are wealthier, more productive, more innovative, and subject to fewer crimes than you would expect, given its size.
Turns out:
[M]any of the cities we typically think of as great ones...
On the joy of jumping →
In David Eagleman’s Sum, 40 tales about afterlife, he reshuffles and organizes all life’s experiences into a new order, grouping all like-moments together:You spend two months driving the street in front of your house, seven months having sex. You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet.
You take...
“[R]evel in your mystification and read it as a sign of a healthy future....”
– Brian Eno He continues, “The revolutions of the future will appear in forms we don’t even recognise — in a language we can’t read. We will be looking out for twists on the old themes but not noticing that there are whole new conversations taking place. Just imagine if all the things about...
Adjacent possibilities →
Matt Mullenweg on The Big Web Show:
The most dangerous thing when you’re successful is to become too entrenched in the things you believe.
More context:
I say this all the time [in response to], “Oh, we tried that five years ago, it didn’t work.” “Well, let’s try it again.” …. You just have to constantly come at things with new eyes. You...
Locating over your head →
Alexander Isley on going to work for Tibor Kalman:
It’s really important to be in over your head, to put yourself in a position where you’re in over your head — whether you’re a designer or just a human being. To be challenged. Because you know what? After a couple of weeks of being completely terrified, you’re on top of it, and you can do it. (8:00)
Love the subtle...
A semi-semionaut →
Josh Glenn reviews the BBC’s Sherlock, but really gives some insight into his thoughts on deduction, induction, and abduction:
Deduction, according to Peirce, proceeds from rule/guess (e.g., “All the beans from this bag are white”) to case (“These beans are from this bag”) to result/observation (“These beans are white”), whereas induction proceeds rather more tediously — from case to result...
Mathematically correct →
Vi Hart puts math in order by ignoring her teacher and doodling. From Cory Doctorow:
Vi Hart’s “Mathematical Doodling” is a series of hilarious and informative narrated videos explaining doodle-games that you can play to explain mathematical concepts in a way that’s much more intuitive than the traditional math-class methodologies. [Here] is binary trees, but be sure and...
The 30 steps to mastery →
Ben Casnocha extends a two-step process for “How to Draw an Owl” with a few more to proclaim how to achieve mastery:
See also: How to Write a Book in Three Easy Steps
1. Start
2. Keep going.
3. You think you’re starting to get the hang of it.
4. You see someone else’s work and feel undeniable misery.
5. Keep going.
6. Keep going.
7. You feel like maybe,...