1 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:03,360 But gratification is weirder. It's, I call it the sensory 2 00:00:03,360 --> 00:00:06,360 enchantment of everyday life. And it happens quickly. 3 00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,920 It it isn't retrospective, it only takes place in the moment. 4 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:14,720 And if you let that moment go by, you sort of miss it forever. 5 00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:20,320 It's around us constantly, all the time, but we often overlook 6 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:23,600 or don't notice it. And it provides these very small 7 00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:27,840 scale little delights and pleasures that not only 8 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:32,240 sometimes are easy to overlook or to ignore, but we've even 9 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:34,640 been kind of culturally trained to push aside. 10 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:41,120 Hello and welcome to another episode of the AIGA Design 11 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:43,520 Podcast. My name is Li Shan Huang Co, 12 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,400 Executive Director of Learning and Programs here at AIGA, the 13 00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:49,400 Professional association for Design. 14 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:53,880 Hello everyone, I'm Julia Donatello, Design Competitions 15 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:58,480 and Event Manager at AIGA. This season on the show we are 16 00:00:58,480 --> 00:01:00,760 exploring the theme of eyes on design. 17 00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:05,440 Looking at design through three eyes, the connecting eye, how 18 00:01:05,440 --> 00:01:08,800 design connects with other fields and disciplines, the 19 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:11,800 critical eye, being self reflective about what design 20 00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:14,560 does and how we practice it, and the future eye. 21 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:17,040 Looking at ways that design shapes the future. 22 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:22,200 And for today, we have the pleasure of receiving the guest, 23 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:25,360 Ian Bogost. He's a writer, designer and 24 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:29,840 scholar of media and technology. He's a contributing writer at 25 00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:33,960 The Atlantic and the founding partner of Persuasive Games, a 26 00:01:33,960 --> 00:01:37,480 game and design studio. He's also the author of 11 27 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:40,160 books. His games and artworks have been 28 00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:43,000 played by millions of people, and they're held in permanent 29 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,920 collections around the world, including at the Smithsonian 30 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:49,360 American Art Museum. He's a professor at the 31 00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:52,680 Washington University in Saint Louis, where he serves as Co 32 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:56,760 executive director of the Office of Public Scholarship. 33 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:02,200 His latest book, coming out now in July 2026, is called The 34 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:05,200 Small Stuff, How to lead a More Gratifying Life. 35 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:09,520 And that's the book is right here for the Yeah, we have our 36 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:12,600 copies and you can see. Watching us on YouTube, Yeah. 37 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:15,040 Yeah, for the ones watching us on YouTube. 38 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:18,320 And that's what we're here to talk to him about. 39 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:20,520 Ian, it's so great to have you on the show. 40 00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:22,560 Oh, thank you so much. I'm really thrilled to be here 41 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,840 talking to you. So to go beyond the official 42 00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:30,960 intro that Julia did so well, your career has spanned creating 43 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:35,360 video games to writing media criticism to now your latest 44 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:38,360 book where among other stories you share, you talk about the 45 00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:41,640 importance of touching a velvet sofa and why that matters. 46 00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:44,680 You write about the design world from both this insider and 47 00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:49,000 outsider perspective, as somebody who designs games, 48 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:51,760 designs, experiences. And then also you have this 49 00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:54,800 reflective distance as a critic, as an academic. 50 00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:58,480 So, to give our listeners a little bit more context about 51 00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:01,640 your work, could you describe how these very facets of your 52 00:03:01,640 --> 00:03:02,960 practice connect together in your? 53 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:07,960 Head and you know, I've had this this amazing but very weird 54 00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:09,920 career that's kind of hard to explain. 55 00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:12,600 And when people ask me what what do you do? 56 00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:15,800 My heart sort of falls out of my body in a in a way, But I think 57 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:19,320 that the through line is that I I've spent that whole career, 58 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:24,480 you know, studying and making experiences and and sometimes 59 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:28,200 those experiences are obviously design one software video games 60 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,040 are sometimes they're they're cultural systems. 61 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:33,520 I write books, for example, and articles for the Atlantic. 62 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:38,360 And then sometimes I'm looking at just ordinary, ordinary 63 00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:42,720 objects and, and practices. He backpacks, lawn care, 64 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,720 haircuts, toasters. And I I really enjoy operating 65 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:50,000 at those various scales. The scale changes, but the 66 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,160 question doesn't. And the question is 67 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:56,120 fundamentally about how the things that people make shape 68 00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:59,560 the way that they experience the world and then how the world 69 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:02,840 responds and, and, and pushes back on them. 70 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:10,320 And As for being a designer and a critic, both I, I don't 71 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:12,520 really, I don't really experience those roles as 72 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:16,160 separate activities. Sometimes you talk about like 73 00:04:16,160 --> 00:04:19,360 the, the sort of theorist practitioner as a notion and as 74 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:23,800 if it's this sort of tidy balance where you're half one 75 00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:27,640 and half the other or 75% one and 25% the other. 76 00:04:27,640 --> 00:04:30,720 And it's, it's never that tidy, of course. 77 00:04:30,720 --> 00:04:34,680 But you know, making something to me as a way of asking a 78 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:38,080 question and criticism is a way of answering one. 79 00:04:38,080 --> 00:04:41,760 And then the, the, the reverse is, is also is also true. 80 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:45,320 So whether I'm making games or software or editing book series 81 00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:48,800 or writing essays or books or making objects, they're all like 82 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:52,840 different methods for, for investigating and for pursuing 83 00:04:52,840 --> 00:04:55,160 the same questions, for answering the same mysteries, 84 00:04:55,160 --> 00:05:00,560 which is how do people make meaning from the world around 85 00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:01,920 them? And sometimes I'd build an 86 00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:04,640 object to see what happens to try to answer that question. 87 00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:08,240 And sometimes I write about an object that I or someone else 88 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:11,160 has built. And I, I really see it as kind 89 00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:14,680 of a dialectic, this cycle between practice and, and 90 00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:18,440 criticism, like make stuff, step back, think about what was made 91 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:20,920 or what could be made and vice versa. 92 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:24,200 And I, I learned that lesson really early. 93 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:27,400 You mentioned my, my game in design studio, which is called 94 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:30,520 Persuasive Games. And, and then I wrote a book 2 95 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:32,280 decades ago now called Persuasive Games. 96 00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:34,320 It's just like one example. If I was think, trying to think 97 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:36,280 about design philosophy abstractly. 98 00:05:36,280 --> 00:05:37,480 And that's what the book is good for. 99 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:40,280 And then it's a well, OK, well, how do we put it into practice? 100 00:05:40,280 --> 00:05:42,760 And how does putting it into practice lead to ways of 101 00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:45,800 discussing it? Abstract and that that cycle has 102 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:48,440 just been perpetual for me. Like this little machine that 103 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:52,800 continually produces objects and then produces written or verbal 104 00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:57,840 discourse about those objects. To follow up on that, is there a 105 00:05:57,840 --> 00:06:03,120 difference for you between critique and reflection on games 106 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:06,880 because that is your core discipline as a designer versus 107 00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:09,840 like other things like the the sofa or like a steering wheel or 108 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:13,240 yeah. It's a, you've asked a deeper 109 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:17,200 question than you may even realize, because I, I think the, 110 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:21,200 the design world and certainly the world of, of, of game 111 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:25,040 criticism or, and, and game design would see me in that way. 112 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:28,160 And I'm not sure if I see myself in, in that way any longer. 113 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:31,000 In a lot of ways, my relationship with games has been 114 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,920 fraught and has been a decades long process of trying to figure 115 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:39,160 out what it, what the lesson is to derive from, from games, 116 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:42,720 which are not a, a medium that the general public takes 117 00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:48,120 seriously in the same way as, as, as the, as film or the novel 118 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:50,800 or even the designed object, you know, like the industrial 119 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:55,720 designed objects. And so I, I think it's fraught 120 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:58,200 for me. So one answer to your question 121 00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:02,280 is my relationship with games has been a a long process of 122 00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:05,920 asking what are the lessons that games can teach us about 123 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:09,040 ourselves, the world and our place in it. 124 00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:13,320 And I keep moving further and further away from the game as an 125 00:07:13,320 --> 00:07:16,560 object that has the where that lesson lives. 126 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:19,160 So it's less about like the entertainment value of the game 127 00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:22,480 experience now and then it was like 10 years ago, it was about 128 00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:24,000 play. I wrote a book on play. 129 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,320 I thought that's the that's the answer is the sort of ability to 130 00:07:27,320 --> 00:07:30,320 have playful experience with anything was in that title of 131 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:34,040 the book, play anything, not just with a game experience. 132 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:36,840 And now with the new book, with the small stuff, it's like, 133 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:39,080 actually, maybe the play doesn't even matter. 134 00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:43,120 It's just having, having a sensory encounter with the world 135 00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:46,080 is it, is it is enough. So it's, it's kind of a, a, a, 136 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:50,800 a, a long way of saying I, I, I tried to, I've tried to keep an 137 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:55,520 open mind about the objects of interest and experience to me, 138 00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:57,800 rather than maybe that's been a mistake. 139 00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:01,440 Like it's much easier to drill down into a subject and become 140 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:05,840 better and better and more and more versed in it, you know, 141 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:08,560 whether that's architecture or industrial design or game design 142 00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:11,560 or whatever your field is, you know, and I haven't done that. 143 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:14,480 I keep moving like further and further away to, to a more 144 00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:18,480 distant orbit from the, the, the, the planetary body that, 145 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:22,640 that I'm supposedly moving around. 