Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Design Thinking Books (2024)

designorate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 164 posts

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#91

Post by gdilla »

65 wrote: post #86
jasonhong wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used The Design of Everyday Things in many classes I teach. I would agree that it's not practical, but that's not its goal. Instead, it gives you frameworks for thinking about things as well as vocabulary for talking about those things. Off the top of my head, some of the key ideas include: * Affordances, that objects should have (often visual) cues that give hints as to how to use things * Mental models, that e…

I read the Design of Everyday Things and most of it was painfully obvious examples and was overly philosophical. Design is solving problems so they're intuitive for the user. Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it. And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

uh, the fact that this is written down and carefully put in frameworks is a good thing. Otherwise you can say any academic book is intuitive. the fact that it sounds obvious means they're getting the message across. because lord knows it was needed and there's plenty of failed products and ideas because of shitty design.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#92

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

bsoles wrote: post #60

Design Thinking is the Data Science of UX: an attempt to gain influence in fields that you don't have expertise in. Even though there might be universal design principle that can be applied in many fields, the Design Thinking people think that they can just come in and design user interfaces, etc. without really having an expertise in the particular field. Design Thinking works for selling consulting and not much els…

when Idea Guys™ never get told to buzz off

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#93

Post by randcraw »

bsoles wrote: post #70
ccppurcell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an analogous example for data science? I confess ignorance here, and always took the term at face value. Is the issue that "data science" tries to be agnostic about the source of the data? (I'm not claiming that that is true, just guessing)

Sure. There are many examples of data scientists attempting to use complex Machine Learning and Deep Learning models to predict machine (bearings, gears, etc.) failures from vibration data, where a simple Fourier Transform (FFT) provides a lot more insight and predictive powers about the same problem. However, spectrum analysis is not something that data scientists learn at school, yet every mechanical/electronics en…

Another classic example is data scientists trying to model biological processes (or answer questions about processes while ignorant of which components regulate others). Systems biology has a long history of largely clueless attempts to predict outcomes from complex processes that no one understands well enough to model usefully. The biologists know this but the data scientists do not.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#94

Post by layer8 »

IOT_Apprentice wrote: post #75
bsoles wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. There are many examples of data scientists attempting to use complex Machine Learning and Deep Learning models to predict machine (bearings, gears, etc.) failures from vibration data, where a simple Fourier Transform (FFT) provides a lot more insight and predictive powers about the same problem. However, spectrum analysis is not something that data scientists learn at school, yet every mechanical/electronics en…

Yet I suspect that mechanical engineers are not writing software for companies in the large. There are software developers doing so. I suspect that they should be consulted by data science folks as domain experts. That said won’t AI replace both? ;)

Likewise, UX designers should consult HCI experts.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#95

Post by randcraw »

HillRat wrote: post #79
bsoles wrote: post #60

Design Thinking is the Data Science of UX: an attempt to gain influence in fields that you don't have expertise in. Even though there might be universal design principle that can be applied in many fields, the Design Thinking people think that they can just come in and design user interfaces, etc. without really having an expertise in the particular field. Design Thinking works for selling consulting and not much els…

Design thinking, at least in its formal STS approach, is essentially applied sociology; it's about using various toolkits to build a sufficient understanding of a domain from the "inside out" (using desk and field research) so that you can design valuable experiences that build upon the expertise of those actually inside the domain. In this, it's a bridge between UX/product and users/stakeholders (technical stakehold…

That's a great answer that offers concrete insight into what design thinkers are trying to achieve. And it seems like they have a chance to succeed if they also employ iterative experimental methods to learn whether their mental model of user experience is incorrect or incomplete. Do they?

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#96

Post by layer8 »

codethief wrote: post #69
bsoles wrote: post #60

Design Thinking is the Data Science of UX: an attempt to gain influence in fields that you don't have expertise in. Even though there might be universal design principle that can be applied in many fields, the Design Thinking people think that they can just come in and design user interfaces, etc. without really having an expertise in the particular field. Design Thinking works for selling consulting and not much els…

Uhh… What does Design Thinking have to do with UX? Sure, it could be used to come up with novel ideas for user interfaces but DT (nowadays) is an approach that's several orders of magnitude more general.

The fact that it’s mostly being pushed by UX people.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#97

Post by creeble »

Nemi wrote: post #55
al_borland wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was gifted this book my a CIO when in college. She had a dozen copies in her office to hand out to various people. It took me a few tries to get up the will to actually read it. It was years ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details. My main take away was to make controls logical for the thing being controlled. “Norman doors” are the big one, but I often think about it while I’m in my car trying to do something on…

I love this. Thank you for introducing me to "Norman Doors". I hadn't realized someone else had described this in such detail. I have been complaining about this years. Ok this will be a tangent, but I also take this one step farther and also talk about "documentation". Just for the record, I don't think documentation is all good or all bad, but it definitely can be used incorrectly and in excess. And Norman Doors an…

Which reminds me of another "there, problem solved!" pet peeve of mine. I call it the Default Trap.

In many cases (Norman Doors are an example), there are two or more equally valid ways to do something. By "equally valid", I mean there is no clear standard for whether it should operate one way or the other, and if you ask 100 people which way it should work (which no one ever does), you get something approaching 50%.

So the product manager or perhaps developer simply says "make it a setting", and everyone agrees and declares the problem solved.

But the problem is, you have to choose a default. And 90% of the time, no one is going to change that default, or even discover how to. So you have to be very correct about assuming which value is the best default - and at that point, it probably doesn't matter that you make it an option.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#98

Post by mythical_39 »

bsoles wrote: post #70
ccppurcell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an analogous example for data science? I confess ignorance here, and always took the term at face value. Is the issue that "data science" tries to be agnostic about the source of the data? (I'm not claiming that that is true, just guessing)

Sure. There are many examples of data scientists attempting to use complex Machine Learning and Deep Learning models to predict machine (bearings, gears, etc.) failures from vibration data, where a simple Fourier Transform (FFT) provides a lot more insight and predictive powers about the same problem. However, spectrum analysis is not something that data scientists learn at school, yet every mechanical/electronics en…

huh. I'm a professional data scientist, and my masters was in signal processing. In one class the final exam required us to transcribe fourier transforms of speech into the actual words. In another the final exam required us to perform 2d FFTs in our head.

Please be careful about generalizing.

I agree that many 'data science' programs don't teach these skills, and you certainly have evidence behind your assertation.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#99

Post by truenfel »

If anyone's interested in how environment shapes behavior: I wrote "Leave the Door Open." It's about designing spaces that reduce isolation and relax the nervous system.

Based on research like the Rat Park experiments showing environment beats willpower. Practical room-by-room changes.

The Substack for Open Enough Design is here: https://OEDmethod.substack.com and you can find a link to the book there too.

Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)

#100

Post by layer8 »

65 wrote: post #86
jasonhong wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used The Design of Everyday Things in many classes I teach. I would agree that it's not practical, but that's not its goal. Instead, it gives you frameworks for thinking about things as well as vocabulary for talking about those things. Off the top of my head, some of the key ideas include: * Affordances, that objects should have (often visual) cues that give hints as to how to use things * Mental models, that e…

I read the Design of Everyday Things and most of it was painfully obvious examples and was overly philosophical. Design is solving problems so they're intuitive for the user. Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it. And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

> Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it.

It’s common to illustrate principles with examples that appear obvious, i.e. that everyone agrees on, so that after having it conceptualized as a principle, you’ll apply it in less obvious circumstances. Many things are obvious only in hindsight.

> And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

That’s not true, because a lot of flawed design is being promoted and defended in public as the thing to do.

Post reply on HN