Renewing Spaces
Every few months, my wife and I change around our apartments configuration. The way this manifests…
November 16, 2021
4 min
Hi! I'm Andrew.
I write about design, research, and society.
These days, I do UX research on open source robotics, but I also run Knowsi.
Skill Spalling
The skills we develop aren’t permanent. They’re things that develop within a particular context…
November 07, 2021
4 min
Learning with Pressure, Time, and Surface Area
Since moving to Copenhagen, one of the things I’ve been experimenting with has been how to learn…
October 20, 2021
7 min
Being a Good Amateur
We’re amateurs continuously throughout our lives. For some skills — vital but sporadic skills — we…
October 12, 2021
7 min
Avoiding Kits
I am often “getting started.” Part of the theory of Diverge, to be honest, is being in that frequent…
September 28, 2021
5 min
Homeric Design Strategy
I was one course away from a minor in Classics when I graduated from the University of Toronto. It…
September 13, 2021
5 min
Kitbashing Experience
We’re in a golden age (cue: ominous sound that comes with a loaded word) of prototyping. For most…
August 31, 2021
6 min
Functional Immersion
I’ve fairly recently changed my mind about virtual reality. Much of my sensibility as an interaction…
August 22, 2021
7 min
Visceral Control
One of the pleasures and horrors of modernity is the control of something larger and more powerful…
August 17, 2021
6 min
Peripherals
I’ve had a long term obsession with peripherals. Peripherals are objects (usually interaction…
August 08, 2021
5 min
Automating Research Recruiting
This is a continuation of the previous post — thinking through research automation — which deals…
August 03, 2021
6 min
Thinking through Research Automation
(This is part 1 of several posts describing research automation. The following posts will describe…
July 26, 2021
6 min
Zombie Nonprofits
This is a republish of an article written with Dahna Goldstein for the Chronicle of Philanthropy. A…
July 11, 2021
7 min
Migration and Circumstance
As a forewarning, this is one of those “I’m working through something” posts and trying to wrangle…
July 06, 2021
6 min
Designers in the Military
What does it mean to design for the propagation of security? In a way, this is one of the grand…
June 28, 2021
6 min
Bootstrapping Infrastructure in the Public Interest
“You are not connected to a network.” When flashed across a screen on any range of devices, these…
June 22, 2021
5 min
Professional Warning People
There are professional Cassandras out there and their curse isn't coming from Apollo this time — but…
June 15, 2021
5 min
Breathing In and Out, or Two Approaches to Design Research
Like our bodies need oxygen, our businesses need a constant supply of knowledge and understanding to…
June 09, 2021
5 min
Craft, Catalyst, and Expertise
It’s really hard to understand the value of expertise in a discipline from the outside. Or put…
May 24, 2021
5 min
Covid Anxiety: A Foresight Game
(Originally written March 23, 2020) Why is it that we can see something coming and still not prepare…
May 16, 2021
7 min
Legibility in Design
Design is a weird drug, and at least in the software world, we’re collectively high. Since I got…
May 09, 2021
4 min
Hidden in the Shallows
The zombie genre is a compelling lens on the world despite its bleak premise. The dead rise and…
May 02, 2021
3 min
Reconstructive Design Process
I love Rick Owens’ runway shows. They’re a consistent (and he is remarkably consistent) source of…
April 25, 2021
3 min
Memory Toolkits
Sometime earlier this year, I think I had reached a personal threshold for managing information…
April 19, 2021
5 min
Wearing Technology
We adorn ourselves in technology. Whether it's the shrunken screens of today's smartwatches or the…
April 11, 2021
5 min
Power and Fantasy — Hamcus SS21
With a reflective approach to narrative storytelling, Hamcus builds familiar yet foreign worlds…
April 04, 2021
5 min
War against Stagnation
The practice of design has fragmented and spread in so many different directions that it can be hard…
March 28, 2021
4 min
The Anatomy of a Research Recruitment Email
A new research project has come along and you need to recruit some research participants. Castiron…
March 22, 2021
7 min
The Problem with Validity
How much of what I just discovered is my own beliefs reflecting back on me — lightly but…
March 15, 2021
4 min
The Decay of Digital Things
We have spent a decade building the consumer Internet of Things with an ethos of “fail fast…
March 09, 2021
7 min
Reflexive Reflective
Building a research practice is intimidating. You’re basically embarking on a path of creating a…
February 28, 2021
5 min
Designing Participant Experiences
Designing a research program is a pretty difficult task. It requires a level of introspection and…
February 21, 2021
5 min
Some Design Research Principles
Since I run an app that has its roots in the world of Design Research, I spend a fair bit of time…
February 14, 2021
7 min
All Quiet on the Productivity Front
Constant progress without being certain you’re getting anywhere. Reflecting on the adrenal dropkick…
February 07, 2021
7 min
Sponge Cycles
We all operate on cycles. Circadian, seasonal, fiscal, and academic — oscillating across frequencies…
February 01, 2021
7 min
Speculative Surplus
Whenever we see modern militaries, we’re witnessing industrialized production and movement of things…
January 25, 2021
9 min
Full Hamcus: Finding the Spark in Sci-fi Workwear
