Open Transclude for Networked Writing An Essay by Toby Shorin subpixel.space Not an accumulation of factsMore that can be doneOpen Transclude Designing Synced Blocks informationwritinghypermedia
Quotebacks A Tool by Tom Critchlow & Toby Shorin quotebacks.net Quotebacks brings structured discourse to blogs and personal websites. Quotebacks makes it easy to reference content and create dialogue with other sites by turning snippets of text into elegant, self-contained blockquote components. hypermediawwwblogging
Building for the Culture An Article by Toby Shorin subpixel.space Cultural relevanceWhy don't we have any users?
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