146 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:26,360 So like the it's, it's a, it's a kind of a weird identity crisis 147 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:28,840 for me all the time, but one that I don't that I feel very 148 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:32,159 comfortable in because it's really more about like, what's 149 00:08:32,159 --> 00:08:36,000 the next question to ask and try to answer then, OK, this object 150 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:39,120 of study or of creation is like fixed and permanent for me. 151 00:08:39,799 --> 00:08:41,600 And that's where I'm going to spend my time. 152 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:45,520 That's great, yen. I have to say that I've been 153 00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:47,640 enjoying a lot your book. Great. 154 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:52,080 Thank you so much. And I think it, it provoked me 155 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:57,080 to very much connect with the physical world in a very like, 156 00:08:58,240 --> 00:09:01,040 in a, in a very present way. So, you know, in the morning, I 157 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:05,640 opened the, the curtains at my house, make the bed, turn on the 158 00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:08,520 coffee machine, hear the noise of the, the coffee machine. 159 00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:12,240 So it's almost, it feels like because your, your book for me 160 00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:15,840 was an invitation to really slow down and notice all this little 161 00:09:16,680 --> 00:09:18,520 interactions with the physical world. 162 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:26,600 And I think that's a very much a very interesting place to be. 163 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:29,560 And I've been talking about this as, as if I'm experiencing your 164 00:09:29,560 --> 00:09:33,240 book in in real life. So it's very, very cool. 165 00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:37,360 And I wanted to hear more from you because I, I really 166 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:41,400 understand this provocative claim that your book offers. 167 00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:45,120 And the thesis of your book is that the modern life has slowed 168 00:09:45,240 --> 00:09:49,720 slowly robbed us from the small physical pleasures that I just 169 00:09:49,720 --> 00:09:52,960 mentioned to you. Yeah, that we didn't even notice 170 00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:55,040 that we were using right. So even. 171 00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:57,840 Yeah, for me, I didn't even pay that much attention to all this. 172 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:01,440 So that I think that that's the, the, the, the, the strong 173 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:04,600 provocation there. And because as designers are 174 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:09,160 trained to to observe the world and shape how people experience 175 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:11,240 it. I wanted to hear from you if you 176 00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:14,920 could elaborate on that. And, and what do you think is 177 00:10:14,920 --> 00:10:18,800 the responsibility of designers, but also the opportunity for 178 00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:23,880 them to change this journey in terms of the the experience with 179 00:10:23,880 --> 00:10:26,880 physical, physical world? Right. 180 00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:34,520 So I wrote the, I wrote the book for ordinary people to, to, to, 181 00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:37,120 to use that phrase and, and you know, by which I mean folks who 182 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,760 don't necessarily work in the design professions like we do. 183 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:46,720 And I really didn't want to put the burden of solutions on them. 184 00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:49,200 And, and you know, one of the things I argue in the book is 185 00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:51,680 that it's not your fault. This feeling of what I call 186 00:10:51,680 --> 00:10:55,200 dematerialization, of becoming disconnected from your your 187 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:59,040 sense of connection to the physical world that happened 188 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:02,720 through a set of systemic circumstances that you didn't 189 00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:04,720 choose and that aren't your fault. 190 00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:07,760 And, you know, you shouldn't internalize that blame. 191 00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:12,960 And I I did that in part because most, most people don't have the 192 00:11:12,960 --> 00:11:16,400 capacity as individuals to change the way the built 193 00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:20,000 environment is designed, you know, or the way that big 194 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:23,440 organizations work to, to produce or culture that 195 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:26,400 environment. But if I were speaking to 196 00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:29,640 designers or or to business leaders or lawmakers or urban 197 00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:34,000 planners or what have you, I would say, yeah, like absolutely 198 00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:38,280 you have a responsibility to preserve and advance the the 199 00:11:38,280 --> 00:11:43,760 rich texture of everyday life. And I do worry that the design 200 00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:46,680 community painting with A broad brush that the design community 201 00:11:46,680 --> 00:11:52,200 has not arisen to that challenge, which isn't fatal. 202 00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:56,080 It means we can still go back or or rich return to some of that 203 00:11:56,080 --> 00:12:03,520 attention to the the small scale textured experience of sensory 204 00:12:03,520 --> 00:12:09,400 life that is very much present in both the natural world and 205 00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:12,560 the designs world. So I see it. 206 00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:14,360 I see it in two ways. Even though there's not there's 207 00:12:14,360 --> 00:12:17,400 not polemic in the book about like, oh, designers made our 208 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:19,200 world bad or something like that. 209 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:20,480 And that's not really what I believe. 210 00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:24,440 It's complicated. But in the book I don't go into, 211 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:27,800 OK, well, here are the design world answers either. 212 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:31,840 And that's a really interesting, you know, future for this work 213 00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:34,600 that I hope to be able to participate in with this 214 00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:38,160 community is OK, what if you believe me that we lost this and 215 00:12:38,160 --> 00:12:41,800 it's worth preserving or worth reclaiming, Then how do we do it 216 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:44,600 then how do we do it? And I, and I think that to me it 217 00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:50,480 feels like just an enormous opportunity and a really 218 00:12:50,760 --> 00:12:53,040 delightful up. Like I'm excited about it. 219 00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:56,440 And when I put my design hat on to think about, OK, well, how 220 00:12:56,440 --> 00:12:57,840 could we make some progress here? 221 00:12:58,320 --> 00:13:00,160 Because I think it's, it can be really simple. 222 00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:02,920 Like we we don't have to change the whole universe in order to 223 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:05,880 get like a slightly more gratified experiences from the 224 00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:07,160 ones that we're already creating. 225 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:11,960 Reading through your book has given language to maybe some 226 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:14,960 latent feelings I've already had and some of the ways that I've 227 00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:18,320 been trying to deal with what you call dematerialization. 228 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:23,320 So having been of remote work since basically the pandemic, I 229 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:25,920 remember, you know, at that time when the whole world shut down, 230 00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:28,240 our dog was still alive at the time. 231 00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:31,440 And I would just like notice how much he would relish going for 232 00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:34,320 walks in the woods and just like stomping on the leaves and, and 233 00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:36,040 the sound of that and how much he liked it. 234 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:39,760 Or nowadays I have a little garden and it's the height of 235 00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:42,160 strawberry season. And so, you know, I spend all 236 00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:44,960 day online in my computer, but just like the picking the 237 00:13:44,960 --> 00:13:48,320 strawberries and tasting that is like literally like touching 238 00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:51,560 grass, right? And, and feeling that, and so 239 00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:57,320 coming, coming back to language, I wanted to get your help in 240 00:13:57,320 --> 00:13:59,600 sussing this out. So the subtitle of your book is 241 00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:01,280 How to Lead a More Gratifying Life. 242 00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:05,440 And you differentiate between satisfaction as pride and 243 00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:08,760 accomplishment and gratification in the sensory enchantment of 244 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,080 everyday life, which is where the the dog and the strawberry 245 00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:14,120 examples come into plays come into play. 246 00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:16,240 And so you also say that gratification is relatively 247 00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:18,080 easy. So can you help us understand 248 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:20,240 these different words and how you distinguish between them? 249 00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:23,200 Absolutely there, there's, there's three kinds of 250 00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:27,800 contentment that I describe in in the book. 251 00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:30,960 And the three are happiness, satisfaction and, and 252 00:14:30,960 --> 00:14:32,560 gratification. This is not the only way of 253 00:14:32,560 --> 00:14:34,640 slicing this pie, but it's the way that I did. 254 00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:38,040 And happiness is the one that people think about all the time. 255 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:40,360 And there's like a whole industry of happiness and how to 256 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:42,920 be more happy in a whole like social psychology of what 257 00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:45,360 happiness means. And I've always been somewhat 258 00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:49,440 suspicious of it because what does what is happiness exactly, 259 00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:52,520 actually? And one answer is it's just sort 260 00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:55,680 of overall sense of general contentment with your plight in 261 00:14:55,680 --> 00:14:58,320 your life. And it's usually focused on big 262 00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:02,480 stuff, long term stuff, your family, your relationships, your 263 00:15:02,480 --> 00:15:07,280 career, your home life, the place you live, the plight of 264 00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:09,480 your children or your pets or what have you. 265 00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:13,320 It's hard that we have a sense that it should be hard that that 266 00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:16,680 that's what we're meaning. Lives and happiness is great and 267 00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:20,200 I'm not against happiness, but it's different from satisfaction 268 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:21,920 notification, right? Yeah. 269 00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:27,560 And, and satisfaction is, is, is also like big and it's, it's 270 00:15:27,560 --> 00:15:29,640 like long term. And it also is somewhat 271 00:15:29,640 --> 00:15:32,360 retrospective. So like you finish a big project 272 00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:34,240 and you take pride in having accomplished it. 273 00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:37,440 And that could be, oh, I, I completed this building that I, 274 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:39,880 that I was, that I designed and worked on. 275 00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:42,160 Or it could mean like I mowed the lawn and I, you do kind of 276 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:44,400 put your hands in your hips and you look at what you've done and 277 00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:48,120 you say, ah, I feel delight in, in seeing the, the whole thing 278 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:51,000 come together. And satisfaction's also, it's a 279 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:52,920 great feeling and we need it. And that pride and 280 00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:57,000 accomplishment is really just so capable of delivering meaning 281 00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:00,400 to, to humankind. But gratification is weirder. 282 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:03,440 It's it, I call it the sensory enchantment of everyday life. 283 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:06,520 And it happens quickly. It, it isn't retrospective. 284 00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:08,600 It only takes place in the moment. 285 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:13,440 And if you let that moment go by, you sort of miss it forever. 