This weekend while wandering down the aisles of our local Super Target, we found a dinner table and a side board we though would go great in our living/dining room. After checking out, a couple of teenage boys wheeled the still flat-packed pieces to our awaiting PT Cruiser. Now, after flattening the inside of the […]
Category: Designing for Wear
Intentional or Not All Products Are Building Blocks
Listening to Dave Slusher’s interview with Phil Torrone of Make Zine reminded me that no product, software, or website is an end itself. All these things are tools. Tools that build off one another. Tools that need to be integrated to be useful.
Fix the Employee Cafeteria and You’ll Fix the Customer Relationship
Rob over at Business Pundit posts on How Broken Windows Can Kill a Business. As always, insightful. I’m a big fan of fixing the small things. Not only does it make a change easier to implement, all big things are made of small things, so the big things start to take care of themselves. The […]
Customers are Cheaper than Ad Agencies
When people are sharing more and more with each other and strangers, when audiences are splintering, when the relationship between a company and it’s customers is far more measurable, spending millions of dollars on “brand awareness” would seem hilarious – if it wasn’t sad. In other words: “You don’t want the kind of high-production stories […]
Designing for Beausage?
One of the things that continues to inspire and intrigue me is how the marks of previous uses communicate how to use something to a new audience. In the non-electronic, non-disposable world of say, a rural Midwestern farm in the 1980s; the wear on the barn door shows you how to open it, the path […]
A Systems Thinking Overview
As an introduction to the perspective Working Pathway’s brings to your project, I present this excellent overview of systems thinking from the late Donella Meadows: Dancing with Systems. Here are some highlights to get you started: “Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves.” “Aid and encourage the forces and structures […]
Do As Little As Possible
How little can I do to successfully reach this goal? Continually asking youreself that questions is the best ways to minimize rework, reach goals quickly, guarantee sustainable solutions, and design for wear. This approach creates a functional prototype quickly, keeps stress levels down, and keeps product teams lean. Johanna Rothman has an excellent post highlighting […]
Measure Once – Cut 5 or 6 Times
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we spent the weekend redoing our bathroom & entryway. The biggest a-ha I can offer you: Iterate For a Snug Fit. For each piece of sub-flooring, each tile, and the new mopboard – we would: Make the measurement Cut off a hair little less than we measured Massage […]
Legalizing Feng Shui
Last month Assemblyman Leland Yee introduced a bill in the California legislature to put Feng Shui principles on the books. State officials were speechless “We know earthquakes knock down buildings, we know fire burns down buildings. We don’t know what feng shui does to buildings.” As Assemblyman Yee responded, “A lot of the principles of […]