My name is
Jack Moffett. I am an Interaction Designer with over ten years of experience. According to
Herb Simon, that makes me an expert, so I must have something worth sharing. I have started this venture as an exercise to spur critical thinking about my chosen profession. I hope that others may find it thought provoking as well.
DesignAday will present a brief thought about Design every weekday.
91 days ago, Rachel Hinman of Adaptive Path set out on an endeavor she referred to as “creative recovery”. After working for eight months on concepts for future mobile interfaces, Rachel felt a hollow, emotional loss as the project ended. After being completely consumed by the topic, she was like a drug addict needing her next fix. So she looked to Alcoholics Anonymous for inspiration and developed her own ninety day recovery program. For ninety days, she posted her thoughts, sketches, and photos related to mobile design on the blog 90 Mobiles in 90 Days.
She didn’t know what it would lead to. Now it’s time to find out. Yesterday was the ninetieth day. Her co-worker, Kate Rutter, has some excellent suggestions for the near term:
There are other meta-activities that can happen outside the actual project, now that it’s done. Rachel can extend the experience by speaking about it at meetings, events and conferences. She can write about it on other blogs, in articles, and be interviewed about it. She could write a CHI paper. There’s a lot of space for talking about the thing when the thing is done. Maybe others will take up the meme and do projects for 90 chairs in 90 days, or 90 smiles in 90 days. There is a lot of space for the idea to expand.
I have some appreciation for her experience, having committed myself to posting here every weekday, but whereas I have given myself the freedom to explore Design with a capital D, she set herself a path by which she could dive deep into a specific topic. My blog is an invigorating exercise, but it isn’t really something I could speak about at a conference; at least, not yet.
Congratulations Rachel, and thanks for taking us along for the ride.
I typically attempt to bring something new to the blogosphere on DesignAday, rather than simply pointing out posts on other blogs. I am, however, often inspired by the blogs I read. Yesterday’s post was inspired by Adaptive Path, and that’s far from the first time.
I think there are two specific attributes that make Adaptive Path’s blog stand out from the crowd.
First, it’s the blog of one of the truly great design firms of our time. Not only does the firm do great work for it’s clients, it contributes to the design community through events and publications. This is a firm that doesn’t just practice design—they participate in defining our field. It is obvious that Adaptive Path employees are encouraged to present at conferences, publish, participate in the design community, and blog, which brings me to the second attribute.
There isn’t just one or two people at Adaptive Path charged with maintaining the blog. A large percentage of their employees post, from the presidents on down—certainly the majority of the creative staff. And seeing as how it’s such a prestigious firm, these are the cream of the crop. There is rarely a day without a new post, and it’s all quality content. Furthermore, with that many people posting, they cover a lot of ground. Just a glance at their list of categories reveals everything from the expected, like Experience Design and Interaction Design, to “Idealism, uncensored” and the Bathroom Blogfest. They even put up the occasional podcast.
Everybody in the industry should be subscribed to their RSS feed. No excuses.