286 00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:19,040 It's around us constantly, all the time, but we often overlook 287 00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:22,320 or don't notice it. And it provides these very small 288 00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,560 scale little delights and pleasures that not only 289 00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:30,960 sometimes are easy to overlook or to ignore, but we've even 290 00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:34,320 been kind of culturally trained to push aside, you know, like 291 00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:36,960 that gratification is bad because it's about indulgence 292 00:16:36,960 --> 00:16:39,880 and sensory pleasure at the level of sin rather than the 293 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:43,200 level of meaning. And you know, like I have, I 294 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:45,520 have my, my water bottle here with me. 295 00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:47,400 And you know, it's got, I don't know if you can hear it, but 296 00:16:47,400 --> 00:16:49,960 it's got ice in it. And I can feel and hear the, the 297 00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:54,080 ice tank against the metal interior of the, of the vessel. 298 00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:58,080 And that's gratifying. So sometimes I just pick up my, 299 00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:01,960 my water bottle and I, and I shake it and like, why do, why 300 00:17:01,960 --> 00:17:04,240 do I do that? Like it doesn't have purpose. 301 00:17:04,319 --> 00:17:07,760 It doesn't relate to the form of the object, but, but it, it 302 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:10,319 reminds me that I am connected to it, that there are, there are 303 00:17:10,319 --> 00:17:12,599 these objects called ice cubes that will eventually melt. 304 00:17:12,599 --> 00:17:16,960 And that I can, I can feel and hear them exist near me as like 305 00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:21,880 friends, you know, and, and, and that, that's what, that's what, 306 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:24,920 that's what like what gratification is and feels like, 307 00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:27,680 which has nothing to do with my health and why I might want to 308 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,760 hydrate, right? Or my sense of satisfaction and 309 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:35,640 having achieved a, an exercise or a personal goal that makes my 310 00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:38,480 body, you know, more adept. So that's, that's sort of like 311 00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:41,520 at A, at a general level, what those 3 terms mean to me. 312 00:17:42,120 --> 00:17:45,520 And I, I love that you brought an example that you do it 313 00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:48,560 yourself. And so it seems like the did you 314 00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:51,800 feel that writing the book also was an invitation for you to 315 00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:56,560 also pay attention to all these little interactions that you do 316 00:17:56,560 --> 00:18:00,800 it you have? Yeah, this process has been, 317 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:03,520 it's been ongoing for me. You know, I've been working on 318 00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:07,680 the book for four years or so. But when I think about it, this 319 00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:11,680 is an obsession that I've had for much longer, and it does 320 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:16,320 connect to my interest in games to the to the point we discussed 321 00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:19,400 earlier. Games are kind of like dumb 322 00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:22,280 purposeless objects. They don't need to exist. 323 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:26,280 They don't really have utility, but they're intensely 324 00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:29,000 compelling. Like what is it to make someone 325 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:33,200 want to play Candy Crush or Wordle everyday or, or, or why 326 00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:36,080 do you like touching the joystick in the buttons of 327 00:18:36,080 --> 00:18:38,480 Pac-Man or Defender in the arcade? 328 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:41,440 And like, there's not a great answer to it. 329 00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:44,480 And that's, I think that's one of the places where this started 330 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:47,400 was my interest in the kind of the kind of purposelessness of, 331 00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:50,040 of games or the relationship between games as designed 332 00:18:50,040 --> 00:18:55,040 objects and as, as forms that have no, no structure or purpose 333 00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:58,560 that's similar to to other kinds of of designed objects. 334 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:04,440 But I've also just been interested in ordinary objects 335 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:06,920 and ordinary life for a very long time. 336 00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:11,160 And, you know, those are, those are certainly fall into the 337 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:14,360 purview of of design, but sometimes we don't take them as 338 00:19:14,360 --> 00:19:17,920 seriously as we should. And when like the toast pops up 339 00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:21,800 from the toaster, I think everyone knows that they like 340 00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:24,160 that and and that they delight in it. 341 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:27,920 But but then we don't really, we don't stop to think about it. 342 00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:31,480 We don't take it as seriously as even the form of that object, as 343 00:19:31,480 --> 00:19:35,080 a piece of industrial design, which is which is also been been 344 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:38,400 notable to me. And I think some of this is like 345 00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:41,600 like gratification is a little funny as a concept because it 346 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:47,760 lives in the experience itself. It's like the pleasure of using 347 00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:52,520 the thing and inhabiting it rather than the outcome that it 348 00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:54,080 produces. Like did the product solve a 349 00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:55,960 problem? Did I accomplish my goal? 350 00:19:56,280 --> 00:20:00,200 Did the intervention that it that it, it offered improve, you 351 00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:03,960 know, my life or my community? And those are important 352 00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:07,680 questions, but they're different from asking whether something is 353 00:20:08,360 --> 00:20:12,120 gratifying. I would also say, you know, as 354 00:20:12,120 --> 00:20:18,040 someone who's worked in, in and around software and high tech, 355 00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,000 high tech, the high tech industries for a very long time. 356 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:26,040 So, so much of design got like filtered through computation, 357 00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:30,720 through design in the human computer interaction or, or, or 358 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,600 or interaction designer experience, design sense of the 359 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:38,280 word as that got overtaken by the computing sector. 360 00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:45,000 And I do think that that that kind of corner of the design 361 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:50,240 world kind of gradually stopped caring about experience and 362 00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:51,960 mostly became interested in outcomes. 363 00:20:51,960 --> 00:20:54,320 I realize that's a strange thing to say given that we have this 364 00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:57,320 whole field subfield of design called experience design. 365 00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:01,640 But isn't it really about accomplishing outcomes for the 366 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,720 designers or for the organizations that employ them 367 00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,560 rather than for the, the so-called user, for the people 368 00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:11,760 that are actually engaging with the design, with the designed 369 00:21:13,120 --> 00:21:17,760 object, you know, and feeling the way the world works in a way 370 00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:22,160 that designed objects allow. Like the, the, the ice in my 371 00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:25,880 water bottle or the, or the, or the toast popping up from the 372 00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:30,480 toaster or what have you. That just all became downplayed, 373 00:21:30,560 --> 00:21:33,080 you know? But I've always been just just 374 00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:36,080 so enamored of them, just obsessed almost with those kinds 375 00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:39,240 of encounters. And I finally decided, OK, let 376 00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:41,880 me take the obsession seriously. And we pretend like it makes 377 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,400 sense and try to make it make sense beyond my own weird brain. 378 00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:49,120 Yeah, I love it. And I think another reference 379 00:21:49,120 --> 00:21:53,640 that reminded me when I was reading your book was the movie 380 00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:55,760 Amelie Poulan. Oh yeah, sure. 381 00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:57,000 I love that movie. Yeah. 382 00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:01,920 Yeah, it's a very much like an extension of what you what you 383 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:06,040 bring in your book. And I think well as you were 384 00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:10,120 saying all about the ordinary life and objects. 385 00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:16,600 I understand that in a way you revisit the normandor which for 386 00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:21,200 the designers, many of the designers know about this 387 00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,400 concept from from this book here. 388 00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:25,440 Don't know. Yeah, I have it here. 389 00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,080 So it's which is called the design of everyday things. 390 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,800 So very much aligned with the conversation we've been having, 391 00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:36,480 but in a way you update it in a more provocative way just 392 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:39,280 because you're you're, you're bringing that the problem isn't 393 00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:42,480 bad design anymore, as Don Norman brings. 394 00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:46,640 It's the good intentions, the ADA compliance, the file codes, 395 00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:50,720 the motorized automation of the physical world that have made 396 00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:55,520 the doors, as we're using as the metaphor here, physically resist 397 00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:57,920 us. So for you, I wanted to hear 398 00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:01,120 from you a little bit more what, what's your take on that? 399 00:23:01,120 --> 00:23:03,840 Is it is, is it a design problem? 400 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:08,040 Is it a policy problem? Or is it something that us as 401 00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:12,160 designers will have to really deal with it and have to accept? 402 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:14,240 Right, right. I do have this whole chapter on 403 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:15,840 doors. Like why you can't open doors? 404 00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,400 It was funny because I was like, didn't as I was writing, I was 405 00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:21,000 like, Oh, I have to put the Don Norman stuff in. 406 00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,880 And I was like, didn't, didn't Norman do all this already? 407 00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:25,960 And I was like, I realize, no, there's still more to say. 408 00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:28,960 But it was also interesting because as you say, I mean, the 409 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:31,600 the Norman door is such a familiar example to us in the 410 00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:34,360 design community. Maybe it's even feels cliche, 411 00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:38,160 but outside of our community, most people have never even 412 00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:39,880 heard heard of that. They haven't read that book. 413 00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,440 And, and even the idea that there is perceived affordances 414 00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:44,360 and you don't know which hat, which, which side of the door to 415 00:23:44,360 --> 00:23:48,080 push or pull on, that's, that's new to people, which is, which 416 00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:51,720 is, which is interesting. I think in answer to your 417 00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:53,880 question, only one of the pictures I try to paint there is 418 00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,160 that it's, it's not just like the handle is hard to see or 419 00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:57,920 hard to hard to understand how to use. 420 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:01,000 But but yeah, now there's like regulatory environments have 421 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,000 made it so that like you have to be able to open the door 422 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,240 automatically. And there's, and there's, you 423 00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,000 know, accessibility concerns, there's fire codes that may have 424 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,040 to make it close, you know, with a motor, if there's a fire 425 00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:12,320 inside and all this kind of stuff. 426 00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,040 And I, I think the way I would, I would answer the question is 427 00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:19,320 that most problems in the world today are complicated. 