I’m on a team with Ariel Duncan and Paul Roberts, and for our graduate “thesis” project, we chose to focus on algorithms and their impact on culture. We landed on algorithms – and the technologies that use them – because of the increasing roles that they play in shaping daily human life. With algorithms playing a distinct role in shaping the 2016 election, we felt that it was timely to understand their often opaque internal mechanisms and hidden […]
“A central thesis is that all products are asking things of their customers: to do things in a certain way, to think of themselves in a certain way — and usually that means changing what one does or how one does it; it often means changing how one thinks of oneself.” We often forget that we ask a lot from people who use our products. Whatever we design is asking users to do things our way. And it’s […]
Side note: I have always been a firm believer in writing about things I care about and that might add a lot of value to whomever reading. But Hunter Walk’s post reminded me that I can let go of the pressure to be right, have everything figured out, or write something definitive to “build an audience.” (Though that would be nice.) Just share what you know. It might attract someone who you can learn from. TL;DR: Stand up […]
Designing with Words 