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Effective system design requires insights drawn from serious contexts of use

notes.andymatuschak.org · 654 words · saved by 1 readers

Scrappy prototypes are great: they allow scrappy iteration and quick evaluation. But many critical insights will only emerge in the context of a serious creative problem that’s not about the system itself. This is a key claim of Insight through making. That sounds like standard practice: of course systems have to be evaluated! But most system designers don’t take “serious” seriously: Tool-makers usually lack connection to a serious context of use. Observing how your theories (represented in systems) interact with reality can yield insights which help improve your theories. The character of those insights will depend on the context in which the system was used. If the system isn’t used seriously, the insights will be more like those which a pure theorist could have seen. Those were possible without actually building a system. Pixar’s a good example of an organization which creates serious contexts of use, which in turn drive system design: Pixar’s movies and technology development act a

Effective system design requires insights drawn from serious contexts of use Effective system design requires insights drawn from serious contexts of use Scrappy prototypes are great: they allow scrappy iteration and quick evaluation. But many critical insights will only emerge in the context of a serious creative problem that’s not about the system itself. This is a key claim of Insight through making . That sounds like standard practice: of course systems have to be evaluated! But most system designers don’t take “serious” seriously: Tool-makers usually lack connection to a serious context o

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