Tag: Design

  • Directionally Correct Design

    The value of design often butts heads with the rigor of quantitative proof. But as the design advances into more complex territory, proof becomes even more challenging. While at the Institute for the Future HealthCare 2020 open space meeting on Science and Technology in Health, Chris McCarthy, Director, Innovation Learning Network at Kaiser Permanente, talked…

  • Design Thinking Is the New Design

    In his Ask the Innovation Guru video series (yes, there is such a thing, and yes, I watched some of it), Bruce Nussbaum tackles the question Why Is Design Thinking Relevant. He parses views on design thinking into two camps: those that think it’s too abstract and has little to do with doing; and those…

  • Are important issues missing out on design?

    photo from ISIS Last month, I presented at the Sex Tech, a conference that, to my surprise, had nothing to do with making sex better through technology. Instead, the conference brought together people involved in adolescent sexual health, sex education, HIV prevention, STD prevention, and sexual literacy. I was there with Carrie Chan to talk…

  • mTID Gets Panties in a Twist

    I’m not sure Carnegie Mellon’s master of tangible interaction design is news to me. I sort of recall hearing something about it last spring. But today was the first time I saw a curriculum for the program. Like several of my former peers, I am intrigued by this program. And as a master of interaction…

  • Core Competencies of Design

    Richard Buchanan presented the “Core Competencies of Design” in class this week, offering a slightly different version of the list of why designers are valued. I’m not sure if this is just a further iteration or different due to the shift in focus from designers to design itself. The language is fairly similar, though notably…

  • “Emergence” (book review)

    Steven Johnson’s “Emergence” attempts to connect the lives of ants, brain activity, urban interaction, and software to show how decentralized and bottom-up interactions emerge as an intelligent swarm. I was at first skeptical about the book, as it seemed to take a very scientific view, which I am wary of given my thesis on design…

  • My Blogs of 2007

    Dan Saffer just posted his list of the best interaction design blogs this year. Missing is his own blog and mine (just kidding about mine—but perhaps one day). Given grad school time constraints, I don’t follow many blogs these days. But here are a few I have found either insightful or troubling over the year:…

  • Graphic design is art, says Paul Rand

    I don’t know if this is new, but it was new to me and I just watched it. Paul Rand talks about graphic design, and says that design is art. I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with him, but it’s kind of interesting to hear his perspective and see the array of designs.

  • How Designers Think

    Yes! Yes! Yes! No, this post is not about sex. It’s about Bryan Lawson’s How Designer Think, which is an orgasm of design process and thinking. On nearly every page I found an idea I could relate to as a designer and often thought the book should be required reading for those entering design. If…