How Websites Learn

A look at how the principles of Stewart Brand’s classic architecture book "How Buildings Learn" can apply to digital design.

Presented by Steven Garrity of A Silver Orange.

Transcript

2. How Websites Learn Steven Garrity silverorange sept 2018
4. Stewart Brand
8. The Long Now Foundation
10. WEBSITES
11. All metaphors break
12. I don't know anything about buildings
13. * ACTUAL SIZE
14. Build for change
16. DIGITAL - - - - - - - - - - - - Platform Back-end & framework Style & appearance (CSS) Functionality & features Layout & IA Data (“content”) BUILDINGS SITE STRUCTURE SKIN SERVICES SPACE PLAN STUFF
17. “Photographing walls before they close has become a standard practice [...] because it makes later adjustment of the building so much easier. The photos reveal exactly where the Services go and what are the hidden Structural elements.” -- Brand, Stewart. How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built (p. 364)
19. Use local materials
21. Local digital materials Use the platform • Web: pages, URLs, links • Use real text (not text in images) • Don’t recreate native web form elements with Javascript • Use native browser scrolling
22. Great dining hall New College in Oxford Built: 1386
23. Embrace the low road
30. Temporary is permanent
31. Building 20 MIT in Boston Built: 1943
33. starmaker.ca
34. Link colors set in 2001
35. How websites learn from each other
36. Photo by Doug Kerr - licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
38. CAUTION: Shitty architect
39. “Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must come from old buildings.” - Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
40. Build for change
42. Thanks! (I’m done)