This is a really thoughtful piece by Rich, who’s got conflicted feelings about large language models in the design process. I suspect a lot of people can relate to this.
What I do know is that I find LLMs useful on occasion, but every time I use one I die a little inside.
This was a day of big conversations, but also one of connection, curiosity, and optimism.
Seeing it all laid out like this really drives home just how much was packed into Research By The Sea.
Throughout the day, speakers shared personal reflections, bold ideas, and practical insights, touching on themes of community, resilience, ethics, and the evolving role of technology.
Some talks brought hard truths about the impact of AI, the complexity of organisational change, and the ethical dilemmas researchers face. Others offered hope and direction, reminding us of the power of community, the importance of accessibility, and the need to listen to nature, to each other, and to the wider world.
Research by the Sea was one of the best conferences I’ve been to in yeeeeeears. So many good, useful, inspiring, thoughtful, provocative talks. Much more about ethics and power and possibility than I’d expected. None of the ‘utopian bullshit’ you usually get at a product or digital conference, to quote one of the speakers!
In which Rich nails Clearleft’s superpower:
“Clearleft is a relatively small team, but we can achieve big results because we are nimble and extremely experienced. As strategic design partners, we have a privileged position where we can work around a large company’s politics,” Rutter said. “We need to understand those politics — and help the client staff navigate them — but we don’t need to be bound by them. We bring a thoroughly user-centered approach to our design partnership, and that can be something novel to companies. By showing them what good design looks like (not so much the interface, as the actual process of getting to really well-designed products and services), we can be disruptive within the organization and leave them in a much better place.”
The power of prototyping:
Most of my work is a set of disposables rather than deliverables, and I celebrate this.
I like the three questions that Chris asks himself:
- What’s the quickest, cheapest thing I can create to help make the next design decision?
- What can I create to best demonstrate the essence of the concept?
- How can I most effectively share the thinking behind the design with decision-makers?
Here’s a nice interview with Rich all about how things work at Clearleft.
I’m really excited about John’s talk at this year’s UX London. Feels like a good time to revisit his excellent talk from dConstruct 2015:
I’m going to be opening up the second day of UX London 2024, 18th-20th June. As part of that talk, I’ll be revisiting a talk called Metadesign for Murph which I gave at dConstruct in 2015. It might be one of my favourite talks that I’ve ever given.
Lovely photos by Marc from Patterns Day!
Trys threads the themes of Patterns Day together:
Jeremy did a top job of combining big picture and nitty-gritty talks into the packed schedule.
A nice write-up of Patterns Day from Hidde.
I’m very excited that John is speaking at this year’s UX London!
Okay, if you weren’t already excited for Patterns Day, get a load of what Rich is going to be talking about!
You’ve got your ticket, right?
Service designers of Brighton!
We meet for 1–1½ hours from 8.30am on the first Thursday of every month at Clearleft’s studio in Brighton.
These pictures really capture the vibe of this year’s lovely UX London event.
This is design engineering.
A lovely heartfelt personal look back at dConstruct.
dConstruct was about the big ideas, but not in a wanky TED way. It was about ideas on the horizon brought into focus, it always left me wanting to know more.
dConstruct was never about the big showy thing that will make you millions. It was about the interesting. It gave you seeds to take away with you, and that’s important.
I love the thoughtfulness that Sally put into her personal write-up of dConstruct.
Wow, what a day. A really diverse selection of talks that went all over the map. From building vast world-changing health systems, to scaling and archiving global online communities, to the beauty and joy of calligraphy. And lasers. I enjoyed the lot, which is rare for me at an event like this.
A rather lovely write-up of the final dConstruct!
Above all it was nice to see the diversity of approaches and reasons for doing ‘design’ / art / whatever. Some of us are solving the hard problems, some of us are thinking philosophically or creating new tools, and some of us are just having fun – and all approaches are valid and useful.
If you were at dConstruct on Friday and you enjoyed the mood music during the breaks, this is what you were listening to.