design

Design

How to think about and solve problems and build things

1. 3 Whys
2. Problems
3. Five Mindsets
4. AEIOU System
5. Bibliography

3 Whys

Most mistakes/errors are design problems - Ask 3 "why"s to get the cause of a mistake or error

Problems

If it's not actionable, it's not a problem. It's a situation that you have to deal with. eg. Gravity is not a problem.

Five Mindsets

1. Curiosity
2. Bias to action
3. Reframing
4. Awareness
5. Radical collaboration

src: Designing Your Life

AEIOU System

a context in which to think of experiences. used in DYL in the context of a happiness journal (Good Time Journal), so you can in finer detail describe what makes you feel energized and engaged.

• Activities
• Environments
• Interactions
• Objects
• Users

src: Designing Your Life

Nightmare Bicycle

Imagine a bicycle where the product manager said: "people don't get math so we can't have numbered gears. We need labeled buttons for gravel mode, downhill mode, …"

This is the hypothetical "nightmare bicycle" that Andrea diSessa imagines in his book Changing Minds.

As he points out: it would be terrible! We'd lose the intuitive understanding of how to use the gears to solve any situation we encounter. Which mode do you use for gravel + downhill?

src: https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2025/03/03/the-nightmare-bicycle.html

Bibliography

• Design of Everyday things
• Design for Hackers
• Designing your Life
• (TODO) A City Is Not A Tree, Christoper Alexander: https://www.patternlanguage.com/archive/cityisnotatree.html