428 00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,040 They're, there's what we sometimes call wicked problems. 429 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:27,680 They don't have simple solutions and they can't be solved by like 430 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:31,280 willpower or ingenuity or aesthetics alone. 431 00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:33,440 And, and doors are a good example of this, even though 432 00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,120 they seem really simple, like we've got ADA requirements and 433 00:24:36,120 --> 00:24:39,520 fire codes and liability concerns and energy efficiency 434 00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:42,560 standards and security and automatic all this stuff. 435 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,560 And like, those are all legitimate, reasonable concerns 436 00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:49,600 that should be addressed. And that means that the modern 437 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,840 door isn't like the result of bad design, but the accumulation 438 00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,560 of of all these good intentions. And then when all the good 439 00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:59,920 intentions get brought together, something goes terribly awry. 440 00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,720 So you might think of the the problem is 1 of competing 441 00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:08,200 successes rather than obvious failures. 442 00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:12,160 And I think from a design perspective, it's like, OK, that 443 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:13,960 is the condition of the design now. 444 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:15,880 That is sort of where we start from. 445 00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:18,680 And just as everything in the world feels as though it's 446 00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,080 become much more complicated today, and then it was one or 447 00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:25,080 two or three generations ago, so it is with design. 448 00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,520 We don't just like slap up a door any longer. 449 00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:31,160 And there are consequences to that, to that fact. 450 00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:35,680 Many good and many not exactly bad, but, you know, complicated. 451 00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,640 So yeah, designers need to not just accept but embrace that 452 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:46,160 circumstance as one that is is no intrinsic to every design 453 00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:49,840 problem, even seemingly simple ones like we need a an entry 454 00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,120 point into this. Structure. 455 00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,720 I wanted to go back to this theme that you brought up 456 00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:01,760 earlier of like the byproduct versus the intention of design, 457 00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:03,080 right? You're talking about user 458 00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,360 experience design versus like outcomes design, getting people 459 00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:09,360 to keep on scrolling in an app or to buy something in 460 00:26:09,360 --> 00:26:12,440 e-commerce. I remember years ago I had the 461 00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:16,440 chance to visit an Audi factory at a previous job and they 462 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,240 showed us or they're telling us about how there was a team 463 00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,520 dedicated to just like the sound and the feel of the doors 464 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,440 opening and closing in this like Audi like way, right? 465 00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:29,600 So that's like a very extreme example of like a luxury car and 466 00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,360 how much intention goes into like these little things, not 467 00:26:32,360 --> 00:26:35,080 even how the car drives, just how the door opens and closes. 468 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,520 But then as a counter example, in your book, you talk about 469 00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:41,520 your friend Tom and his experience with this thick 470 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,320 masonry paint, and you have this great onomatopoeia. 471 00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:47,040 I don't know if I'm saying this right up the Schwach loop. 472 00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:48,840 Yeah. That's that's it, yeah. 473 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:54,200 Schwach loop of this, it's more of a secondary sensory output of 474 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,760 just the way that this paint goes on his walls, right? 475 00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,560 And I don't think anybody designed the paint to do that 476 00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:04,160 and to have that pleasurable sound and feel of that. 477 00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:07,080 So, yeah, could you explore this somewhere? 478 00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:09,160 I mean, there are those, there's the Audi example, and then 479 00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,840 there's like the the paint where it just happens to be 480 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:12,840 pleasurable. Yeah, I know. 481 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:15,360 So I think it's a great, I think the Audi example is really 482 00:27:15,360 --> 00:27:18,400 helpful because you know, we've been, we've been trained to 483 00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:22,800 think of those, those, those, those experiences, those 484 00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:27,760 connections that create gratification as like secondary 485 00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:30,960 effects. You know, you're making a car 486 00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:33,560 first and foremost and has to drive and be safe. 487 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,840 And then like the doors should work in a certain way. 488 00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,160 If you have time and if it's a luxury vehicle, then you can 489 00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,800 devote the attention to it. But when you think about it, 490 00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:44,440 that stuff isn't secondary at all. 491 00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:47,640 It's, it's the part we actually experience and that we 492 00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,520 experience with as much regularity and maybe even more, 493 00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,400 more frequency than the than the driving itself. 494 00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:56,280 You, you, you turn over the ignition of the car and drive it 495 00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,280 through the city, but you open and close the door every time 496 00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,520 too. So to start from it's, it's 497 00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,880 strange and intriguing to me that we would think of the sound 498 00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,560 that the door makes as something to save for later if we have 499 00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:12,000 time, as if it's not a fundamental first order part of 500 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:16,600 experiencing a vehicle we remember like the weight of the 501 00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,480 handled or the resistance of the hinge or the sound of the latch. 502 00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,800 And, and that experience isn't confined to the, the intended 503 00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,360 function at all. Like we ought to be noticing it, 504 00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,360 even if it's not the thing that we thought we were making. 505 00:28:32,360 --> 00:28:35,800 Because then when you go to use and try it out, you see it now 506 00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,120 you know, if you're making masonry sealer, then you're 507 00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:41,760 principally concerned with getting an affordable product 508 00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:46,360 out that works well. But it is a part of the product, 509 00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,440 right? And it should be a part of, I 510 00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,840 don't know what masonry sealer design processes are like. 511 00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:53,840 I would love to learn more about that. 512 00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:59,200 But because it's so viscous, that outcome has consequences 513 00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:02,360 for using and applying it, which I know that painters talk about 514 00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,720 because they have to actually, you know, do the work. 515 00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,640 But my, my, my friend Tom and I use this stuff are, are, are 516 00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:10,920 amateurs who don't know how to use it, use it properly. 517 00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,040 So it's like, well, there's just an opportunity to think about a 518 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:18,320 design problem that we wouldn't normally construe as a design 519 00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,600 problem. This is maybe in part because 520 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:26,360 design culture still tends to privilege what a thing does or 521 00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,280 how it looks over how it feels like. 522 00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:32,440 We ask whether the product works, whether the task can be 523 00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,480 completed, you know, whether the user succeeded at accomplishing 524 00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:37,600 the goal or whether they accomplished at helping us 525 00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,720 achieve our goal. But those aren't the only 526 00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,120 questions. And, and the sensory character 527 00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:45,720 of the experiences we design. Like if those things don't 528 00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:47,960 matter, I don't know what, I don't know what we're doing. 529 00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,800 I don't know what we're doing, you know, So I, I wouldn't say 530 00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:56,400 that like designers should start intentionally engineering every 531 00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,960 sound or smell or texture like that could become rot and a 532 00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,760 little precious. And I also think that the, the 533 00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,960 turn to like you remember, like the turn to delight in UX and 534 00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,520 user experience design. Oh, we're going to create these 535 00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:13,520 delight. And I, I think maybe that was 536 00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:15,680 risky and failed. It was like more of a way to 537 00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,440 make designers feel good, especially as they started 538 00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,800 designing experiences just to produce those outcomes we were 539 00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,160 talking about, right? Yeah. 540 00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:26,800 But maybe there doesn't need to be a purpose, you know? 541 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:30,160 Some of the examples I discussed in the book are powerful because 542 00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,920 they're not designed and they're not instrumentalized. 543 00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,120 And that's what makes them such interesting lessons like Tom 544 00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,840 wasn't painting the wall to achieve the automata poetic 545 00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,280 sensory delight of Shraksh looping, but that delight emerge 546 00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,960 from the encounter. And when it did, it was real and 547 00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,400 and it was important. And from there you kind of go, 548 00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:53,080 oh, like from Tom's perspective, this is something that mattered 549 00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:54,320 to me. I want to do it more. 550 00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,720 And if we turn it over on its head and say, well, we're from a 551 00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:00,720 design perspective, the lesson is that could be the first place 552 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:02,480 you start. That could be where the design, 553 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:04,560 that where the, where the design begins. 554 00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,120 And so maybe as a way of of asking, well, how would we go 555 00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,280 about that process as designers? It's like we've become so 556 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:15,680 focused on optimizing experience that we've forgotten how much 557 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,560 experience arises accidentally. They're not features, but kind 558 00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,800 of consequences. And that's a pretty easy change 559 00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,480 to me like, OK, well, if I'm going to be interested in 560 00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:28,480 accidental or emergent properties of design, then I can 561 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:32,560 very easily commit to paying different attention to that 562 00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:36,920 design opportunity in the, in the refinement, iteration, 563 00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:40,360 testing, etcetera process, right. 