1. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
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  7. Alexander, Christopher 135
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  10. Ammer, Ralph 6
  11. Anderson, Gretchen 7
  12. anxiety 9
  13. Appleton, Maggie 5
  14. Aptekar-Cassels, Wesley 5
  15. Arango, Jorge 4
  16. architecture 110
  17. art 86
  18. Asimov, Isaac 5
  19. attention 17
  20. Auping, Michael 6
  21. Aurelius, Marcus 14
  22. Bachelard, Gaston 12
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  25. Behrensmeyer, Anna K. 7
  26. Bjarnason, Baldur 8
  27. Blake, William 5
  28. blogging 22
  29. body 11
  30. Boeing, Geoff 7
  31. boredom 9
  32. Botton, Alain de 38
  33. Brand, Stewart 4
  34. Bringhurst, Robert 16
  35. Brooks, Frederick P. 22
  36. Broskoski, Charles 6
  37. brutalism 7
  38. building 16
  39. bureaucracy 12
  40. Burnham, Bo 9
  41. business 15
  42. Byron, Lord 14
  43. Cagan, Marty 8
  44. Calvino, Italo 21
  45. Camus, Albert 13
  46. care 6
  47. Carruth, Shane 15
  48. Cegłowski, Maciej 6
  49. Cervantes, Miguel de 7
  50. chance 11
  51. change 16
  52. Chiang, Ted 4
  53. childhood 6
  54. Chimero, Frank 17
  55. choice 8
  56. cities 51
  57. Clark, Robin 3
  58. Cleary, Thomas 8
  59. Cleary, J.C. 8
  60. code 20
  61. collaboration 18
  62. collections 31
  63. color 23
  64. commonplace 11
  65. communication 31
  66. community 7
  67. complexity 11
  68. connection 24
  69. constraints 25
  70. construction 9
  71. content 9
  72. Corbusier, Le 13
  73. Coyier, Chris 4
  74. craft 66
  75. creativity 59
  76. crime 9
  77. Critchlow, Tom 5
  78. critique 10
  79. Cross, Nigel 12
  80. Cross, Anita Clayburn 10
  81. css 11
  82. culture 13
  83. curiosity 11
  84. cycles 7
  85. Danielewski, Mark Z. 4
  86. darkness 28
  87. Darwin, Will 10
  88. data 8
  89. death 38
  90. Debord, Guy 6
  91. decisions 10
  92. design 131
  93. details 31
  94. Dickinson, Emily 9
  95. Dieste, Eladio 4
  96. discovery 9
  97. doors 7
  98. Dorn, Brandon 11
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  100. Drucker, Peter F. 15
  101. Duany, Andres 18
  102. Eatock, Daniel 4
  103. economics 13
  104. efficiency 7
  105. Eisenman, Peter 8
  106. Eliot, T.S. 14
  107. emotion 8
  108. ending 14
  109. engineering 11
  110. Eno, Brian 4
  111. ethics 14
  112. euphony 38
  113. Evans, Benedict 4
  114. evolution 9
  115. experience 14
  116. farming 8
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  118. features 25
  119. feedback 6
  120. flaws 10
  121. Flexner, Abraham 8
  122. food 16
  123. form 19
  124. Fowler, Martin 4
  125. Franklin, Ursula M. 30
  126. friendship 6
  127. fun 7
  128. function 31
  129. games 13
  130. gardens 26
  131. Garfield, Emily 4
  132. Garfunkel, Art 6
  133. geography 8
  134. geometry 18
  135. goals 9
  136. Gombrich, E. H. 4
  137. goodness 12
  138. Graham, Paul 37
  139. graphics 13
  140. Greene, Erick 6
  141. Hamming, Richard 45
  142. happiness 17
  143. Harford, Tim 4
  144. Harper, Thomas J. 15
  145. Hayes, Brian 28
  146. heat 7
  147. Heinrich, Bernd 7
  148. Herbert, Frank 4
  149. Heschong, Lisa 27
  150. Hesse, Herman 6
  151. history 13
  152. Hoffman, Yoel 10
  153. Hofstadter, Douglas 6
  154. home 15
  155. Hoy, Amy 4
  156. Hoyt, Ben 5
  157. html 11
  158. Hudlow, Gandalf 4
  159. humanity 16
  160. humor 6
  161. Huxley, Aldous 7
  162. hypermedia 22
  163. i 18
  164. ideas 21
  165. identity 33
  166. images 10
  167. industry 9
  168. information 42
  169. infrastructure 17
  170. innovation 15
  171. interaction 10
