Most things are unnecessary. Most products, most consumption, most politics, most writing, most research, most jobs, most beliefs even, just aren’t useful, for some scope of ‘useful’. I’m sure I’m not the first person to point this out, but most of our civilisation seems to […]
All posts filed under “Blog”
Staggering insight
I’ve mentioned a few times, perhaps more often in presentations than on the blog, the fact that guidelines for the design of pedestrian crossings in the UK [PDF] recommend that where a crossing is staggered, pedestrians should be routed so that they have to face […]
The semiotics of signs vs fences
Is the impact of the sign’s message increased or decreased by pairing it with a fence? What about when the fence is flattened? What about when no-one seems to have found it important to fix? Why?
London Design Festival: Greengaged
The London Design Festival always throws up some interesting events, especially involving clever people trying new things in design and sharing their experiences and expertise. This year, the Design Council are running Greengaged, a “sustainability hub… developed and organised by [re]design, thomas.matthews and Kingston University […]
Clearing the tabs
Doors of Perception weblog: How dematerialisation adds value Good idea. It also shows how clever design techniques so often _don't_ depend on having an 'academic' descriptor to be inspired in the first place. 'How dematerialisation adds value' is a great way of phrasing it, but […]
Placebo buttons, false affordances and habit-forming
This is a great graph from GraphJam, by ‘Bloobeard’. It raises the question, of course, whether the ‘door close’ buttons on lifts/elevators really do actually do anything, or are simply there to ‘manage expectations‘ or act as a placebo. The Straight Dope has quite a […]
How to enjoy taking notes and revising things
It occurs to me that it’s now October, and in Britain that really means the summer’s over (though as I write this it’s pleasantly sunny and crisp outside). And despite attending a lot of very interesting talks and events over the past few months, I’ve […]
Freudian slip in BBC iTunes story
From this BBC story, as of 6.43 pm. P.S. I love the way it’s claimed “everyone will benefit” from the royalty rise. As a consumer, I can’t wait to be paying more! Perhaps a price increase will help limit the consumption of this precious rivalrous […]
Swoopo: Irrational escalation of commitment
Swoopo, a new kind of “entertainment shopping” auction site, takes Martin Shubik’s classic Dollar Auction game to a whole new, automated, mass participation level. It’s an example of the escalation of commitment, or a sunk cost fallacy, where we increase our commitment (in this case […]
Design and Behaviour : A new discussion list
I’m pleased to announce the launch of Design and Behaviour, a new discussion list / Google group: The design of products, services and environments can be used to influence behaviour, and there’s a growing appreciation of the possibilities for social benefit, especially in environmentally sensitive […]
Clearing the tabs
Ballardian » ‘Content in their little prisons’: J.G. Ballard on ‘The Towers’ "For example, in cities, the degree of criminality is affected by liberty of movement; it’s higher in culs-de-sac. And high-rises are culs-de-sac: two thousand people jammed together in the air…" (tags: Ballardian Ballard […]
Clearing the tabs
The Five Stages of Collapse | Dmitry Orlov "And so it is with a great many things. We can wait until the lifestyle that is killing the planet and is making us crazy and sick is no longer physically possible, or we can opt out […]