The Informed Life

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Dan Brown on IA Lenses Dec 05, 2021

Show notes

Dan Brown is the co-founder of UX design studio EightShapes. He’s also the author of Communicating Design, Designing Together, and Practical Design Discovery. In this conversation, we focus on Dan’s Information Architecture Lenses, a set of cards that help designers interrogate IA decisions.

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Show notes

Dan Brown
Dan Brown on LinkedIn
@brownorama on Twitter
@ialenses on Twitter
EightShapes
EightShapes’s YouTube channel
Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning by Dan Brown
Designing Together: The collaboration and conflict management handbook for creative professionals by Dan Brown
Practical Design Discovery by Dan Brown
Information Architecture Lenses: Perspectives on Structure by Dan Brown
Information Architecture Lenses card deck
A Lens A Day YouTube series
A Lens A Day podcast
Tree testing
Card sorting
Oblique Strategies
I Ching
Nathan Curtis
James Melzer
Karen McGrane
The Information Architecture Conference

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Hans Krueger on the Cycle of Emotions Nov 21, 2021

Show notes

Hans Krueger is co-founder of the international design consultancy MetaDesign. He also co-founded another design consultancy, FutureDraft, where we worked together for several years. In this conversation, we discuss Hans’s trajectory and how ancient teachings have helped him better understand his emotions.

Show notes

Hans Krueger (LinkedIn)
Now Partners
Erik Spiekermann
Uli Mayer-Johanssen
MetaDesign
Arnaud Maitland
Nyingma school of Buddhism
FutureDraft
Walter Link
The Cycle of Emotions - A guide to influencing reality by Jessica Fan
Longchenpa
Kindly Bent to Ease Us – Part One: Mind by Longchenpa
Kindly Bent to Ease Us - Part Two: Meditation by Longchenpa
Kindly Bent to Ease Us - Part Three: Wonderment by Longchenpa

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Annie Murphy Paul on The Extended Mind Nov 07, 2021

Show notes

Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, Time magazine, The Best American Science Writing, and other publications.

Our conversation focuses on the subject of her latest book, The Extended Mind, which is about how human cognition relies on our bodies, other people, and the material world. I loved this book and was thrilled to ask Annie about how this line of thinking plays out in the context of our heavily digitized lives.

Show notes

Annie Murphy Paul
@anniemurphypaul on Twitter
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul
The Cult of Personality Testing: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves by Annie Murphy Paul
Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives by Annie Murphy Paul
Book Notes: “The Extended Mind” by Jorge Arango
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Andy Clark
David Chalmers
Carol Dweck
Apple Watch
Interoception
Robert Caro
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro
Miro
Mural

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Patrick Tanguay on Newsletter Curation Oct 24, 2021

Show notes

Patrick Tanguay is a self-described "generalist, synthesist, and curator of eclectic ideas." His weekly newsletter, Sentiers, surfaces deep posts about highly relevant topics and provides insightful commentary and ideas. In this conversation, we discuss the tools and methods that enable his curation and sharing process.

Show notes

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Nathan Shedroff on Foodicons Oct 10, 2021

Show notes

Nathan Shedroff is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and a colleague at the California College of the Arts, where we both teach in the graduate interaction design program. Nathan has worked for a long time on driving innovation and sustainability through design. This conversation focuses on his latest project: Foodicons, which is creating a shared, open-source, and royalty-free iconographic language of food.

Show notes

Nathan Shedroff
@nathanshedroff on Twitter
California College of the Arts MDES
Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable by Nathan Shedroff
Foodicons
Green Brown Blue
The Lexicon
The Noun Project Foodicons collection
Evapotranspiration
Information Architects by Richard Saul Wurman
Multimedia Demystified

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Sunni Brown on Deep Self Design Sep 26, 2021

Show notes

Sunni Brown is a social entrepreneur who uses visual literacy, design thinking, and visual facilitation to solve complex problems. She's the author of The Doodle Revolution and co-author of Gamestorming.

In this conversation, we discuss Sunni's current area of focus, which uses Zen Buddhism and design thinking to help individuals craft a more fulfilling and engaged life.

Show notes

Sunni Brown
Deep Self Design
Sunni on Twitter
Sunni on LinkedIn
Sunni on Instagram
Sunni on Facebook
The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently by Sunni Brown
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo
Dave Mastronardi (LinkedIn)
What is a multipotentialite?
The Nexialist approach: Van Vogt and the idea that ‘specialisation is for insects’
Sōtō Zen
Zendō
Reality distortion field
_Liminal Thinking: Create the Change You Want by Changing the Way You Think_ by Dave Gray
In defense of the visual alphabet by Dave Gray
Design personas
Kate Rutter (LinkedIn)
Brené Brown
Sesshin
Double diamond diagram

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Karl Fast on Interactionism, part 2 Sep 12, 2021

Show notes

Karl Fast is an independent scholar, information architect, and futurist. He's the co-author of Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Understanding. This is the second half of a two-part conversation about interaction and embodiment. If you haven't done so already, please listen to part 1 before listening to this episode.

Show notes

@karlfast on Twitter
Karl Fast on LinkedIn
Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Understanding by Stephen P. Anderson and Karl Fast
Bruce Alexander
The Rat Park experiments
Bill Verplank's diagram of interaction
Epigenetics
About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design, 4th Ed by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, avid Cronin, and Christopher Noessel
Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought by Barbara Tversky
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian (Bonus: Jorge's book notes)
The paperclip maximizer problem
Punctuated equilibrium

Disclosure: I received Karl’s book for free as a previous Rosenfeld Media/Two Waves author.

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Karl Fast on Interactionism, part 1 Aug 29, 2021

Show notes

Karl Fast is an independent scholar, information architect, and futurist. He's the co-author of Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Understanding alongside Stephen Anderson, who was featured in episode 39 of the show. In this conversation, Karl tells us about what interaction designers can learn from cognitive science. We had a lot to discuss, so this episode is the first of two on the subject.

Show notes

@karlfast on Twitter
Karl Fast on LinkedIn
Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Understanding by Stephen P. Anderson and Karl Fast
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Stroop effect
The Extended Mind by Andy Clark and David Chalmers
Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension by Andy Clark
HCI Remixed: Essays on Works That Have Influenced the HCI Community, edited by Thomas Erickson and David W. McDonald
On Distinguishing Epistemic From Pragmatic Action by David Kirsch and Paul Maglio (pdf)
The Intelligent Use of Space by David Kirsch
Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think by Susan Goldin-Meadow
Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine by Don Norman
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition by Don Norman
Hans Moravec

Mags Hanley on Career Architecture Aug 15, 2021

Show notes

In this conversation, we discuss Career Architecture, the focus of her current coaching work and subject of her upcoming book.

Listen to the show

Download episode 68

Show notes

MagsHanley.com
Mags Hanley on LinkedIn
Seth Godin
BBC
Career Architecture by Mags Hanley (preorder)

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

Listener questions Aug 01, 2021

Show notes

No guest in this episode. Instead, I answer listener questions. If you have a question you'd like me to address on the show, please email me at live@theinformed.life or tweet to @informed_life.

Listen to the show

Download episode 67

Show notes