564 00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,320 But you know, there's, there's a, there's another, it's like a 565 00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:46,760 flip side version of it that isn't about function, but it's 566 00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,680 about form. That like designs obsession with 567 00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:55,040 function has come alongside an equally obsessive interest in 568 00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:59,200 form apart from use, which is like a a super kind of ironic 569 00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:04,960 situation to find ourselves in. When Louis Sullivan coined the 570 00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,080 the famous design axiom, form follows function, which is like 571 00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,560 100 more than 125 years old now, right? 572 00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,880 What he actually meant was that the shape or aesthetics of a 573 00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:17,560 designed object, like a building in his case, that it should 574 00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:20,640 arise from its purpose. But that's not even how we treat 575 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,400 that idea anymore. It's more like forms. 576 00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,120 It's entirely outside of a function. 577 00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:31,040 And I think that by separating those two ideas of form and 578 00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:35,280 function and isolating them from one another over a century, 579 00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,120 really, you know, from of 20th and 21st century design, 580 00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,000 something fell out or a lot of things maybe fell out of the 581 00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:44,600 middle. And one of the things that 582 00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,960 dropped out is, is like gratifying design that that just 583 00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,520 didn't become as important as having either the correct 584 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,800 function or the correct form, whether or not those two things 585 00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,240 were connected, let alone how they felt to use. 586 00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,240 Despite the fact that we spent decades talking about actually 587 00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,320 designing how they felt to use without really doing so in a 588 00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,640 committed way. Yeah, that's great. 589 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:14,120 So I think bridging on what you just saw just said about the 590 00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:18,200 fact that we've been so much focused in optimizing the 591 00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:22,920 experience. So designers are currently 592 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,960 briefed to to make experience as frictionless as possible. 593 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:33,280 And this has been a very strong principle in UX practice. 594 00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,200 And and now there is a counter movement that says that 595 00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:41,040 designers are talk are more talking about bringing back 596 00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:46,280 meaningful friction. And I think your argument seems 597 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:50,520 to be different from both saying that gratification isn't about 598 00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:55,600 making things harder, but it's it's about noticing what's 599 00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,320 already there. And I wanted to hear your 600 00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,080 thoughts in in in into that. Like are we asking the? 601 00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,200 Right, yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up because I I have 602 00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,679 been a little upset about the recent obsession with with 603 00:34:09,679 --> 00:34:12,960 friction as a solution to a supposed problem we we face as 604 00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:14,960 users and designers. And you're right. 605 00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:16,960 I think it's wrong. I think it's entirely wrong 606 00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,360 headed to hold that friction is what's missing from the designed 607 00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:22,840 and the built environment. But I, I understand why that 608 00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:27,040 idea came about. Like everything became so smooth 609 00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,480 and so seemingly frictionless. And, you know, like the most 610 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,159 evident version of that is, is they're just glass screens 611 00:34:33,159 --> 00:34:35,520 everywhere, which are literally frictionless or smooth. 612 00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:37,480 And, and so like, oh, what's the opposite of that? 613 00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,040 Well, friction, that would be, you know, the obvious answer. 614 00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,400 But if you stop and think about the experiences you actually 615 00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:47,679 have with designed objects, then friction is the, it's the wrong 616 00:34:47,679 --> 00:34:49,679 solution. So I encounter this all the 617 00:34:49,679 --> 00:34:51,600 time. There was one that I, I 618 00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,800 experienced just just yesterday by happenstance, I was opening a 619 00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,800 container of sesame seeds for a Gelato recipe that I was working 620 00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:01,520 on. And, and it was a new bottle and 621 00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:05,000 it had one of those like freshness or safety seals. 622 00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,680 And, and it was the kind that has the sort of vertical folded 623 00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,720 clear plastic tab and you're supposed to pull up on the tab 624 00:35:10,720 --> 00:35:15,800 to release the seal. And like, it seems like a good 625 00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:17,800 design because it's got a thing you pull on. 626 00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:20,120 But I just, I just couldn't do it. 627 00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:22,240 I couldn't gain a purchase on it. 628 00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:24,000 And this happens to me all the time. 629 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,760 It feels like, you know, so I had to cut the thing out in the 630 00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,840 end and, and then I got it open, but it was like the edge was, 631 00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,480 was, was ratty now. And like, do I do I try to peel 632 00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:35,320 that off with my fingertip or what do I do? 633 00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,440 And like, that's friction. That's definitely friction, you 634 00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:39,800 know, but that's not what I wanted. 635 00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,640 What I wanted wasn't for it to be harder. 636 00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,880 I wanted the gratifying delight of successfully releasing the 637 00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,760 seal and then any like hearing it pop, you know, as it came 638 00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,520 off, maybe. And then and then disposing of 639 00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,680 the of the waste that it produced in a way that that 640 00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,800 extended that gratification for a moment that let me linger in 641 00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,000 the sensations that I'd had and then moving on with my life to 642 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,080 the next thing. And that's just not a, a 643 00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,360 friction problem at all. Or, you know, at a higher level, 644 00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:10,880 maybe in a in a way that feels more important that the recent 645 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,240 reactions against touchscreen interfaces like an automobiles 646 00:36:14,240 --> 00:36:17,760 say, you know, not really a problem of friction either. 647 00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,360 Like, like we clearly, clearly, clearly took things far too far 648 00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:25,360 to make drivers use effectively an iPad to adjust their their 649 00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:29,000 radio or climate while piloting this many ton vehicle at highway 650 00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:30,880 speed. Like that was a bad idea. 651 00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,920 But the return and it's it's only just starting the the 652 00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,600 return to like neural knobs that turn into fine increments 653 00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:40,200 instead. That's not really about 654 00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:45,080 introducing friction. It's about restoring a better 655 00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,760 sensory connection between the operator and the machine. 656 00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,880 And then once you create that sensory connection, then the 657 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,000 gratification can arise again. I'm feeling the knob, you know, 658 00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,840 in my, in my fingertips and I hear it click and I can, I can 659 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,080 determine that my action has had the intended consequence, but 660 00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,160 just any consequence whatsoever. And that makes me feel 661 00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:06,600 gratified. Yeah. 662 00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,800 So I'm like super down on on friction as an answer. 663 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,240 It's the it's the wrong answer. It's understandable why we came 664 00:37:14,240 --> 00:37:17,000 to the answer because it feels like the opposite of of 665 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,400 smoothness and lightness and ease and disappearance and 666 00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:21,960 transparency. But it's definitely not the way 667 00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:24,760 forward to me. Yeah, that's, that's a great, 668 00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,040 yeah, great example. And I think I'm, I'm, I would 669 00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:32,960 like to bring another example that you mentioned in the book 670 00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:35,680 that you write about how drinking from a particular kind 671 00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,240 of Tumblr changes how something tastes. 672 00:37:39,720 --> 00:37:41,880 Yeah, like scientifically, right. 673 00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:43,200 Right. Yeah, There's been studies 674 00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:44,000 there. It's amazing. 675 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,920 Yeah. And you call it multi modal 676 00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,520 perception. And I mean, I'm sure packaging 677 00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:55,240 and product designers probably know this by experience by 678 00:37:55,240 --> 00:38:00,680 intuitively, but they rarely get the chance to make that argument 679 00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:05,720 in the part of the brief as they're as they're designing the 680 00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:07,680 the product or the package, right? 681 00:38:07,720 --> 00:38:12,400 I think in line with the idea of the in reference of the Audi, 682 00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:17,960 Audi, Audi doors. So I wanted to hear from you, 683 00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:22,200 what would you change if that if that was taken seriously from a 684 00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:26,080 design principle point of view and not just like a side effect 685 00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:31,120 or a byproduct of yeah, of its its process. 686 00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:35,640 Yeah. I mean, I, I like to start, I 687 00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,240 think I want to say that like the most heroic design to me is, 688 00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:43,040 is the one that produces the most ordinary, the most ordinary 689 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,560 things in the most general use and, and packaging design, which 690 00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:48,720 you mentioned. Like, it may be just one of the 691 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:50,360 most interesting fields of design. 692 00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:54,000 It brings together so many disciplines so synthetically of 693 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:57,480 industrial design and business and economics and food safety, 694 00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,560 advertising, ecology or environmental design. 695 00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,600 And like at a high level, I think we're just having a really 696 00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:07,280 diverse and multifaceted set of interests and, and challenges or 697 00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:09,680 constraints. That's just like always a great 698 00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:15,040 place to be in. But like more helpfully maybe I 699 00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:19,040 think it gets back to the the form function problem I was 700 00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:20,920 mentioning earlier. Because like the really 701 00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,640 interesting stuff, the most interesting and most gratifying 702 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:27,920 things, they seem to arise from a really serious and committed 703 00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:31,080 marriage between form and and function. 704 00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:37,480 And if you design in a way that produces an object that seems 705 00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,960 less noticeable as an object, or at least seems less noticeable 706 00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:45,240 to designers as an object, then you're probably on the right 707 00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:47,840 like moral path. You're, you're in the right 708 00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:49,520 plane. You know, of, of effort. 