In time for the holidays, I've added some books I've been excited by recently to my recommended reading list:https://meaningness.com/further-reading
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Julian Orr's "Talking About Machines" describes in detail the *circumrational work* Xerox field repair technicians do to keep high-tech office machinery running.
Outstanding case study in how rationality works (and doesn't) in the real world.
https://meaningness.com/further-reading#Orr …pic.twitter.com/E7wIRcPuuK
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Replying to @Meaningness
Oooh, I'd like to make a lot of people in wearables read this.
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Replying to @jamesheathers
This is a pervasive problem in engineering practice, unfortunately. I’ve encountered it most directly in software engineering (my field); most software doesn’t do what the customer needs because the engineers just guess. Very well-known failing but somehow endlessly repeated.
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Replying to @Meaningness @jamesheathers
Getting the requirements correct can be frustrating and tedious for all involved. I would love to do better.
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Replying to @gregjarm @jamesheathers
I don’t understand why the industry devotes so much more resources (and status) to engineering (which is pretty fungible tbh) than to requirements analysis, ux, and design (which are the differentiating value almost always).
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1. Precisely defining the scope of work takes more effort than doing the work. 2. Asking customers what they want in a new product is as accurate as examining pig entrails. 3. Thus building and iterating is by far the most efficient approach
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Replying to @foggyanabasis @Meaningness and
4. But if you are building and iterating, then customers are in a perpetual state of only partial satisfication and partial frustration, while engineers in a perpetual state of changing requirements.
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Replying to @foggyanabasis @Meaningness and
5. Thus hiring agile developers and managers who can herd them is more effective than hiring teams of anthropologists to write a treatise about what they think people want in a proposed feature.
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This makes sense (unfortunately), thanks! From experience, there are exceptions, although perhaps few. Otoh recognizing those in advance, if that is possible, would be valuable.
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