When Customer Journeys Don’t Work: Arcs, Loops, & Terrain An Article by Stephen P. Anderson stephenanderson.medium.com Thinking [in terms of loops and arcs] allows us to let go of a specific journey or sequence, and imagine dozens of scenarios and possible sequences in which these skills can be learned. This doesn’t mean there aren’t more fundamental skills that other skills build upon, but we can let go the tyranny of how, precisely, a person will move through a system. We’re free to zoom in and obsess on these loops, which does two things for us: Approach the design of a system as the design of these as small but significant moments of learning. Consider the many ways these loops might be sequenced, with the exact order being less important. uxsystemsfeedbackgames
Forces of conflict A pattern which prevents us from resolving our conflicting forces leaves us almost perpetually in a state of tension. For, if we live in a world where work is separated from family life, or where courtyards turn us away, or where windows are merely holes in the wall, we experience the stress of these inner and conflicting forces constantly. We can never come to rest. We are living then, in a world so made, so patterned, that we cannot, by any stratagem, defeat the tension, solve the problem, or resolve the conflict. In this kind of world the conflicts do not go away. They stay within us, nagging, tense…The build-up of stress, however minor, stays within us. We live in a state of heightened alertness, higher stress, more adrenaline, all the time. Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building Fucking up the world