  172. interest 10
  173. interfaces 37
  174. intuition 8
  175. invention 10
  176. Irwin, Robert 65
  177. Isaacson, Walter 28
  178. Ishikawa, Sara 33
  179. iteration 13
  180. Ive, Jonathan 6
  181. Jackson, Steven J. 14
  182. Jacobs, Jane 54
  183. Jacobs, Alan 5
  184. Jobs, Steve 20
  185. Jones, Nick 5
  186. Kahn, Louis 4
  187. Kakuzō, Okakura 23
  188. Kaufman, Kenn 4
  189. Keith, Jeremy 6
  190. Keller, Jenny 10
  191. Keqin, Yuanwu 8
  192. Ketheswaran, Pirijan 6
  193. Kingdon, Jonathan 5
  194. Kitching, Roger 7
  195. Klein, Laura 4
  196. Kleon, Austin 13
  197. Klinkenborg, Verlyn 24
  198. Klyn, Dan 20
  199. knowledge 29
  200. Kohlstedt, Kurt 12
  201. Kramer, Karen L. 10
  202. Krishna, Golden 10
  203. Kuma, Kengo 18
  204. language 20
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  207. light 31
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  209. love 26
  210. Lovell, Sophie 16
  211. Lupton, Ellen 11
  212. Luu, Dan 8
  213. Lynch, Kevin 12
  214. MacIver, David R. 8
  215. MacWright, Tom 5
  216. Magnus, Margaret 12
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  219. Manaugh, Geoff 27
  220. Markson, David 16
  221. Mars, Roman 13
  222. material 39
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  224. McCarter, Robert 21
  225. meaning 33
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  227. melancholy 52
  228. memory 29
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  230. metrics 19
  231. microsites 49
  232. Miller, J. Abbott 10
  233. Mills, C. Wright 9
  234. minimalism 10
  235. Miyazaki, Hayao 30
  236. Mod, Craig 15
  237. modularity 6
  238. Mollison, Bill 31
  239. morality 8
  240. Murakami, Haruki 21
  241. music 16
  242. Müller, Boris 7
  243. Naka, Toshiharu 8
  244. names 11
  245. Naskrecki, Piotr 5
  246. nature 51
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  248. Neustadter, Scott 3
  249. Noessel, Christopher 7
  250. notetaking 35
  251. novelty 11
  252. objects 16
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  255. Orwell, George 7
  256. Ott, Matthias 4
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  259. Palmer, John 8
  260. patterns 11
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  279. problems 31
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  286. Pye, David 42
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  296. Rendle, Robin 12
  297. repair 28
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  299. Reveal, James L. 4
  300. Richards, Melanie 3
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  320. Simms, Matthew 19
  321. Simon, Paul 6
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  324. skill 17
  325. Sloan, Robin 5
  326. Smith, Cyril Stanley 29
  327. Smith, Justin E. H. 6
  328. Smith, Rach 4
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  333. Somers, James 8
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  337. Speck, Jeff 18
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  342. Ström, Matthew 13
  343. style 30
  344. Sun, Chuánqí 15
  345. symbols 12
  346. systems 18
  347. Sōetsu, Yanagi 34
  348. Sōseki, Natsume 8
  349. Tanaka, Tomoyuki 9
  350. Tanizaki, Jun'ichirō 15
  351. taste 10
  352. Taylor, Dorian 16
  353. teaching 21
  354. teamwork 17
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  358. Thoreau, Henry David 8
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  360. Tolkien, J.R.R. 6
  361. tools 32
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  365. truth 15
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Systems