709 00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:54,480 You remember the Philippe Stark juicer, this famous like, you 710 00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,600 know, alien arthropod looking juicer that like everybody was 711 00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:00,480 obsessed with for years. And, and first it was just an 712 00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:03,040 art object and then it was like an actual industrial design, you 713 00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,040 know, good and, and it's gorgeous, but. 714 00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,040 I don't know if you've ever tried to use one, but it's 715 00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:10,160 terrible as a as a juicer, actually. 716 00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:12,000 It's like, not the juicer you want, you know? 717 00:40:12,240 --> 00:40:13,440 It just gets stuff everywhere, right? 718 00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:15,800 It just gets stuff everywhere. And it's a mess to clean up. 719 00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,480 And you know, but if you think about something like the Oxo 720 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,840 Good Grips line of kitchen products, right? 721 00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,720 Like that is that does not have the cultural prestige of a 722 00:40:24,720 --> 00:40:28,600 Philippe Stark object. But they've literally spent 723 00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:31,640 decades like just trying to make ordinary tasks like peeling 724 00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,520 fruit, not just more functional and beautiful, but but more 725 00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:37,680 gratifying to remember what it was like to, to use like a can 726 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:41,160 opener before we had the, the, the, those kinds of tools. 727 00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,280 And you were focused more on, on the, the pain in your hand and 728 00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:47,800 on than on the sensation of the, of the, of the can of beans 729 00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:52,800 giving underneath you. So I think like stepping back 730 00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:57,240 from those examples, part of the problem starts from like what 731 00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:01,360 the question of what designers value and, and what, where they 732 00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,440 derive professional meaning and, and credibility, What makes them 733 00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:10,200 jealous of one another, even. And, and the, the, the 734 00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,400 particular kind of like, like Tumblr cups that I discussed in 735 00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,760 the book, these Carlisle sand tumblers. 736 00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:20,080 Like it's just not likely to produce envy, I think among 737 00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:24,600 professional designers, which is too bad because it's, it's not 738 00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,240 just an incredible victory of design, but it's an ordinary 739 00:41:27,240 --> 00:41:31,200 object that millions of people has touched millions of people's 740 00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:33,960 lives. And yeah, like an iPhone has 741 00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:35,440 also touched millions of people's lives. 742 00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,720 But why would we put that above the Tumblr cup? 743 00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:42,400 Like that's, that's on us and the and the things that we value 744 00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:46,520 and, and, and long for between ourselves and one another and 745 00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:48,960 and not just on the opportunities for design that 746 00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,320 exists because those opportunities are, are myriad. 747 00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,880 So, Ian, I want to turn to the elephant that's in almost every 748 00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,440 design conversation right now, which is AI. 749 00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:00,680 And you do talk about AI in your book. 750 00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:05,320 You compare AI writing and coding tools to automated 751 00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,240 restroom faucets. And so you've already mentioned 752 00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,840 in our conversation that it's not just about friction and or 753 00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,280 frictionlessness. So can you tell us more about 754 00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,800 what you mean about like, yeah, what do we lose or what's the 755 00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,840 cost of AI or where we lose something that we didn't know we 756 00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:23,240 even valued? Yeah, I mean, the, the AI 757 00:42:23,240 --> 00:42:26,720 problem is complex because it's still so new and it's moving so 758 00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:27,920 fast. And when, you know, I was 759 00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:29,840 writing this book and I was like, OK, you know, I have to be 760 00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,000 careful because anything I say will be out of date. 761 00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,440 You know, the, the main example I discuss in the book is is 762 00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,800 related to writing and language and, and the way the large 763 00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:43,280 language models can produce it. And I talk about as a writer, 764 00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:47,560 you know, that the feeling of writing, the feeling of, of like 765 00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,000 the ideas moving from my head through my fingertips into the 766 00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,600 keyboard. To me, that's a fundamental part 767 00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:56,560 of the experience of writing. And that's something that I 768 00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:59,560 don't get to do when the computer writes for me, which 769 00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:02,120 doesn't exactly mean that I don't want to use the computer's 770 00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:04,920 aid either. It's just that that that 771 00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,440 gratifying experience of literally doing the mechanics of 772 00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:14,640 writing is, is is lost. So I worry that AI offers like 773 00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,560 an excuse to sideline that process, that the process, the, 774 00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:20,840 the process of making things of any kind. 775 00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:26,480 And because gratification lives in that process of making of 776 00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:30,280 connection between yourself as a creator and the materials you'll 777 00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,760 use, you're using that I do worry that we'll, we'll lose 778 00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,120 even more of it. There will be even more 779 00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,600 dematerializing effects that AI will produce. 780 00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:41,720 But I'll, I'll say that I've also been kind of disappointed 781 00:43:41,720 --> 00:43:44,360 and, and, and quite bored with the way that many creative 782 00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:48,240 professionals have have rejected AI out of hand and said, well, 783 00:43:48,240 --> 00:43:50,720 this is obviously evil and bad. There's nothing good that can 784 00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:54,120 come of it because they're concerned either they're 785 00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:55,760 concerned about job loss or they're concerned about 786 00:43:55,760 --> 00:44:00,480 something like the, the loss of the texture of experience that 787 00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,840 I've described. So I think it's complicated in 788 00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:08,040 other words, and for me, like AI can, I mean it, it can 789 00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:13,120 facilitate synthetic design in, in new ways that that we're 790 00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:15,160 going to have, we're just going to have to figure out. 791 00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:20,640 And I don't know, I don't think it's like fatalistic or or, or 792 00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,040 or improper of me to say, well, this thing is here and it's 793 00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,120 happening. We can't put our fingers in our 794 00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:27,400 ears. And that's different from saying 795 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:29,600 just accept it like some of the technologists do. 796 00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:33,040 I think there is a middle ground that most people want to occupy. 797 00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:35,440 And you know, like I've been looking at AI assisted 798 00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:40,120 programming for a long time now. And one thing I've noticed in my 799 00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:44,280 own practice with it is the, the like these AI tools, they have 800 00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,320 led me to places I would not have thought to go and allowed 801 00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:50,960 me to ask and answer software design questions, not just 802 00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:54,840 implementation questions in ways that feel much more like detail 803 00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,120 oriented in the Audi door kind of way. 804 00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,200 And, and therefore more user centric and more gratification 805 00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:04,440 delivering Then I've had the experience myself of, of, of 806 00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,560 being inspired to pursue, let alone that I've seen in the 807 00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:11,520 commercial software sector for like a really, really long time. 808 00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:13,760 So I think our attention to detail out of like a user 809 00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,320 experience level to my points earlier, like that was already 810 00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,840 on the wane. And it's possible that some of 811 00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:22,280 these, these AI tools can actually help us recover some of 812 00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:23,080 that. But we're going to have to 813 00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,640 really, you know, figure out how to do it. 814 00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:30,640 We, we have to be drivers and not just passengers in that 815 00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:35,560 vehicle. And I worry that, I worry that 816 00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,320 the design professions are not sufficiently in charge, which is 817 00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:41,000 all sorts of reasons for it, right? 818 00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,520 But we're getting we're going to need to right that ship before 819 00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:46,720 we can sail it. Right. 820 00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:51,080 Yeah, it's almost like a reminder to revisit that old 821 00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,880 school computer science idea of garbage in, garbage out or in 822 00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,480 design language, like having the right questions with the right 823 00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:00,600 brief first. And I feel like sometimes with 824 00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:04,000 the, I don't know, the, the seductive newness of AI, we 825 00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,400 sometimes forget that. And it's like we jump into that 826 00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:08,000 and it's like, oh, OK, it's crap. 827 00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:12,080 It's slop or we it's the other way to go. 828 00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:12,720 It's all. Great. 829 00:46:12,720 --> 00:46:16,240 The the easy answer is worth getting out first because it's 830 00:46:16,240 --> 00:46:19,240 easy. And then from there you must ask 831 00:46:19,240 --> 00:46:23,040 another question that's harder. And we're not quite yet at that 832 00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:24,480 point. We're still sort of circling 833 00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:26,920 around the easy answer. It's slop, it's garbage, it's 834 00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:30,000 evil. And you know, it can be that and 835 00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,280 also be something else. And we have to be able to hold 836 00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:33,880 competing ideas in our heads at once. 837 00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:38,160 And I I think that a good designer already has to be good 838 00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:40,640 at holding competing ideas in their head at once, so this 839 00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,480 should come a little more naturally than to other people 840 00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:47,000 from other walks of life. Yeah, you gave this example in a 841 00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,640 different podcast where you talked about how AI helped you 842 00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,760 fix an irrigation system, right, Right. 843 00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:55,920 Sort of way to re engage with the physical world without 844 00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,840 having to go through endless YouTube tutorials and stuff like 845 00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:00,360 that. That was more targeted. 