Hi all,
I took Friday off. I was running behind on some of my self imposed spring gardening pleasures. I wanted to get them done so that I could enjoy the greater pleasure of sitting back during the warmer weather to come in the next few days, and enjoying the visual delight of accomplishing splendid order out of chaos.
So I have just come across this typically badly designed phd-design list thread with all its usual pugilistic muscular shadow boxing.
One of the everyday things we get to design and refine throughout our lives are the conversations we have with each other at dinner parties, on lists, and in gardens on warm spring days. A great deal of our preoccupation in this brief historical moment is with so called "user centred design". It's therefore interesting to read an account of a designed and highly refined conversation by one of its champions that seems to serve the interests of one user only, the designer himself.
The conversation in this case, like a well rehearsed set of chess moves, forces the defender to unsuccessfully use the Humpty Dumpty defence (see Lewis Carol). I seem to remember an earlier thread on this list in which the designer of this conversation used the Humpty Dumpty defence and it passed on to the next move successfully without challenge. Such are the affordances of life!
This is yet another example to add to our long tradition in design thinking of do-as-I-say, not as-I-do.
If you are unfamiliar with the Humpty Dumpty defence, here it is:
> "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less."
>
> "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
>
> "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."
The implied but unstated part of the relationship is 'servant' to HD's self appointment as 'master'an interesting inversion of the contemporary view of the relationship between language and power. But I particularly like what is said next:
> Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper some of them- particularly verbs: they're the proudest- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs- however,I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"
And there is much more which follows providing many conversational moves that open up universes of possibility for conversation in the garden on a warm spring day.
I'm with Fiona and Alice, but after a bottle of wine I become HD.
David
--
blog: http://communication.org.au/blog/
web: http://communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO Communication Research Institute
helping people communicate with people
Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
Phone: +61 (0)3 9005 5903
Skype: davidsless
60 Park Street Fitzroy North Melbourne Australia 3068
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