Reading the landscape As we walk about a site and talk to people, we can note our observations. At this stage, we try to store the information we gain in some accurate way, carry a notebook, or a camera and tape-recorder, and make small sketches. The notes we end up with can later be used to devise design strategies. We do not just see and hear, smell and taste, but we sense heat and cold, pressure, stress from efforts of hill-climbing or prickly plants, and find compatible or incompatible sites in the landscape. We note good views, outlooks, soil colours and textures. In face, we use (consciously) all our many senses and become aware of our bodies and responses. Beyond this, we can sit for a time and notice patterns and processes: how some trees prefer to grow in rocks, some in valleys, others in grasslands or clumps. We see how water flows on the site, where fires have left scars, winds have bent branches or deformed the shape of trees, how the sun and shadows move, and where we find signs of animals resting, moving, or feeding. The site is full of information on every natural subject, and we must learn to read it well. Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth ethnography
The observer effect In biology, when researchers want to observe animals in their natural habitat, it is paramount that they find a way to do so without disturbing those animals. Otherwise, the behavior they see is unlikely to be natural, because most animals (including humans) change their behavior when they are being observed. Farnam Street fs.blog The Spoken and the Unspoken uxethnography
Two kinds of usability An Article by Ryan Singer world.hey.com I divide usability problems into two kinds: Perceptual: "They couldn't figure out what to do next", "they couldn't find the feature", "they didn't know they could click that button..." etc. Domain-specific: "We need a way to jump back here because in their workflow this happens..." In general, usability testing only catches type 1 perceptual problems. Because in those tests you take people out of the real world and assign them tasks. Usability testing doesn't catch domain-specific problems because they only come up in real life use. uxethnography
How Websites Die An Article by Wesley Aptekar-Cassels notebook.wesleyac.com I recently started compiling a list of defunct blogging platforms. It’s been interesting to see how websites die — from domain parking pages to timeouts to blank pages to outdated TLS cipher errors, there are a multitude of different ways. It leaves no sign of its past self behindThis obsession with permanence
It leaves no sign of its past self behind When buildings are torn down and rebuilt, the ghost of the old building is often visible in the new one — strangely angled walls and rooms, which make sense only in the context of the space as a living organism. On the web, there are no such restrictions: when a website dies, it leaves no sign of its past self behind. deathwwwarchitecturebuilding
This obsession with permanence I think a lot about the lifecycle of websites. I’m frustrated by so much of the short-term thinking I see in the world today, and the way we think about websites is a part of that: it’s “normal” for them to just go up in smoke as soon as their authors stop paying attention. People switch platforms and providers and break links without a second thought. It pains me to see people build websites with no feeling of obligation to them — when you put something out into the world, it is your responsibility to care for it. At the same time, I wonder if this obsession with permanence is misplaced. care