I don't fully understand it: Said after explaining a complex (usually design-related) matter in detail, but to a seemingly satisfactory degree from an outside perspective, you express your continuous fascination with the topic and communicate that you will not let it go until you fully understand it while acknowledging that likely you will never get to the bottom of it.
iA Camp: The annual retreat, somewhere remote in the Swiss Alps. Typical activities during iA Camp are workshops with illustrious guests, wine tasting, swimming, mushroom forays, postponing Stargazing trips, meditation ceremonies, gluttony, lycanthropy, and the institutionalized long Saturday hike.
Icons: Icons make a design more humane. While the inner Soup Nazi may dismiss them as a popular form of Barcelona and propose that we replace them with text, doing so results in cold design that communicates badly. Designing icons is one of the hardest disciplines. It requires a systematic approach with maximum attention to detail, form, language and context. Icons are a form of Lace that we can’t ignore. Good icons are as few icons as you need, but not fewer.
In a world: Followed by “…where laughter was King”, from the “Comedian” trailer. Sometimes used to make fun of tech Buzzwords and marketing lingo, or as blind Text.
Inception: Redundancy that leads to difficult mental models and Gordian code knots. “Inception” is when you forget the reality of thresholds and build identical things inside identical things, like a CMS in a CMS or a Framework in a Framework. Can be used purposely in how-to videos, but that’s usually a bad idea.
Information: Structured data. The opposite of Entropy. Information changes its meaning depending on Context. In the DIKW Pyramid, structured information is knowledge, while organized knowledge ultimately leads to wisdom—but we’re pretty sure that you need wisdom to deal with knowledge. We focus on structuring information and hope to glimpse the peak of the DIKW pyramid, now and then. In information theory, information is the ultimate particle in the universe where matter is energy and energy is data in motion. But that’s Metaphysics.
Information Architecture: The ancient art of structuring Information. Commonly used as a term for basic structure such as web site navigation. We believe information architecture starts with domain architecture, comprehends site structure, page structure, Container definition and typography. Information Architecture shares many similarities with traditional architecture. The difference in building a house is due to the different building substance. Traditional Architecture works with static problems. The main challenge in Information Architecture is the fluid nature of its substance.
Intelligence: From Lat. intellegere ("discern, understand" lit. "picking up/reading in between". Intelligence is the complex ability to read and express our own emotions, the expressions of others, and mediate between both, using a form of language. Generally speaking, human intelligence manifests directly or indirectly between two or more humans interacting with each other in some form of language. Without a form of interplay between emotion and language, human understanding neither be experienced internally as thought nor externally through language. This is why so called Artificial Intelligence, differs fundamentally from human intelligence: It has no understanding. Computers don't feel, think or understand themselves or others and thus they cannot be called intelligent. Thinking hurts, and if it doesn't it's not thinking but simulated or pretended thinking. AI understands Plato as much as a pocket calculator understands what it does adding 2+2. The axiom "Computers don't understand" is sometimes referred to as "Chris' Law". Chris' Law may become obsolete, once AI startups manage to use human bodies for receiving, processing, and producing language. Right now it's unclear how that would be different from two people interacting intelligently with each other.
Interface: “The way that you accomplish tasks with a product—what you do and how it responds,” according to Raskin. A “how” often discussed as a “what”. Inherent danger of “infinite regression” (B. Laurel) when discussing the notion as a layer between the human (see User) and a computer. Rabbit hole. In iA’s Metaphysics, interfaces are Thresholds.
Internet of Things: Confusing term for “Let’s put a chip in everything, including your breakfast and your grandmother.” Tech Optimists love the idea. Tech pessimists hate the idea. However, most things are already computers to a certain degree. Digital Transformation is both unstoppable and irreversible. To manage it, you need to be informed about it. To be informed, one must try it. See also: Buzzwords.