Close
  • Into the system of flight

    It seems this transformation, from physical object to vector of data, is a general and oft-repeated process in the history of technology, where new inventions begin in an early experimental phase in which they are treated and behave as singular individual things, but then evolve into vectors in a diffuse and regimented system as the technology advances and becomes standardized.

    In the early history of aviation, airplanes were just airplanes, and each time a plane landed or crashed was a singular event. Today, I am told by airline-industry insiders, if you are a billionaire interested in starting your own airline, it is far easier to procure leases for actual physical airplanes, than it is to obtain approval for a new flight route. Making the individual thing fly is not a problem; inserting it into the system of flight, getting its data relayed to the ATC towers and to flightaware.com, is.

    Justin E. H. Smith, It's All Over
    1. ​​The navigation is our property​​
    • flight
    • systems
    • technology
  • A new gestalt

    The innovator has a systems mind, one that sees things in terms of how they relate to each other in producing a result, a new gestalt that to some degree changes the world.

    Michael Maccoby, Winning by Design: The Methods of Gordon Murray
    • innovation
    • systems
  • Why aim small?

    Why aim small in this era of fast computers with plenty of RAM? A number of reasons, but the ones that are most important to me are:

    • Fewer moving parts. It’s easier to create more robust systems and to fix things when they do go wrong.
    • Small software is faster. Fewer bits to download and clog your computer’s memory.
    • Reduced power consumption. This is important on a “save the planet” scale, but also on the very local scale of increasing the battery life of your phone and laptop.
    • The light, frugal aesthetic. That’s personal, I know, but as you’ll see, I’m not alone.
    Ben Hoyt, The small web is beautiful
    benhoyt.com
    • performance
    • systems
    • conservation
  • The number of ways in which things work

    The importance of diversity is not so much the number of elements in a system; rather it is the number of functional connections between these elements. It is not the number of things, but the number of ways in which things work.

    Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture
    • diversity
    • connection
    • networks
    • systems
  • Inputs and outputs

    For things to work properly, we must remember that:

    • The inputs needed by one element are supplied by other elements in the system; and
    • The outputs needed by one element are used by other elements (including ourselves).
    Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture
    • systems
  • Taylorism

    “In the past the man has been first. In the future the system must be first.” — Fred W. Taylor

    Taylorism was a way of thinking that came at the expense of the workers’ own knowledge of their system. Taylor summed up his philosophy thus:

    “It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standard and enforcing this cooperation rests with the management alone.”

    The unscripted practices of the old offices would remain, but as a kind of subterfuge: in the future, a leisurely pace wouldn’t be the norm; time would not be given, but stolen.

    Nikil Saval, Cubed
    • systems
    • efficiency
  • Sets and systems

    When the elements of a set belong together because they cooperate or work together somehow, we call the set of elements a system.

    From a designer’s point of view, the physically unchanging part of this system is of special interest. I define this fixed part as a unit of the city.

    Whatever picture of the city someone has is defined precisely by the subsets he sees as units.

    Christopher Alexander, A City Is Not a Tree
    • systems
  • Every paper cut is felt

    Image from www.robinrendle.com on 2020-02-16 at 10.41.38 AM.jpeg

    My point here is that in a design system every paper cut is felt. Every collapse leads to another, every new modal or unnecessary checkbox component hinders the collective refactoring that’s required to make a codebase consistent and easy to understand. When it comes to hyperobjects and design systems everything matters (although, frustratingly, it is impossible to measure success) and the smallest problem is just a signal in the dark—a premonition of a monster; organizational dysfunction writ large.

    Robin Rendle, Systems, Mistakes, and the Sea
    www.robinrendle.com
    • systems
    • mistakes

    In this essay, Rendle introduces the concept of a hyperobject – "…a thing that surrounds us, envelops and entangles us, but that is literally too big to see in its entirety."

    Design systems are a kind of hyperobject.

  • Technology is a system

    Technology is not the sum of the artifacts, of the wheels and gears, of the rails and electronic transmitters. Technology is a system. It entails far more than its individual material components. Technology involves organization, procedures, symbols, new words, equations, and, most of all, a mindset.

    Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology
    • technology
    • systems
  • Notes on the Legibility War

    An Article by David R. MacIver
    notebook.drmaciver.com

    The basic idea of legibility is that the act of making something comprehensible enough to control is itself an act that shapes the thing to be controlled, often with far greater consequences than the control itself. This is because it removes complexity that is deemed as irrelevant that makes it harder to control, and that complexity may be in some way essential to the health of the system.

    • control
    • systems
    • complexity
    • legibility
  • Primitive design

    An Article by Matt Webb
    interconnected.org
    1. I want it to feel intuitive
    2. I want any new features to be platform features, not one-offs.

    And the second of those is weird, right? It’s like sketching out a toy spaceship, having a list of rules about play, and attempting to simultaneously invent the shape of the Lego brick.

    That’s platform design I suppose. Redesigning a newspaper will mean bouncing between comps and style guides, designing both. Inventing the iPhone user interface will have seen apps and app paradigm evolving together.

    1. ​​Co-Evolution of Problem and Solution Spaces in Creative Design​​
    • design
    • systems
    • making
  • Design Systems, Agile, and Industrialization

    An Article by Brad Frost
    bradfrost.com
    Image from bradfrost.com on 2020-09-10 at 1.41.24 PM.png

    I’ve come to the conclusion that “enterprise web development” is just regular web development, only stripped of any joy or creativity or autonomy. It’s plugging a bunch of smart people into the matrix and forcing them to crank out widgets and move the little cards to the right.

