Invite Participation Instead of Demanding Interaction (Alexandria Issue #023)
A bi-weekly newsletter dedicated to bringing you the best content related to design, technology, and entrepreneurship.
Featured Article
Design as Participation — jods.mitpress.mit.edu
“…a new generation of designers has emerged, concerned with designing strategies to subvert this “natural default-setting” in which each person understands themselves at the center of the world.
These designers do this by engaging with the complex adaptive systems that surround us, by revealing instead of obscuring, by building friction instead of hiding it, and by making clear that every one of us (designers included) are nothing more than participants in systems that have no center to begin with. These are designers of systems that participate — with us and with one another — systems that invite participation instead of demanding interaction.”
More Amazing Reads
Five Lessons from History
“What kind of person makes their way to the top of a successful company, or a big country? Someone who is determined, optimistic, doesn’t take “no” for an answer, and is relentlessly confident in their own abilities. What kind of person is likely to go overboard, bite off more than they can chew, and discount risks that are blindingly obvious to others? Someone who is determined, optimistic, doesn’t take “no” for an answer, and is relentlessly confident in their own abilities.”
Business Thinking for Designers
“Bring a business mind to design, and transform your career and company, with this free book by Apple and Electronic Arts design veteran Ryan Rumsey. Inside, he shares the essential vocabulary and strategies to effectively communicate with your business partners, plus tools, tips, and frameworks that you can put right to work.”
Designers As Leaders: Now That We Have a Seat at the Table, How Do We Prove We Belong?
“As we step into leadership roles in complex organizations, how do we retain, enhance, and maximize our differentiating core skills as designers to contribute to the businesses we’re helping to lead?”
The Remote Design Sprint Guide
“This is a guide for running remote Design Sprints: a realtime, online, video-based twist on the original recipe. This guide includes advice on tools, facilitation, and modified tactics, but it does not include a step by step explanation of the entire Design Sprint process. For that, we recommend the Sprint book!”
Spotify’s Failed #SquadGoals
“Humans have been trying to figure out how to work together for as long as there have been humans. The industrial age and the information age changed some of the constraints, but academics studying organization theories have found timeless truths about what humans need to be successful in a collective.”
Designing and Delivering Effective Lectures
“Knowing something and knowing how to explain something are different things. A good lecture is the result of planning, preparation, and hard work, and it is essential that you invest the necessary time and energy into identifying resources, organizing the material, developing examples, and preparing supporting documents for your students. When planning for a lecture, it is important to consider not only the selection and arrangement of content, but also the strategies that can be used to communicate, connect, and reach out to your audience.”
Resources
Must-See Design & Art Documentaries.
“The best documentaries for designers and artists.”
Twinsta — Turn Tweets Into Instagram-Friendly Posts
“Repurposing tweets has never been so easy! Use Twinsta to create clean screenshots of your tweets — perfect for sharing on social media!”
Work From Home Stack
“A directory with the best-in-class remote tools. Search and discover apps to expand your work from home stack”
Free UI/UX Documentation Kit for Sketch and Figma
“A collection of free Sketch and Figma resources for designers (UI and UX). Free, high-quality icons, mockups, and UI kits for Sketch App and Figma”
