Poets of connected world
I wrote poems before I designed experiences. I have come to think these are the same practice.
A poem does not explain. It finds the image that makes the feeling available — the specific detail that carries what the general claim cannot.
The finger tapping the screen at midnight. The morning with no rain. The light that comes on in the parking structure for a stranger.
Designing experiences works the same way, when it is working.
Here is a scene — specific, inhabitable, holding something true.
Not: here is a feature that will make this more efficient.
A bus stop that lets you talk to birds. A car that rings a bell instead of honking. A soft glow shared between people during illness.
The question in both practices is the same: what does this situation actually contain that hasn't yet been made available?
That is the conversation I am always trying to start — between the technology and the situation it is in, between the person and the system they are living with. The conversation about what kind of world this could be, if design decided to notice what is already there.