846 00:47:00,720 --> 00:47:02,920 Could you tell us a little bit? More, I mean it's, it's like I, 847 00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:05,680 I had I was trying to fix my irrigation backflow because it 848 00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:07,840 was broken at the start of the season and I was doing all this 849 00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:09,360 stuff and I was like, I don't know how to I don't know what 850 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:11,400 I'm doing. You know, AI is pretty good at 851 00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,600 that actually. It'll help you understand 852 00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:18,320 something at a basic level that you might not understand at all. 853 00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,280 And as I, as I, it invited me to engage with that mechanism 854 00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,560 attached to my house and I had to get out a wrench and I had 855 00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,800 to, to open the bonnet of this brass fitting. 856 00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,520 And you know, like, I injured myself against, like I scraped 857 00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:34,840 my thumb against the, the, the, the, the stone side of the 858 00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,760 structure into doing. I can still feel like the, the 859 00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,000 scarring, you know, where, where I did that, which is like not 860 00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,080 pleasant, but it's actually kind of gratifying that I was 861 00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:44,480 connected to the world in that way. 862 00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:47,640 And I, I learned what the parts were and I, I, I repaired it 863 00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:49,960 sort of, but not fully. I had to get the professional 864 00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:51,600 out in the end. And they also had to certify it 865 00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:52,720 because that's how it works here. 866 00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,760 And so I became like much more deeply engaged with a, an 867 00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:01,040 element of the, of the physical world than I ever would have 868 00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:03,800 been otherwise, in part because I'm, I'm fortunate to own my 869 00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:07,080 house and have a commitment to, to upkeep it, which is something 870 00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:10,120 I also talked about in the book. But also because I had this 871 00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:13,320 channel through AI that it was like, hey, like, maybe you can 872 00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:16,000 do it, Maybe you can do it. I thought, OK, you know, maybe I 873 00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:20,480 can and I couldn't, but I, I also could to some extent. 874 00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:25,000 And I have found myself just just thinking about those kinds 875 00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:27,560 of questions, being open to those kinds of questions much 876 00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,200 more than I would have been without this strange 877 00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:31,960 interlocutor. And like, that doesn't solve all 878 00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:34,840 the questions of, of, you know, who the data centers and the 879 00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,320 energy usage and the water and all that other stuff that people 880 00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:39,120 are concerned about with, with, with, you know, they're 881 00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:42,240 justifiably concerned about. I'm not downplaying them, but 882 00:48:42,240 --> 00:48:44,440 it's also doing these really interesting things and and 883 00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,960 reconnecting me and others with the physical world in a way that 884 00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:50,800 that that nothing else really has, including like YouTube 885 00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,280 tutor. That's a great example. 886 00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:59,720 So Ian, in in your book, there's a chapter named Get a Haircut 887 00:48:59,720 --> 00:49:04,560 every day and you bring a reflection about the SMR 888 00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:10,680 phenomenon that's been going on for for years now online. 889 00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,440 And then basically it's millions of people are watching videos of 890 00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:17,560 someone folding towels, tapping objects, making noise and all 891 00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:18,400 that. So. 892 00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:22,200 Yeah, yeah, very much connected very much as as the thesis of 893 00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,960 your book, which is reconnecting with the physicality sensorial 894 00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:31,360 experience, but essentially the the role-playing sensory 895 00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:35,080 attention. It's also making folks just 896 00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:41,000 increase their screen time. And I wonder if you can talk 897 00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,280 more about it. It's not like an it's not 898 00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,240 actually inviting folks to do it is they're just sitting there 899 00:49:46,240 --> 00:49:48,920 watching other people do it. So, yeah. 900 00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:53,360 Is that something that you worry about in a way that is it a 901 00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:58,280 proposed solution for more for the fact that this is a 902 00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:02,680 consequence of such phenomenon? Yeah, I think broadly speaking, 903 00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,480 I think we're a little too obsessed with this screen time 904 00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,600 problem in, in, in general. Like we like, let's say we were 905 00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:14,000 reading books instead. And you know, if we like be 906 00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,000 measuring the amount of time people are spending turning 907 00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,000 pages of books and sort of saying, well, you're you're kind 908 00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:20,440 of book time, your page time is too high or whatever. 909 00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:22,760 No, we'd like, Oh my God, thank God that you're like engaging 910 00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:27,200 with information and ideas. And so, you know, screens are 911 00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:32,920 the instrument by, by which we, we create and consume ideas and 912 00:50:32,920 --> 00:50:34,360 information now. So like, no wonder we're 913 00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:35,320 spending so much time with these. 914 00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:39,080 But, but I mean, I, I do think, and like, I think these, I, 915 00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:42,400 first of all, I think these ASMR creators are like heroes and 916 00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:46,920 heroines for, for drawing attention to what it looks like 917 00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:51,600 when you treat ordinary objects with respect and in this deeply 918 00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:53,880 serious way. And like when a pile of towels 919 00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:57,880 or a garment or a cup or a piece of cellophane, it gets really 920 00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:00,720 and earnestly and unironically treated like a friend or a 921 00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:04,520 companion as an equal rather than as an instrument or a piece 922 00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:06,880 of waste. That lesson is worth almost 923 00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:10,400 anything to me, including the screen time it costs to do it. 924 00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,880 Now, if that were the only thing you were ever doing was like 925 00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:17,920 watching, you know, young women tap on the side of, of, of 926 00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:21,440 shampoo bottles or something, then yes, I'd, I'd be, I'd be 927 00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:22,760 worried. It can of course become a 928 00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:27,080 perversion like anything else, but it's a starting point and 929 00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:31,240 it, and I, I, I, I think and believe that if you watch these 930 00:51:31,240 --> 00:51:35,840 videos, you, your relationship to your own, like laundry 931 00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:39,040 changes. It's not just for relaxation or 932 00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:40,680 something. It's also like when, when you 933 00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:42,880 are engaged with those objects in the world now you think of 934 00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:48,520 them in a different way. And that change of attitude is 935 00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:51,040 what's needed. So you can think of it as a as 936 00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:53,680 like vicarious gratification, which is one of the ways I talk 937 00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:57,040 about it in the book, which isn't an end goal, but it is an 938 00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:58,920 intermediary step. It's a way of kind of being 939 00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:01,920 introduced to, OK, I've been dematerialized for so long. 940 00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:05,280 What does it even mean to connect to the physical world? 941 00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:08,320 And, you know, here's one idea. Here's one answer is, well, 942 00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:09,880 like, what about those towels, though? 943 00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,080 You know, what about the garment on your body right now and the 944 00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:14,000 feeling of it? What if you just touched it for 945 00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:16,600 a minute and it made a sound and it had a feeling underneath your 946 00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:19,360 fingertips and, and then you can kind of move on from that and 947 00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,200 live the rest of your life because those moments are so 948 00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:25,840 constant and they're happening all the time. 949 00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:30,160 So instead of this sort of cynical answer of like, well, 950 00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:34,520 this is just a waste of time or it's going to lead us astray 951 00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:38,360 into addiction. It's more of a like, how can we 952 00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:40,480 use that as an example of curiosity? 953 00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:44,600 I, I wish that all of us were more curious and more more 954 00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:50,720 intrigued by the, by the design problems, the the depth and 955 00:52:50,720 --> 00:52:53,640 breadth of the universe around us. 956 00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:59,400 There's this famous 1972 Charles Eames interview that that I'm 957 00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:02,960 obsessed with in which he's talking about about constraints, 958 00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:04,480 but he's talking about the process of design. 959 00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:07,400 They said, well, design is really a process of, of working 960 00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:10,040 within constraints, which is a familiar idea to all of us in 961 00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,360 the design world. Interviewers like, well, what 962 00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:15,280 constraints? And he says the sum of all 963 00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:18,880 constraints, anything, anything whatsoever kind of that needs to 964 00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:20,440 count for you. You have to be have the 965 00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:25,080 enthusiasm to work within any constraint whatsoever, time, 966 00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:28,760 strength, cost, what have you. And, you know, like, I think any 967 00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,080 designer, they like not along. Oh, yeah, like, that's totally 968 00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:32,440 true. You know, of course he's right. 969 00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:36,200 But have we embraced all of them like a thing that is not 970 00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,240 remarkable, that is instead unremarkable, like a towel or 971 00:53:39,240 --> 00:53:42,720 like a shampoo bottle? Like, is that a constraint 972 00:53:42,720 --> 00:53:45,640 you're willing to embrace the problem itself, you know, and 973 00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:48,600 the whole purpose of design in a way is to take those 974 00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:53,840 unremarkable things and make them remarkable or to take 975 00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,040 remarkable things and make them unremarkable again, to make 976 00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:57,280 them. Do you know that that's where 977 00:53:57,280 --> 00:53:59,800 the, where the idea of transparency came from? 978 00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,160 And I, I just don't always see as much of that curiosity and 979 00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:06,000 openness about the object of design or the domain of design 980 00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:08,880 as I would like. So, yeah, it's weird a little 981 00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:10,760 bit the ASMR thing. And like I, you know, I also 982 00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:14,040 talked about like drain clearing videos on TikTok and you know, 983 00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:15,960 there's, there's a lot of stuff online you see, and you're like, 984 00:54:16,720 --> 00:54:19,960 is that that's not normal? But the purpose isn't it really 985 00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:21,600 to say, well, that should be normal. 