A pattern language
Alexander and his co-authors present us with over two hundred (roughly 250) "patterns" that they believe must be present in order for an environment to be pleasing, comfortable, or in their words, "alive." The patterns start at the most general level -- the first pattern, "Independent Regions," describes the ideal political entity, while another of my favorite patterns, "Mosaic of Subcultures," described the proper distribution of different groups within a city. The patterns gradually become more specific -- you'll read arguments about how universities should relate to the community, the proper placement of parks, the role of cafes in a city's life. If you wonder about the best design for a home, the authors will describe everything from how roofs and walls should be built, down to how light should fall within the home, where your windows should be placed, and even the most pleasant variety of chairs in the home. An underlying theme of all the patterns is that architecture, at its best, can be used to foster meaningful human interaction, and the authors urge us to be aware of how the houses we build can help us balance needs for intimacy and privacy.
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What Hacker News says
- > The shared language of a software project is not English or Python but it is the common understanding of what its concepts mean, where the boundaries are, which invariants matter, who owns what, and why the system has the shape it does. This language is rarely written down in one place. It lives partly in documentation and code, but also in code review, conversations, arguments, and the experience of having to explain a change to somebody else.
This is so true. I am a big fan of Christopher Alexander’s “Pattern Language” concept, which addresses this exact problem! In fact he recommends developing your own pattern languages for your own domains (which of course led to the famous GoF Design Patterns book).
I have been experimenting with a “Pattern Language” skill which instructs the AI to maintain 3 pattern languages for every project. One in the business domain, one in the product domain, and one in the technical domain. It is working really well. It is always super cool to see it reference the pattern languages during planning and curate them during implementation and review.
I credit using it with keeping my 100% ai-coded projects well organized, aligned across domains, and easy to work on.
- Christopher Alexander figured this one out in A Pattern Language:
https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-f...
- “Sapiens” read it twice, wish I could go back in time and give it to 18yr old me.
“The Dosadi Experiment”, probably 5 life-changing concepts just tossed in for flavor.
“A Pattern Language” on how spaces inform life and life informs spaces.
- I came here to say the same thing exactly. Tufte books are very visual (and expensive - see if you can find a copy of any of his books, changed my life). You can just dip in.
Norman is ace. Although his books turned me into a usability weirdo unable to switch off my usability sensors... be careful! :-)
As is Raskin - whose interface "notation" (click-drag-click etc) I think isn't talked about enough.
Can I also throw in these...
Don't Make Me Think: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/032... - I found this a REALLY useful book, and great to share with people too.
A Pattern Language https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construc... - OK, this is a bit esoteric, but it's so valuable and lots of geeks/UX-ers kind of aim to create their own pattern language as opposed to a UX-dogma.
Information Architecture https://www.amazon.co.uk/Information-Architecture-Beyond-Lou...
Visual Language https://www.amazon.co.uk/Visual-Language-Global-Communicatio... - a kind of fundamental - hard to find.
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There are dozens of methodologies to learn, and put into practice. I would put it that you don't really learn UX, you do it, and revise - in order to solve problems and make things better. Once you've digested some of the ideas you need to start trying the methodologies out. This is harder than it sounds. Even companies that claim to support UX, sort of bugger things up.... in that UX can't "fix" crap... it needs to be in at the beginning.
My favourite activities / methodologies, that produced REAL results were
* Ethnography - kinda just hanging out and observing what actually goes on. One client used to print off every page to proof read their changes cos the font sizes were designed by 21 year olds and they were 60+. The applause I got for raising the font size would never have been found any other way than sitting in the corner. * Card sorting - often collaboratively with armfuls of post its to decide on categories/navigation * Wireframing - I had less success with paper prototyping, but still ... * Personas + Use Cases
...and Eye Tracking - which tbh was SO VALUABLE, not because of the insights it provided, but for the EVIDENCE (video and heatmaps) that you could use to persuade the big wigs.
So find a way to start getting yourself into trying out various methodologies, to fix problems. Doing UX when things are "kind of OK" can be quite hard imo, especially at the beginning.
Your background will be so useful, again imo and experience, you will be able to use UX to provide guidance and ideas and then MAKE THE BLOODY THING which lots of UX-ers can't do. I liked the cross-over - I code a bit and sometimes found it easier to make what I wanted, rather than specifying it or creating "designs".
Good luck!
Tom
- - The Dream Machine, M. Mitchell Waldrop
- Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
- The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham
- A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander
- Tragedies, William Shakespeare
- This is derived from Christopher Alexander, who people on HN might be more aware of as the (distant) intellectual progenitor of the pattern language movement (of which the "Gang of Four" Design Patterns are the most familiar incarnation) --- but he himself is an architect; I assume "A Pattern Language" isn't his most important book in his own field, but it's a lot of fun to flip through, and I'm glad I have it.
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