This essay was originally published on the TCHWR blog . Hamcus is not a techwear brand in the…
January 17, 2021
6 min
Platform Insurrection
The past few years have been a conversation about power like I’ve never seen before. When Black…
January 12, 2021
7 min
Reflecting on 2020
Well, that was a year. My family and I were more fortunate than most, but not as fortunate as some…
December 31, 2020
10 min
Coordinating global cities research: Knowsi case study
Originally published as a guest blog on Sage Ocean . “We haven’t met yet. Do you trust me?” This is…
September 29, 2020
3 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #13: The Endemic Issue
As the exogenous force of coronavirus has pummeled the globe, America has had its own endemic…
June 03, 2020
5 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #12: The Constrained Issue
Being a creator of things — software, products, services, policy, etc — means navigating a world of…
May 26, 2020
3 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #11: The Waiting Issue
It’s been 70 days since my family and I hit “go” on our particular lockdown, only preceding the…
May 19, 2020
3 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #10: The Flattened Issue
First, I want to share a point of gratitude. My small business, Knowsi , was awarded the Sage…
May 12, 2020
4 min
Concept Grant 2020 winner: Knowsi
This interview was originally published on May 11, 2020, by Sage Ocean . SAGE has announced the…
May 11, 2020
5 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #9: The Dependencies Issue
First, thank you and welcome to all the new subscribers, and to Hillary Predko for sharing Diverge…
May 05, 2020
5 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #8: The Just Tired Issue
Everyone I talk to lately is tired. For those of us in countries with a nominal “flattened” curve…
April 28, 2020
4 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #7: The Gradual Opening Issue
My son had his first day back at daycare today (I’m writing this on Monday). When he left, he wasn’t…
April 21, 2020
3 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #6: The Captured Issue
I’ve been reading and thinking about foresight — especially as it relates to the current pandemic…
April 14, 2020
3 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #5: The First Reflection Issue
We’re going to try something a little bit different this week and reflect a bit about this project…
April 07, 2020
5 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #4: The Cycles Issue
Design is a cyclical action. While individual artifacts are ejected from the process (like this…
March 31, 2020
7 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #3: The Uncertainty Issue
Last week, I wrote about the balance of intervention and foresight in a design-based response to…
March 24, 2020
5 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #2: The Global Pandemic Issue
This past week we’ve seen the “exponential” part of exponential growth hit the world like a tidal…
March 17, 2020
3 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #1: The Afghan Peace Talk Issue
For most of my adult life, my country (one of them anyway, being a dual citizen between the US and…
March 10, 2020
2 min
On Remote Work and the Coronavirus
With the coronavirus probably hitching a ride in one of your co-workers, it’s possible that your…
March 06, 2020
6 min
Diverge Weekly Issue #0: The Prototype
Welcome to the “preview” issue of Diverge Weekly, a weekly look at systemic design around the world…
March 03, 2020
2 min
Failing States Fail Terrorists Too
This was my term paper for the first module in my Security Studies MA, written December 201…
February 20, 2020
16 min
Import your Audible Library to Goodreads
I wrote a rudimentary python script to bulk import your Audible library to Goodreads. I’ll caveat…
February 06, 2020
2 min
A More Intentional Wardrobe
I have an affinity for jackets and bags. The two central functions to protect and to carry somehow…
January 19, 2020
8 min
Reflecting on 2019
2019 has been a weird combination of my most exhausting, fulfilling, chaotic, and structured year to…
December 30, 2019
11 min
The Design Researcher’s Everyday Carry
Design research is about sensing and synthesizing the needs of your stakeholders: a fundamentally…
June 12, 2019
5 min
Planning your Design Research Trip
One of my more traumatic design research moments is something I barely remember. I had flown from…
May 13, 2019
4 min
Better Notes for Design Research
At the heart of great design research is note taking. Our job is to go into new environments, learn…
May 06, 2019
3 min
How to Design the Future of Food in 4 Hours
We can’t predict the future, but that shouldn’t stop us from designing for it! Designers today have…
October 12, 2018
4 min
HMW How Might We?
If you’ve ever worked with a designer facilitating a workshop, or a supplicant of design thinking…
May 15, 2018
4 min
Building Co-operative Design Briefs
In design teams, the “Brief” is often a shared understanding of the challenge the team is facing. It…
April 13, 2018
4 min
Benadryl and Parachord
With some luck and a generous vacation policy at my work, I was finally able to do a Wilderness…
February 03, 2018
3 min
Bureaucratic Mysteries
These tools were taught as a workshop to the first Code for Canada fellowship team in November…
February 01, 2018
11 min
A Spotter’s Guide to Social Product Ventures
How do you know that a software business with a social mission is actually a Social Product Venture…
July 10, 2017
5 min