Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Quote Related to Software As Tool With Unpredictable Uses

Just noting down this bit from the article "Question (is) Everything: Design that answers unimagined questions" by Michele Tepper:

Thomas Pynchon, offering advice to aspiring writers, said that "as a corollary to writing about what we know maybe we should be getting familiar with our ignorance." Pynchon's advice resonates not just for writers but for thinkers and creators of all sorts. Getting familiar with our ignorance as product designers should mean, among other things, that we accept that our creations will wind up as the answers to questions that haven't been formulated yet, and that we find ways to let users write what they know on our creations as well.
...Just a note for myself, related to the topic that software is a tool, and you should acknowledge, when designing it, the fact that you can't predict the sorts of situations it will be used in, the kinds of uses it will be put to.

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