Most modern institutions are designed to be navigated by individuals but most humans actually navigate institutional landscapes in packs of 2-15. Making institutions ‘impersonal’ is hard because of this unit size impedance mismatch
Conversation
This thought hit me pondering the very specific ways impersonal civic infrastructure and public behaviors fail in India: the impersonal institution (from plane-boarding norms to shopping) neither reflect the very strong pack structure of patterns of life, nor accommodate it well
1
1
8
The biggest thing social UX designers fail to grok about packs is that the pack is the user, not the individual. The individual is hidden to some extent behind how the pack chooses to navigate. This is most obvious with say children or babies.
2
1
7
But even in the default pack unit of the West, the double-income-no-lids couple, the infrastructure fails to understand and accommodate how couples typically navigate social reality.
1
1
7
Replying to
For other kinds of packs (group of dining friends, business colleagues on a work trip together, etc) it's a mess
1
6
Replying to
I was shocked to discover the other day that Venmo doesn't support 2 different users tying to the same bank account!
1
Replying to
Yeah that sort of thing really annoys me. Amazon is one of the better majors since they allow sharing of Prime accounts at a household level.
1