    In these structures, people are stripped of their humanity as they’re fed into the machine. It becomes “a developer resource is needed” rather than “Oh, Samantha would be a great fit for this project.” And the effect of all this on individuals is depressing. When people’s primary motivation is to move tickets over a column, their ability to be creative or serve a higher purpose are almost completely quashed. Interaction with other humans seems to be relegated to yelling at others to tell them they’re blocked.

    Reading “AS PER THE REQUIREMENTS” in tickets makes me dry heave. How did such sterile, shitty language seep into my everyday work?

    1. ​​Beware SAFe, an Unholy Incarnation of Darkness​​
    • www
    • agile
    • systems
    • creativity
  • 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.
    • ux
    • systems
    • feedback
    • games
  • Stress systems

    An Article by Ethan Marcotte
    ethanmarcotte.com

    The [Lake Erie] ecosystem underwent a series of changes, each of which were related. There was an increase in the human population; which led to higher phosophorus levels in the water; which led, at last, to an increased level of algae in the lake. In effect, Lake Erie’s ecosystem was rewritten. Changed by human activities into…something else.

    But Franklin cites the study because it’s doing something slightly novel: applying Selye’s principle of stress to ecological systems, suggesting that they are, much like humans, just as susceptible to external stressors. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, especially this week. Because Franklin’s suggesting that the work begins not by “fixing the system.” Rather, she suggests it’s about shifting the priority a little: to removing whatever stress you can.

    1. ​​The Real World of Technology​​
    • systems
    • ecosystems
    • stress
  • The Art of Systems Architecting

    A Book by Mark W. Maier & Eberhardt Rechtin
    www.amazon.com
    1. ​​Complete and consistent requirements​​
    • systems
  • The design systems between us

    A Talk by Ethan Marcotte
    www.youtube.com

    In the early days, design systems promised us more consistent interfaces, more collaborative teams, and improved shipping times. While they’ve certainly delivered on some of those fronts, they’ve introduced new challenges too. Let’s talk through what’s working well—and what could be working better—as we take a closer look at the systems between us and our work.

    1. ​​Systems, Mistakes, and the Sea​​
    2. ​​A Pattern Language​​
    3. ​​The Real World of Technology​​
    • www
    • systems
    • patterns
    • design
  • Design System as Style Manual With Web Characteristics

    An Article by Dorian Taylor
    doriantaylor.com

    In my opinion, what makes a designer competent is precisely their ability to credibly justify their conclusions. If you can’t do this as a designer—no matter how successful your results are—then neither I nor anybody else can tell if you aren’t just picking things at random.

    What I am proposing, then, is no less than to make a designer’s entire line of reasoning a matter of permanent record. On the surface is the familiar set of prescriptions, components, examples and tutorials, like you would expect out of any such artifact. Attached to every element, though, is a little button that says You click it, and it tells you. The proximate explanation will probably not be very satisfying, so you click on the next until you get to the end, at which point you are either satisfied with the explanation, or you aren’t.

    1. ​​The Design of Design​​
    • decisions
    • design
    • systems
    • style
  • Now I get it

    An Article by Ralph Ammer
    ralphammer.com
    Image from ralphammer.com on 2020-07-27 at 5.13.42 PM.gif

    To design a system means to orchestrate the interplay of its elements.

    Such a system is considered “interactive” if it is open, which means that there are ways to engage with the processes that are happening inside of it. There is of course a range of interactivities which spans from very basic reactive behaviour to highly complex conversational interactions.

    • systems
    • interaction
    • ux

See also:
  1. design
  2. technology
  3. ux
  4. www
  5. efficiency
  6. mistakes
  7. interaction
  8. decisions
  9. style
  10. agile
  11. creativity
  12. diversity
  13. connection
  14. networks
  15. patterns
  16. performance
  17. conservation
  18. innovation
  19. ecosystems
  20. stress
  21. feedback
  22. games
  23. flight
  24. making
  25. control
  26. complexity
  27. legibility
  1. Bill Mollison
  2. Ethan Marcotte
  3. Christopher Alexander
  4. Nikil Saval
  5. Robin Rendle
  6. Ursula M. Franklin
  7. Ralph Ammer
  8. Dorian Taylor
  9. Brad Frost
  10. Mark W. Maier
  11. Eberhardt Rechtin
  12. Ben Hoyt
  13. Michael Maccoby
  14. Stephen P. Anderson
  15. Justin E. H. Smith
  16. Matt Webb
  17. David R. MacIver