Visualizing Minimalist Design

Design for emergence is permissionless. It empowers people by way of its constitution even though it can never know what people will do with that power. In contrast to user-centered design, design for emergence invites the user into the design process not only as a subject of study, but as a collaborator with agency and control.

Design for emergence is open-ended. There’s no room for surprise in high modern or user-centered design, unless the design is exapted for an unintended use (see “Design Exaptation” in the bottom right quadrant of the 2x2 above). Meanwhile, a key characteristic of design for emergence is that the end design may be something that the original designe... See more

Here, design, development, and content creation are no longer merely tools for generating revenue; they are also tools of community organizing. Here, design and engineering take on the valence of care, and the emotional involvement of being a contributor, moderator, and member. Where does “design” end and “moderation” begin? Because the mainstream ... See more

The dominant school of thought when it comes to UI design in tech, at least that I’ve grown up with the past two decades, has centered around removing friction for users in accomplishing whatever it is they’re trying to do while delighting them in the process. The goal has been design that is elegant, in every sense of the word: intuitive, ingeniou... See more

There will always be designers to design the Hummers and the bumper stickers, and there will always be designers to make websites to propagate the warnings and promises of David Foster Wallace. But a new generation of designers has emerged, concerned with designing strategies to subvert this “natural default-setting” in which each person understand... See more

What we build is defined and controlled by its unresolvable conflicts. In responsive design, it’s the text and image conundrum I showed earlier. In other, more grand arenas, there is capital versus labor, or collective control versus anarchic individualism. In technology, I believe it comes down to the power dynamics of convenience. To create conve... See more

Design has evolved to meet the challenge of the new relationship between people and the material goods they need. Today, designers — artisans, manufacturers, engineers, architects — think far beyond the way things look. Comparing pre-industrial design to post-industrial design with a picture is absurd. Critiquing a modern object based on its appear... See more