A collection of 10 posts

The great spiritual and humanistic power of design has been lost in its current emphasis upon business and industry. Design can be much more powerful than that: Design is a way of thinking that can be applied to almost any issue, but most importantly, to the major societal issues facing the world.

Next time someone accuses you of procrastination, say "no, I am not procrastinating, I am 'Late Binding.' " That should shut them up. Let me argue for late binding - delay, or if you like, procrastination - as a preferred way of life. Delaying decisions until the time for action is beneficial f...

I hate error messages. They are insulting, condescending, and worst of all, completely unnecessary. Evil, nasty little things. They cause us to do unneeded work, and often destroy the work we have already done. Error messages punish people for not behaving like machines. It is time we let people ...

new essay on LinkedIn: http://goo.gl/l4oWi0 . When there are accidents, injuries, and deaths the first reaction is often to claim "human error," blaming the last person to have touched the controls. That is why the problems persist: we punish the innocent and do not remedy the underlying causes...

It's nice to see predictions upheld, but in terms of practical value, getting the timing right is as important as getting the idea right. ...

I await the day when gestures become standardized. When systems combine the best of all worlds: gestures, both in the air and on surfaces, voice commands where appropriate, and menus, keyboards, and pointing devices where appropriate. The most powerful systems will give us the choice to use whate...

For design to succeed, grow, achieve its potential, and train future leaders, we envision a new curriculum. In our vision, these new programs combine learning the art and craft of beautiful, pleasurable well-crafted design with substantive courses in the social and biological sciences, in technol...

Whenever you see something labeled "smart" or "intelligent," be assured that it is actually rather stupid. It is time to for the designers and engineers of this coming automated world and take heed from the lessons learned over the years in the field of Human-Systems Integration, in studies of au...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed changing the labels now required on all foodstuff. The goal is to nudge people to better eating. The good part is that, the FDA has clearly thought about the legibility and clarity of nutritional guidelines. Not only did they decide to make t...

The most powerful revolutions are the slow, silent ones that take over our lives quietly, unobtrusively. No media attention, no over-hyped excitement. But one day you look up and, oops, what has happened? Consider the everyday rice cooker. It seems rather dull: a squat box occupying space on the ...