A complexity-based understanding and provocation.
Hi everyone, Kevin here.
I often talk here about Design as a catalyst for organizations, businesses, and at a much smaller scale, teams. Design is to me, a means to instigate change and impact (positively) our environment. This is why I also think this not the job of one person.
Because of this, I consider innovation in many ways similar to Design in terms of purpose. “Innovation” — whatever it translates to in your context — is another way of designing our environment toward an intent.
As I recently explored in “The Multiples Design Thinking” and “The Ethics Of Design…
A reply to a Shopify UX Designer’s article.
Source
🔥 TL;DR;
The criticism made by the author here is that [Design Thinking] does not take reality (and its complexity) into account. My answer is that it was never the point.
📝 Long answer
The main commentary on this article is both understandable and erroneous. What the author criticizes are the ‘ontological concepts’ that are supposed to represent “The Design Process” — one of the many reasons I came to think that ‘design is in an epistemological crisis’.
Want to read this story later? Save it in Journal.
Several points to note here:
- these concepts (like the double-diamond, design thinking, etc.) were designed to communicate…
A discussion with Pascal Briod from Monito.com
In this episode, we discuss with Pascal Briod, Head of Product at Monito, about user research and UX design in a Startup company.
From the very inception of the company to managing a growing team of UX & UI professionals, Pascal had to basically learn & practice many aspects of design & product management at the same time. This helped him build a very pragmatic approach to UX, research, and design decision.
🔗 About Monito
Monito is a Swiss-based company, specialized in money transfer provider comparison.
🔥 Monito is looking for a Senior UX/UI Designer and a Product Manager. Find out more
Cold washing; Mixed linen; Max spin; Start, repeat.
We should be even more skeptical when we want to believe.
The “new wave” of business management and innovation “truths” are mainly about selling a point. They often advertise models, not to help you work with reality and be less wrong, but instead are nice & shiny ideas that have the potential to sell books & conferences and, altogether, help their author gain a place in the pantheon of “those who make authority”, not because they’re necessarily right about anything but because they “convinced” others to believe in them. …
And how designer & innovators could do it right
There is a lot of discussion going on about ethics in Tech, Design, innovation, etc. many of them revolve around (legitimately) the societal consequences of companies’ decisions. One of the logical steps is to look for public institutions and our politics to intervene, regulate, etc. but institutions are slow and mainly work through systematic audits & expensive fines to incentivise change in behavior. How does it even apply to innovations?
Another perspective would be to address the subject by involving organisations directly, and, for instance, see how we can transition businesses to different models that help them make better…
The thing that prevents you to do “what should be done”.
Hi everyone, Kevin here.
Some times ago, I proposed the concept of “space-for-action barrier” as a potentially useful description of the conditions of a context that hinders your ability to act & learn in a “necessary space” because of imposed constraints.
I recently wanted to extend it a bit further and provide a path through it, in the light of 1) some words of wisdom from D. Snowden and; 2) my own, surely limited, understanding of his work at Cognitive Edge and my endeavor through Systems & Complexity themes.
The “necessary space” here is what we think/believe we ought…
Join us for our first community event
UPDATE: If you missed it, here’s the recording of the opening session. Enjoy!
If you’re interested in sharing ideas and/or helping to organize future events or simply discuss with the community, feel free to join our Slack here 👇
Back in August, I shared my wish to create a space for a community to grow. After 3 months, a Slack group, and tons of very interesting discussions, we are happy to announce our first Design & Critical Thinking (D&CT) event on Tuesday 15, December 2020 at 6 PM CET.
“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and…
Why Star Wars isn’t a desirable future
Hi, Kevin here.
I take the time to reflect on personal thoughts here, after watching this video.
Despite me being a (more or less) fan of the franchise, I can’t undermine the critical thoughts that came to my mind. Not that I never had any against these movies (or the Star Wars universe in general), but I never fully reflected on the whole system being narrated.
It has to be said that from a movie perspective, the coherence of the stories relies mainly upon the characters, their relationships, the struggles they overcome, and their evolution. …
Hi, Kevin here.
As you might have noticed, Human Centered Thinking changed its name and now becomes Design & Critical Thinking. No worries, the URL and all our previous articles’ links remain the same.
Behind the change, the idea is to align the publication with my recent community initiative. This allows a more seamless and clear connection between what the community discusses and what happens in the publication, to build this collective understanding at the intersection of design, innovation, tech, change, and more.
I think this evolution in purpose doesn’t betray what this publication was originally about: think about what…
We need your help to create and engage in discussions that have the potential to cross boundaries.
Hi, Kevin here.
As you may know, Design & Critical Thinking is now a community slowly growing. Our aim is to build a shared understanding & collective knowledge that crosses over different disciplines, practices, and communities.
To reach that goal, we want to create and engage in discussions that have the potential to cross these boundaries. We need design, development, management, business, product, innovation people to join, share ideas, and participate in discussions.
We have created a small survey to capture discussion topics & ideas.
We would also need some motivated people to help us prepare and organize these…
