Non-Prescriptive Designs and the First Letter

Hi, Mate.

You're one of the very few who'll be receiving this letter. This is the first letter I am sending out to the few folks who I could directly contact and ask to consider subscribing. Thank you for being a part of my world. This is my first personal newsletter, shared under my name and consisting of all things I create or gather in this big, beautiful world. I write this with a lot of excitement and a little bit of regret that I didn't start writing these letters months or even years ago. But I am finally here... ready to trust my judgement and have faith that there are many, many people out there who are curious about the same things I am.

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Today, I want to share with you:

I wanted to capture the mindset I embody while pursuing product design in relationship with my team, customers and the self. This led me to write an essay called:

‍The Quintessential Mindset for a Product Designer​.

What is a sum of probably my best ideas ever is reflected in a product I've recently completed designing code-named Project MEMEX. You may check out the manifesto here. I describe it as a "non-prescriptive" curation platform. And today, I want to talk about

What do I mean by "non-prescriptive" designs?

Let's say we set out to design a News app. We might design something like inShorts or Flipboard or Apple News, or we might design Twitter.

Twitter has never prescribed it's users to share News-type information or follow institutions that label themselves as media houses. The UI is so distilled that people use the tech to share all flavours of content and follow all kinds of sources, while Twitter continues to be a go-to outlet to share news.

While designing any product, it is always better to build it and let the users decide how they want to use the tool. In fact, it is what user's will end up doing in the long run.

Consider Facebook. They built a bunch of ways for posting content and prescribed it to be used for exchanging content with "friends". And eventually, Facebook got caught in it's own trap as people started connecting with all sorts of people and losing sight of "why" or "who" they were connecting with leading to a messy feed and poorer experience. Facebook continues to pivot there "use-case" while the product stays in-conflict with its many users. A similar problem will plague LinkedIn, while Twitter will continue to be a network for people from all walks of life to connect and share New Information (= News) with each other. For this, Twitter's UI is distilled down to publishing 240-char content, nothing more.

This is what I intended with my designs for Project MEMEX. While I designed it as a curation platform, I distilled it down to allow the users to use the protocol as it makes sense to them. When you prescribe a way of using the technology and bake that into the UI, you endorse a particular meaning for the use of technology without realizing that meaning-making is subjective to a person.

Curations

📜 We tend to prioritize frictionless experiences, both in our buying decisions and design decisions. Though, Relentlessly chasing convenience tends to remove useful friction from our systems. Taking inspiration from nature, Jesse Weaver lays out The Value of Inconvenient Designs.​

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📺 Ever thought of your smartphone as an instrument, instead of a tool. Starting with this analogy, Dieter Bohn attempts to create a core-shift in our relationship with any and all products. This analogy is central to how I approach product design. Here's the YouTube video: Why your phone is not a tool​

Art Appreciation

I don't trust Product Designers who don't have a habit of observing and appreciating different works of art. 🙃 How we interpret works of art tells us more about human nature, perhaps as much if not more, than anything else.

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🎧 A song called "Let the Drummer Kick that" by Citizen Cope talks about the movement of life with 16 words, sung in 16 lines. To achieve this sonically, CC introduces perpetually beating sound in a tempo that mimic the heart-beat. The song title itseld is a metaphor to the heart. It was the song I used to listen to when I was placed in therapy 8 years ago.

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📷 Art-forms that make use of latest technology to bring out something human in a way not possible before, is probably my favourite works of art to think about. Lee Jeffries reaches to the limits of digital picture to bring out details and an intimacy more visceral than any I've ever experienced in a picture. This link leads to one of his instragram posts which is a fan letter introducing his art in the best way. You may explore his gallery from thereon.

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☕ Story of the Bean

This week I procured a coffee bean from Blue Tokai Roasters called Barrel Aged Blend. Essentially, they've aged the coffee for about 60 days in the wine barrels of Sula. Right before writing this letter, I brewed a V60 Pour Over (Japanese-style Black Filter Coffee) of the bean and I'm tasting fruity notes of Pineapple supported out with a wine-y texture.

If you don't know what V60 Pour Overs are, I recommend you check out this short video. It is the only brewing process I've found that can capture the complexity and nuances possible in a coffee bean. This are artisanal coffees. Essentially, just like we've craft beer, this is craft coffee.

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Woah! That was so much fun to write. I am happy to have written this letter, my very first. Please think hard about any of your friends who might enjoy reading this letter. Copy and share this link to them.​

I accept payment in attention, thoughts, criticisms and feedback. I can't wait to hear from you.

Talk soon,
Abhishek.
​abhishek1point0.com​

PS. I am currently looking for people who will like to incisively review designs for Project MEMEX and/or work with me to build the product. I am immediately looking for a Technical Co-founder.

1. Check out the Free Email Course: "How to Productively Consume Information Online"​
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2. Manifesto for my software product: "Project MEMEX Manifesto"​
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3. ​My Website.​

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