10 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2023
  2. Dec 2022
    1. A provocation is a statement that we know is wrong or impossible but used to create new ideas.

      The idea of expressing the worst possible idea first in brainstorming can often often be helpful.

      Example: when brainstorming restaurant suggestions for a group, suggest McDonalds first to subtly pressure people to create better ideas to prevent the lowest common denominator from winning.

    2. Critics have characterized lateral thinking as a pseudo-scientific concept, arguing de Bono's core ideas have never been rigorously tested or corroborated.[4]

      Melechi, Antonio (11 June 2020). Weintraub, Pam (ed.). "Lateral thinking is classic pseudoscience, derivative and untested". Aeon Essays. Aeon.co.

    3. The term was first used in 1967 by Maltese psychologist Edward de Bono in his book The Use of Lateral Thinking.
    4. Lateral thinking is a manner of solving problems using an indirect and creative approach via reasoning that is not immediately obvious.
  3. Jul 2021
    1. Blogging, I want to argue, is a seasoned technology that is ripe for lateral thinking.
    2. I think it was also Robin Sloan who recently directed my attention to this Wikipedia page on the late Nintendo designer Gunpei Yokoi, who promoted what he called “Lateral Thinking with Seasoned Technology”: finding new and unexpected uses for technologies that have been around for a while and therefore (a) have clear patterns of use that you can rely on even when deviating from them, and (b) have decreased in price.

      Something interesting about this that I may want to revisit.

  4. Mar 2017
    1. Some key themes arise from the two NNG reports on iPad usability: App designers should ensure perceived affordances / discoverability There is a lack of consistency between apps, lots of ‘wacky’ interaction methods. Designers should draw upon existing conventions (either OS or web) or users won’t know what to do. These are practical interaction design observations, but from a particular perspective, that of perceptual psychology. These conclusions are arrived at through a linear, rather than lateral process. By giving weight to building upon existing convention, because they are familiar to the user, there is a danger that genuinely new ideas (and the kind of ambition called for by Victor Bret) within tablet design will be suppressed. Kay’s vision of the Dynabook came from lateral thinking, and thinking about how children learn. Shouldn’t the items that we design for this device be generated in the same way?

      The idea of lateral thinking here is the key one. Can informatics be designed by nurturing lateral thinking? That seems related with the Jonas flopology