Time to open Pandora’s Box! This post touches on some deep and controversial problems surrounding information today, most of which have been heightened by this year’s election. More work is needed to develop this thinking-in-progress further. In the past twenty years or so, we have seen an information explosion the effects of which are all too familiar these days. That so much …
Tag: technology
An Accessible Future
What will the future of information design look like? Often, technology rises up to propose the answer: better software and analytic tools, more sophisticated visual forms, ubiquitous touchscreen-based and virtual information environments, immediate data and information access anywhere. Sci-fi fantasy made real seems an appealing prospect to some, and technology has fast been catching up: it’s only a matter …
A Life Less Designed
“What the hell am I doing?” I ask myself on a Sunday morning, half-covered in grass clippings. The weather is warm and immaculate, ideal for a hike or picnic or lazy stroll through town. Instead, here I am clutching my Sears Craftsman line trimmer, dutifully mowing my overgrown lawn. There are blisters forming on my rawhide-gloved …
Bridging Generations
As someone who’s slowly inching toward 40, I feel distinctly out of place with the present. It doesn’t feel like my present. The more I age, the greater the sense of anachronism. Three distinct realities are blurring together: the old world wisdom my grandparents conveyed to me during my childhood, the analog-to-digital transition through which I have …
Design In-Between
As tax season feverishly comes to a close, it seems a fitting moment to consider a realm of design work that hardly gets any attention. Not the dull gray administrative documents like tax forms and instructions. Not websites like IRS.gov. Not tax preparation software like TurboTax. I’m talking about receipts. More generally, I mean all those little in-between …
Embrace the Wait
Have you ever stopped to think about waiting? We spend so much time just waiting for some things to happen, other things to pass. Consider the moments of waiting that happen over the course of a typical day: on line at a register, in traffic, in a doctor’s office, on a plane, etc. The very concept of waiting — a momentary suspension …