Apparently the word “craft” is trending in the design world right now. I’ve been hearing it said around my own organization with suspicious frequency, always connected with building things that are well-built. But when I hear how most designers — or at design consultants — talk about craft, what I hear is craftsmanship, which has … Continue reading Craft vs craftmanship
I’m thinking through the relationship between the essential elements of a design discipline — those things that define any design discipline. First, though, I want to define design in general against disciplines, with particular emphasis on engineering and art, two domains into which design often blurs. Of course, it is an obnoxious fool’s errand to … Continue reading Material, medium, form, object
Part 1: The Hidden Costs of Carrot and Stick Management Most organizations, as mechanically efficient as they aspire to be, motivate people very wastefully. Instead of understanding people’s natural intrinsic motivations — their sources of meaning, fulfillment, inspiration, resilience and endurance — they rely on artificial extrinsic motivations. These positive and negative external motivations are … Continue reading Knitbone manifesto
I often get asked questions about the relationship between service design (SD) research and user experience (UX) research. The answer is very simple, but communicating that simplicity is not easy. This post will attempt the briefest, clearest answer possible. Explaining the difference in the two forms of research will require briefly explaining the relationship between … Continue reading SD and UX research
This post has also been published on my company’s blog. To be effective in any design discipline it is certainly necessary to master the universal methods of design. Whether you call these methods Human-Centered Design (HCD) or Design Thinking or invent some new term for it, the principles are always the same and they are … Continue reading Design: thinking, crafting and actualizing