The concept of constructive dissent reminds me of John Hagel and John Seely Brown's ideas regarding "productive friction." My mistakes over the years have tended to fall in the category of attempting to engineer productive friction directly—adding complexity. I wonder how designing for constructive dissent might take the form of eliminating the conditions that create unproductive friction.
Productive friction is such an interesting concept - and one I definitely use. The way I like to think of it is that sometimes we need to shape the journey or where we want people to go. Introducing productive friction can help make that happen, in both physical and digital environments.
Examples:
-- Physical: Where we place a sidewalk or walkway versus mulch and plants; we make it easier to walk the path we want you to take.
-- Digital: Making it just a bit harder to access 1:1 support for a redundant or easily self-served issue; teach the user to help themselves while decreasing a more costly solution
That's interesting. Upon reflection, "productive" friction begs the question, "Productive for whom?" I wonder how to know whether we should be designing for community members' productivity and when it's appropriate to design for the host's productivity. It brings to mind the story about how Ohio State University let "desire paths" determine where they built their sidewalks: https://library.osu.edu/site/archives/2014/11/25/the-ovals-long-walk-has-paved-the-way-for-students-for-a-century/
The concept of constructive dissent reminds me of John Hagel and John Seely Brown's ideas regarding "productive friction." My mistakes over the years have tended to fall in the category of attempting to engineer productive friction directly—adding complexity. I wonder how designing for constructive dissent might take the form of eliminating the conditions that create unproductive friction.
Productive friction is such an interesting concept - and one I definitely use. The way I like to think of it is that sometimes we need to shape the journey or where we want people to go. Introducing productive friction can help make that happen, in both physical and digital environments.
Examples:
-- Physical: Where we place a sidewalk or walkway versus mulch and plants; we make it easier to walk the path we want you to take.
-- Digital: Making it just a bit harder to access 1:1 support for a redundant or easily self-served issue; teach the user to help themselves while decreasing a more costly solution
That's interesting. Upon reflection, "productive" friction begs the question, "Productive for whom?" I wonder how to know whether we should be designing for community members' productivity and when it's appropriate to design for the host's productivity. It brings to mind the story about how Ohio State University let "desire paths" determine where they built their sidewalks: https://library.osu.edu/site/archives/2014/11/25/the-ovals-long-walk-has-paved-the-way-for-students-for-a-century/