Embracing Asymmetrical Design An Article by Ben Nadel www.bennadel.com Humans love symmetry. We find symmetry to be very attractive. Our brains may even be hard-wired through evolution to process symmetrical data more efficiently. So, it's no surprise that, as designers, we try to build symmetry into our product interfaces and layouts. It makes them feel very pleasant to look at. Unfortunately, data is not symmetrical…Once you release a product into "the real world", and users start to enter "real world data" into it, you immediately see that asymmetrical data, shoe-horned into a symmetrical design, can start to look terrible. To fix this, we need to lean into an asymmetric reality. We need to embrace the fact that data is asymmetric and we need to design user interfaces that can expand and contract to work with the asymmetry, not against it. To borrow from Bruce Lee, we need to build user interfaces that act more like water: “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” — Bruce Lee The pernicious issue with pangramsChanging Our Development Mindset datainterfaces
The Spoken and the Unspoken An Essay from Field Notes on Science and Nature by Karen L. Kramer What is unspokenResearch questionsQuantitative data collectionAnthropological rapportScan samples, focal follows+4 More The observer effect
What is unspoken Ethnographic studies are distinct from ethological research in other species because we can speak with our subjects and ask them questions. This has tremendous value, but much of what humans do is not spoken, and we also observe, count, and measure. researchux
Research questions From my records, research questions emerged that I never expected when I was making them. notetakingquestions
Quantitative data collection Quantitative data collection involves systematic and repetitive observations on the same set of variables.
Anthropological rapport Accurately capturing how people spend their time is contingent not only on systematic data collection, but also on participants moving in a relaxed and normal manner through their daily activities. Just as primatologists habituate their subjects to their presence, anthropologists first must develop rapport and trust with the communities in which they live. ux
Scan samples, focal follows Scan samples and focal follows are two commonly used behavioral observation methods. During a scan sample, randomly selected individuals are located at specified time intervals, usually every ten to fifteen minutes, and the observer instantaneously records what the participant is doing. Focal follows complement scan samples by documenting the continuous sequence of an individual's activities. During a focal follow, each subject is observed over a period of several hours with each change in activity recorded with a start and stop time.
Multitasking In most traditional societies children help care for their younger siblings. However, it is often the case that a child minding his younger sibling does so out of the corner of his eye while playing with other children. Is this play or child care?
A nested classificatory hierarchy I organized behavioral codes to contain several levels of information. As in this example, if a child is outside playing with friends while minding her two-year-old sister, the activity was coded as 675: the 600 signifies noneconomic activity, the 70 that it is playing, and the 5 that it is playing while in charge of a child. All activities were coded in this way. A nested classificatory hierarchy preserves both detail for future research and flexibility to lump or disaggregate activities for analyses. This method of nesting information carries over into many kinds of coding and classificatory schemes. research
A child's question Because they live so successfully in their world, we expect our subjects to readily explain the strategies that underlie the behaviors we observe. This can be trying, because from their point of view we are asking the obvious, a child’s question.
The research agenda Important connections are often made by accident, outside the bounds of our research agenda. The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge creativity