Presumptive Design

COVID and the global pandemic’s impact on working norms continue to raise questions about the nature of work and the “new normal.” How much time should employees be “in the office?” What is the impact of a fully remote workforce on an organization’s productivity, innovation and culture? By shifting work to our homes, how do organizations address employee safety, equity, access and privilege? These are just some of the questions athenahealth (the second largest electronic health records company in the US) raised in its “Future of Work” strategic initiative.

We'd like to think we're successful because we do good work. But it's a little more complicated than that. To be successful, our good work has to be recognized as good, and that means the people we work with and for understand what we do. For UX architecture to enable UX success, it must prepare the context to appreciate excellent outcomes.

In this keynote address closing the first day of Interact London 16, I offer persuasive and cautionary tales of time travel and its odd effect on the artifacts we design. 

In which Frishberg and Lambdin present Presumptive Design in a webinar format, specifically in the context of Agile, comparing and contrasting it to Lean UX.

In which I suggest we should fail intelligently as early as possible to avoid costly failures down the road.