Too Much Structure?
It's important to demonstrate that adding too much structure can introduce whole new activities and efforts. And sometimes, that new work defeats the purpose of the original task.
The Design Way
My favorite design book — without question. The Design Way, written by Harold G. Nelson and Erik Stolterman can be summarized as dismantling problems and solutions as the primary intellectual framing of design, and software development in general.
In Pursuit of the Common Good
A short, fun book written by Paul Newman and A.E. Hotchner telling their story of starting Newman’s Own and building it into an enormous, profitable, and beloved food company while donating more than $600 million to children along the way.
My Only Design Principle
The suggestion to “make simple interfaces” can be laughed away as overly simplistic. Or, it could be an idealized standard that’s impossible to achieve. It all depends on your interpretation.
A Reflective Conversation with a Situation
Every profession is confronting a dilemma of rigor or relevance. On the “high ground” the problems are trivial. In “the swamp” below you can work on the important social and technological problems of the age, but you don’t know how to be rigorous in any way that you can name.