To worship at the shrine of mathematics The new [physics-based] viewpoint is so potent that it has perhaps, caused too many metallurgists to forsake their partially intuitive knowledge of the nature of materials to worship at the shrine of mathematics, a trend reinforced by the curious human tendency to laud the more abstract. Matter versus Materials: A Historical View mathabstraction
Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction An Essay by Bret Victor worrydream.com The most powerful way to gain insight into a system is by moving between levels of abstraction. Many designers do this instinctively. But it's easy to get stuck on the ground, experiencing concrete systems with no higher-level view. It's also easy to get stuck in the clouds, working entirely with abstract equations or aggregate statistics. This interactive essay presents the ladder of abstraction, a technique for thinking explicitly about these levels, so a designer can move among them consciously and confidently. From a roving viewpoint abstractionunderstandinginteraction
The Ladder of Abstraction An Essay by Bret Victor worrydream.com Collaborative Information Architecture at Scale informationthinkingcommunicationabstraction
AI-driven "Design"? An Article by Jorge Arango jarango.com Like a programming language interpreter, GPT-3 translates the designer’s intent from a language they’re already familiar with (English) to one they need to learn (Figma’s information architecture, as manifested in its UI.) This can be easier for a new/busy designer, much like Python is easier and faster to work with than assembly language. But that’s not “designing” — at least not any more than compiling Python code is “programming.” In both cases, all the system does is translate human intent into a lower level of abstraction. Sure, the process saves time — but the key is getting the intent part right. I’ll be convinced the system is “designing” when it can produce a meaningful output to a directive like “change the product page’s layout to increase conversions.” aidesignintentabstraction
Stands up and hums The ruin [at Marfa] itself, in fact, set the terms for the kinds of solutions Irwin would propose, since its absent roof and floor, and its shockingly wide-open sequences of windows, which overlap and align with one another from different points of view on the site, already presented a rich, thoroughly keyed-up set of perceptual events before Irwin ever considered the project. It was already one of those sites that, in Irwin's words, "stands up and hums" thanks to the rich quality of their perceptual phenomena. Matthew Simms, Robert Irwin: A Conditional Art Economy of line