That's right. It's not a matter of aesthetics, or of politics, or of opinion. It's a plain fact: When you design streets solely for cars, people die as a result. The underlying conditions that are responsible for those deaths are rarely or never challenged. The victims often get blamed for their own injuries or deaths.
Don't believe me? Well, let me refresh your memory about Raquel Nelson, the Atlanta-area mother who was recently convicted of vehicular homicide, second degree -- but not for anything she did behind the wheel. No, she was crossing a busy road with three children when her 4-year-old son was struck by a car and killed.
Yes, you heard that right. The mother, who was also struck and injured, was charged with vehicular homicide, second degree, in the death of her son. Meanwhile, the prosecutor dropped vehicular homicide charges against the driver -- who later admitted to having been drinking, was on painkillers, and was legally blind in one eye -- allowing him to plead guilty simply to hit-and-run ....continue reading on Grist.org
Facebook’s Design Strategy: A Status Update
Behind the scenes with the team that’s redefining human connection.
It seems odd, if not entirely counterintuitive, to find any building on Facebook’s main campus devoid of devices connected to the social-networking site. But inside the slightly grungy old warehouse that houses the company’s Analog Research Lab, there isn’t a single computer in sight. Instead, the space is filled with power saws, silk-screening gear, a small letterpress, and an industrial paper-cutting machine that slices through dozens of sheets at once, as swiftly as a guillotine. These tools are ideal for making what, exactly?
Apparently, they’re for making stacks of postcards with the word “poke” (a riff on the virtual act of “poking” someone) printed in inky red letters on one side and lines for a hand-written address and a postage stamp on the other. The cards are available to any Facebook staff member who wants to use them as personal stationery for keeping in touch with friends and family the old-fashioned way.
You see, Facebook’s creative leadership prefers to develop new features and products based on people and their online behavior, not technology and algorithms—an approach the company calls “social design.” Christopher Cox, vice president of product, defines the concept as improving how people build human-to-human, versus human-to-interface, connections online. Facebook’s social network, he says, is the virtual equivalent of an actual space in which people regularly gather to converse, play, collaborate, and share ....continue reading on designmind.frogdesign.com
Jared Diamond
There are so many societies in which the elite made decisions that were good for themselves in the short run and ruined themselves and societies in the long run….
Similarly, in the United States at present, the policies being pursued by too many wealthy people and decision makers are ones that.... preserve their interests in the short run but are disastrous in the long run.
