Practice vs Theory

The brain is the most important organ in your body... according to your brain. Within the brain, however, the centre of intelligence is the prefrontal cortex. This is, of course, according to the prefrontal cortex.

As soon as we begin to examine intelligence, we’re already working from a deficit. We are constrained by our beliefs about what intelligence is. We are tethered to the limits of our neural hardware — even when believing it to be limitless. In his superbly-written book, The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand describes pragmatist-philosopher John Dewey’s approach to ideas and beliefs. Dewey thought of them as tools to be used or discarded fluidly: “When your fork proves inadequate to the task of eating soup, it makes little sense to argue about whether there is something inherent in the nature of soup that accounts for the failure. You just reach for a spoon.”

Dewey was a bit loquacious but you get the idea.

When we are designing products or services, we begin by sensing an issue somewhere… A limitation. An irritant. This may be registered further back in the brain, depending on how much discomfort it causes. Our fixes may come from a variety of places — conceptual, theoretical, etc. However, the million dollar question is this: what actions do people take?

That could refer to the actions taken by your team or the actions taken by your users. Both are essential. Much like Dewey’s product-soup-fit, we can only evaluate our tools in the context that they are used. An explanation of the intelligence and versatility of forks won’t change behaviour. Extreme motivation to use forks won’t change behaviour. A spoon presented at the right time, however, will change things forever.

Here’s a joke: two young fish swim by and older fish says, “Hey boys, how’s the water today?” The younger fish look at each other: “What the hell is water?” They soon forget about this, however, as they are rushing to work, where they will create marketing materials for a dry-land real estate company selling to humans. The fish, of course, have no idea what they’re talking about. They are out of their element and aren't able to reliably think their way into solutions. I don't know how they got roped into this.

It doesn’t matter how smart the fish are. The problem is that they cannot fully reason their way to an understanding of the user ecosystem. There is only one reliable path available to them and it transcends strategic intelligence. It is starting with the behaviours that users have — and treating those behaviours as a structural element of their design — working backwards from there. They won't always know why (and things won't always make sense from the top-down) but that's ok because the things they build will work in practice — even if they don't always work in theory.

Fish can’t know humans. That's the obvious bit. Yet, as humans ourselves, we can’t always know what is in the hearts and minds of our own users or team-members. We make assumptions at our own peril. However, by understanding behaviour in a pragmatic way, we don't have to theorize. Instead, we can design our products and processes to fit what people actually do — guided by user action instead of our own intellects. Which, when you think about it, is pretty smart.

Practice vs Theory

Dry land is not a myth