Transforming Grounds

I do like books! Here are some of the books on my desk right now. Have looked at all of them, have reads parts of some and all of others....

Today my colleague Harold Nelson sent me a link to a short film (about 15 min) about the design process made in the 1960s. It is just a wonderful film. It contains all the aspects of the design process. Watch and learn! https://vimeo.com/12861872

Ron Wakkary and I have now been Editors-in-Chief of the ACM Interactions magazine for six years. It is time to let go. We are finishing up our last year and ACM is now searching for new editors (see here http://interactions.acm.org/acm-seeks-editors-for-acm-interactions) It has been some great years. It has been a privilege to work with so many outstanding colleagues in the field, famous and unknown, old and young, academics and practitioners...those who deliver what they promise and those who don't :-)  I have learned a lot. Read things I would never had read otherwise. Seen research and ideas that I would not have cared about. Met people that I would never have met. It has been fascinating, fun and enlightning. So, if you are interested, just apply! It is good to be two so you can share the work.

A few years ago I wrote a post on this blog with the title " The Death of Design Thinking..." . This post has been read quite a lot since then. I read it myself today and realized that it is as relevant today as 5 years ago. Of course, things has changed since I wrote the post. For instance, the notion of "design thinking" has become even more spread and recognized and the prediction of its "death" has not yet been fulfilled. However, we are seeing more of critical voices that are expressing concerns. At the same time, the observations around "design thinking" that I made are still valid and maybe even more important today. I am afraid if we do not engage with design in the way I write below we will very soon experience a serious backlash and maybe the "death" of anything designerly.... " ........... As someone who has been dealing with design theory for about 30 years, it is both amusing and sad to see the way the question of th

Well, at the moment Lars-Erik Janlert and I are working quite intensely on our book. Preliminary called "Interactivities -- the meaning of interface and interaction". INTERACTIVITIES —the meaning of interface and interaction 1. THE THINGS THAT KEEP US BUSY 2. THOUGHT STYLES AND USE PARADIGMS 3. AN APPROACH TO INTERACTIVITY 4. INTERACTION 5. COMPLEXITY 6. CONTROL 7. THE CHARACTER OF THINGS 8. EXPRESSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS 9. FACELESS INTERACTION 10. TAKING MEASURES 11. FULL SPEED AHEAD It is exciting to work on the text now that it is almost finalized. It does not necessarily get easier when you get to the end, instead now we have to make sure that we are not contradicting ourselves in the different chapters. But, it is exciting to be almost done.