beck ux

Attachment to Things | A Eulogy

Anyone who thinks people don’t form emotional bonds with things should reconsider that position. I’ve been a staunch believer in the emptiness that accompanies attachments to things. A person can’t love a smartphone or a car. At least, not in the same way they love a person or an animal. Surely I don’t have relationships…
Normativity and Design

Story: During a debate about the future importance of design–but not Designers–an audience member raised her hand. She was a designer from Peru. “I have to interrupt,” she said, “because I sense that you’re ignoring the degree to which design is already happening in a substantive, vibrant way in, for example, Peru. Peru doesn’t need…
Reflections on an Experience

I urge you to follow this link and play the song in a separate tab while reading the rest of this note… I had an experience last night while sitting in the hotel restaurant/bar at the Scandic Umeå Plaza. I was spending my last night in Umeå with friends, bringing to a close our four days at…
Design | Definitions

This morning there was a fantastic debate held as part of the DRS 2014. What struck me during the debate, but especially during the following comments/questions from the audience, was the importance of defining our terms. Members in the audience came from a diversity of design disciplines (interaction, graphic, architecture, engineering, product, industrial, and others)…
HCI and Slow Theory

I co-authored an article that was published in ACM Interactions in January of this year. The article presented a conceptual framework that could serve as the bedrock for subsequent, substantive discussions in the HCI community. The title of the article is, “Slow Change Interaction Design: A Theoretical Sketch.” It was called a sketch in order to draw attention…
Experience Design | Reward Systems

Rewards may be constituents (but they are not key elements) of experience design. Let’s say that experience has a beginning middle and end. In my mind, the reward is simply the end of an experience. It is not necessarily the reason why a person would return to experience an experience several times. In fact, many “rewarding” experiences have no…
New Research Questions | New Books

I acquired two new books yesterday afternoon. Hooked and Designing for Behavior Change. These are the first books on designing for change I’ve purchased since landing on an interesting (set of) question(s) that I suspect will carry me towards some excellent contributions to the field: What are the keystone attitudes and behaviors that, once cultivated, might have positive…
Scientific Management | Quantified Self

In Frederick Taylor and the quantified self (a blog post), Nicholas Carr basically pins on the Quantified Self the revitalization of Frederick Taylor‘s scientific management in the workplace. I am suspicious of claims that the Quantified Self movement has driven the private sector interest in tracking its workers day-to-day activities. I think Carr is mistaking…
Some Thoughts About Design

I’ve been thinking about a question put forth by people smarter than me about Design. John Heskett articulates it best: [Why has design] never cohered into a unified profession, such as law, medicine, or architecture, where a license or similar qualification is required to practice…? [1] I’m wondering if an answer to this question isn’t…
Quantification and Goal Setting

Preface: I wrote this in an email exchange in early January, and the idea is still bouncing around my noggin. I’d love to get a dialogue going with anyone interested in any aspect of this content… Before reading further, you can watch this video: TEDx talk on Keeping Your Goals. If you don’t watch it,…