986 00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:23,680 But rather This is why is this compelling? 987 00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:26,520 Why is this interesting? What lesson can I learn from 988 00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:28,040 that? And how can I bring that to the 989 00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:32,680 next stage of of my own work? You know which for a designer is 990 00:54:32,720 --> 00:54:34,360 is is making objects in the world. 991 00:54:34,960 --> 00:54:38,920 Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, I wanted to talk about 992 00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:44,160 this concept of orthogonality, orthogonality that you bring up 993 00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,280 in your book. You have a chapter called Live 994 00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:49,360 Your Life Sideways. And so this is really about like 995 00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:53,360 doing something outside, maybe framing this for designers in 996 00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:55,840 our audience. It's like not just about looking 997 00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:58,920 at other people's designs for inspiration on Pinterest, but 998 00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:01,360 it's something else, whether it's looking at drain clearing 999 00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:06,040 videos or ASMR like things that are just outside of our prime 1000 00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:09,080 professional fields. Can you tell us more about what 1001 00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:10,840 you mean by this? Yeah. 1002 00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:13,160 And you know, in the context of the book, the idea of 1003 00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:17,320 orthogonality is like, if you think about, you know, your, 1004 00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:20,960 your relationship with the physical world, your, your 1005 00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:23,880 sensory relationship with the physical world, then one way of 1006 00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:27,840 enriching it is diversifying is having like a, a more diverse 1007 00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:31,320 diet of sensory encounters. And so if you spend your time at 1008 00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:34,840 your desk at, at, at, at a job, then doing things that are 1009 00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:36,800 different from that, which could mean like knitting or tying 1010 00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,320 flies for fly fishing or gardening or whatever it is. 1011 00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:43,000 That makes sense as a way of introducing these, these sort of 1012 00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:47,960 orthogonal sensory experiences in your life, which can add 1013 00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:50,800 diversity and richness. But you're asking like a kind of 1014 00:55:51,240 --> 00:55:53,880 orthogonal question in a way to the question of orthogonality, 1015 00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,960 which is like, well, what can we learn from that at a, at a 1016 00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:01,160 professional level? And you know, similar to the 1017 00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,920 point I was making about product design, I think that as someone 1018 00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:08,880 who has been like someone who kind of operates like a sort of 1019 00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:12,920 coyote, you know, metaphorically like, like a someone who crosses 1020 00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:16,840 boundaries, kind of moves between various fields and 1021 00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:20,680 doesn't really belong in anyone. I've been so grateful for that 1022 00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:23,480 over my career. And I think the more that people 1023 00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:26,560 from any walk of life, but certainly from design fields, 1024 00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:29,720 the more they encounter different contexts and different 1025 00:56:29,720 --> 00:56:32,720 people and different problems. And like at a deep level, like 1026 00:56:32,720 --> 00:56:34,680 not just in passing. I'm like, let's hand this off to 1027 00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,200 the engineer. That's not really my job to deal 1028 00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:40,240 with. They will always become better 1029 00:56:40,240 --> 00:56:42,760 at what they at what they at what they do. 1030 00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:46,720 And you know, you don't want to be like just kind of scattershot 1031 00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:50,920 pursuing interests, but you, you often know, when you see it's 1032 00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:53,920 like, oh, I'm working on this, this problem and this other 1033 00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:56,040 thing comes up. It's like clearly really deep, 1034 00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,440 like that, that whole universe. I could spend my whole life 1035 00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:03,120 inside of that question. And so, you know, instead of 1036 00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:05,160 saying all that, that's like, I'll just hand that off to 1037 00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,720 somebody else or I'll or I'll lose myself down that road. 1038 00:57:08,720 --> 00:57:13,160 It's rather the pursuit of that kind of orthogonal interest 1039 00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:15,760 might lead you somewhere. You didn't, you didn't think to 1040 00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:19,600 think, you know, And so that kind of gets back to the idea of 1041 00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:21,480 curiosity and openness. And I realize we're all very 1042 00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:23,960 busy and we have a lot of, you know, challenges and we have 1043 00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,040 clients and, and, and budgets and everything kind of pressing 1044 00:57:27,040 --> 00:57:33,560 down on us. But even Despite that, the thing 1045 00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:36,520 that will make you successful and the thing that will make 1046 00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:41,320 the, the, the objects that you, that you build in the world 1047 00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:46,600 meaningful and lasting is that they are somehow both the same 1048 00:57:46,600 --> 00:57:49,200 and different from what has come before. 1049 00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:53,360 And one of the easiest ways to achieve that is to put together 1050 00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:57,120 2 domains that are obviously related, but that haven't 1051 00:57:57,120 --> 00:58:01,320 really, that haven't made it productively before. 1052 00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:05,440 Like, that's just like, that's just fertile ground always. 1053 00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,240 So that that that may be one way of like interpreting the the 1054 00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:11,240 lesson of orthogonality at A at a professional level rather than 1055 00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:13,120 just at a level of daily practice. 1056 00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:19,200 Thank you for sharing. That So as we move towards the 1057 00:58:19,200 --> 00:58:23,520 closing chapter, Ian I, since you're very reflective and 1058 00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:30,040 critical in the design regarding the design world, I wanted to 1059 00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:35,160 hear what if you could choose one thing to redesign that could 1060 00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:40,200 be a system, a product, a space, an institution or an experience. 1061 00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:43,280 What would it be? OK, this is an easy one. 1062 00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:46,920 I have, I have this running joke that we need to shut down 1063 00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,320 architecture schools until we can figure out airport restrooms 1064 00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:53,400 because like airport restrooms are just, they're just, they're 1065 00:58:53,400 --> 00:58:55,640 just terrible. And I, I used to think that it 1066 00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:58,200 was a, a problem of the, the, the changing nature of air 1067 00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:00,880 travel over the years and decades in old infrastructure. 1068 00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:04,440 But no, no, even in like brand new airport terminals, they 1069 00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,320 just, they just don't work. It's as if nobody thought about 1070 00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:09,640 the people in context to use them and how they do. 1071 00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:13,760 So getting in and out with your role aboard and where you're 1072 00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:17,560 coming from and going to and the kind of, you know, like that 1073 00:59:17,560 --> 00:59:20,360 experience to of like touching so many people in such an 1074 00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:24,360 intimate way under so much time and emotional pressure. 1075 00:59:25,120 --> 00:59:28,440 To me, that's like the ultimate high watermark in the in built 1076 00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:30,800 environmental design. It's not the form of the of the 1077 00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:33,720 structure or, or, or the public art that's been put inside of 1078 00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:35,000 it. If you can get the airport 1079 00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:36,880 bathroom right, then you can do anything. 1080 00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:39,960 I love that. I love that. 1081 00:59:41,240 --> 00:59:46,360 And what what have has been inspiring you lately? 1082 00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:53,160 That could be like a movie or book, an exhibition, an author. 1083 00:59:53,240 --> 00:59:57,320 I don't know anything that has been a source of inspiration for 1084 00:59:57,320 --> 00:59:59,840 you. I mean, one of the things I've 1085 00:59:59,840 --> 01:00:03,280 been super interested in in the design world over the last few 1086 01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:07,560 years is this practice called design fiction, which folks like 1087 01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:09,920 Julian Bleeker and Bruce Sterling and others have been 1088 01:00:09,920 --> 01:00:13,800 advocating, which is like all about, like, it's like science 1089 01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:15,400 fiction but with designed objects. 1090 01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:20,440 Like what if you designed counterfactual things? 1091 01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:23,440 As if they existed and that was your way of sort of asking and 1092 01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:28,400 answering questions about them. And I, I tried this with some of 1093 01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:30,440 my students in an AI class that we did. 1094 01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:34,440 And, and I guess the thing that was most inspiring to me about 1095 01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:38,720 that, that domain or that sort of approach for my own work is 1096 01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:42,560 not, not just like trying to imagine the future to help, you 1097 01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:46,080 know, Fortune 1000 companies design new products. 1098 01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:48,920 I find myself like looking like about you. 1099 01:00:48,960 --> 01:00:50,880 I was so glad you brought up product packaging. 1100 01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:52,640 I'm both inspired and disturbed by it. 1101 01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:56,000 Like, why, why does the why does the Heinz ketchup bottle so much 1102 01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:59,240 better than it once was? But yet still the valve like is 1103 01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:02,080 like you have to squeeze so much ketchup out at once. 1104 01:01:02,080 --> 01:01:04,840 And like, are they just trying to get me through all that 1105 01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:07,000 ketchup or right? So you buy more ketchup? 1106 01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:08,760 Yeah, so. I buy more ketchup or like, 1107 01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:14,200 what's the thinking beyond that? So I'm just try to be so 1108 01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:17,000 fascinated with anything. It's not a movie or a book or a 1109 01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:19,680 video game anymore for me. It's like what's the most 1110 01:01:19,680 --> 01:01:24,360 mundane ordinary object that I can become endlessly fascinated 1111 01:01:24,360 --> 01:01:26,200 by? And imagine discussing at the 1112 01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:29,880 level of fandom of an obsession that someone would talk about, 1113 01:01:30,120 --> 01:01:33,920 you know, Star Wars, the MCU about that's that's sort of a 1114 01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:38,120 compass bearing for me lately. And can you tell our viewers and 1115 01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:40,640 listeners where they can find more about you and your new 1116 01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:44,200 book, The Small Stuff? I'm at bogos.com that's my last 1117 01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:48,280 name. It's BOGO st.com and you can 1118 01:01:48,640 --> 01:01:51,200 pre-order the book which is out July 7th. 1119 01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:55,400 Small Stuff, book.com. Wonderful. 1120 01:01:55,680 --> 01:01:58,120 Ian Bogos, thank you for spending some time with us on 1121 01:01:58,120 --> 01:01:59,480 the Edge. Thank you so much, I really 1122 01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:02,200 enjoyed this. And thank you to our listeners 1123 01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:04,280 and viewers. You can find us on YouTube or 1124 01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:08,360 wherever you get podcasts. Please leave us a review or tell 1125 01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:10,440 a friend about us. I'm Li Shan Huang. 1126 01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:11,320 Until next time.