Tablet First: Semi-ironic design maxim at iA to test designs in the middle ground between mobile phone and desktop website. Tablets offer enough granularity to require details but still demand strict prioritization and simplicity in layout, as with mobile phones. This method should be taken with a grain of Conference talk salt, but the typical vertical orientation and harmonic aspect ratio of most tablets can serve a Design well.
Taste: What politics and religion does to an everyday discussion is what taste does to a discussion about Design. The word “taste”, just as the word “design” can be used in different contexts: There is taste in the sense of a) personal inclination: “I like blue”, “I like sugar in my coffee”, “I prefer Mozart over Beethoven“, b) natural sensitivity: e.g. how well you can discern colors, or c) a trained ability to discern, e.g. the ability to recognize wine by tasting it. Failure to define and explain which form of taste you’re debating leads to passionate arguments that designers should avoid like the devil.
Tech Optimist: Someone who believes that Technology will eventually solve all (or the main) problems, including the new problems technology itself creates when trying to solve problems. Tech Optimists like to point to statistics that prove we live in the best of all worlds today, with the longest life expectancy, and the lowest child mortality and poverty rates. Tech pessimists take the opposite position, claiming that technology cannot solve our problems but will only lead us to armageddon, pointing to rising global temperatures, nuclear time bombs and the plastic soup. Both are extreme positions based on opposing beliefs based in Metaphysics. Given that Everybody is always somewhat right, they both might have a point. The assumption that technology will always create bigger problems that it solves is as exaggerated as the position that one day The Sorcerer's Apprentice will suddenly become an old Sorcerer by creating a bigger and bigger mess. Favourite topics for Tech Optimists (and pessimists) are nuclear energy (“Safer than solar!”) and Artificial Intelligence (“Forget Plato!”). It’s fair to assume that information technology has done and will continue to do to our minds what physical technology has done to our physical reality. Tech optimism is compatible but not congruent with Design Positivism. You can be a Tech Optimist without sharing design positivistic views and vice versa.
Technology: From the Greek: τέχνη where it meant craft, skill, trade, art, cunning, wile, means, describing something that is built or created. Etymologically related to Text and Architecture. Occasionally described as an “extension of our body” (McLuhan), technology is mainly an amplifier of our actions, sometimes vilified and sometimes dignified. Since humans are more inclined and talented at making a mess than cleaning up, technology has a strong inclination for amplifying Entropy over clarifying Information. Not everybody shares this point of view. A true Tech Optimist will defend the overall positive impact of technology at all costs. Often, tech optimists will claim that technology is morally neutral, ignoring that technology is designed and produced by humans with a certain morally relevant purpose.
Text: Text goes back to the Latin textus (a tissue), which is in turn derived from texere (to weave). Related to Technology and Architecture. The meaning of a text depends on its Context.
The Future: No one knows the future. We can draw lines from the past into the future but these lines are always speculative. Superficial people will think that the current hype is the future. Tech hipsters will always pick the counter trend, and miss out on the hype business. People who try to think ahead need to be skeptical of both the hype and the counter hype. Unfortunately, if you are skeptical of both the trend and counter trend both hypsters and hipsters will ignore you.
Thinking Hurts: Core belief. “Thinking hurts” or “but thinking hurts” means that if there is a way to achieve a task with a product with or without thinking, the human will generally choose the latter. This is one reason why Artificial Intelligence will succeed and explains why suddenly all the nerds are so thrilled.
This will kill us: Expression used to respond to an unexpected new Design suggestion. It initially leads to extra work for our developers but gives us the chance to make major improvements later.
Threshold: The element, place or zone, visible, tangible, audible or imaginary that both limits and connects two spheres and the (change of) mindset that’s required to move from one to the other. As part of iA’s core Metaphysics, thresholds are often cited with reference to Jean Genette’s legendary book “Seuils”. Practical everyday examples of thresholds are book covers, beaches, and the 100 things that happen before you can watch a movie at the cinema. In interaction design, thresholds are often overlooked or unconsciously regarded as irrelevant. Too few web Designers realize that when they design a web site, they shape both the information and thresholds in between blocks of information, on an unknown server, inside an unknown browser, inside an unknown operating system, inside an unknown computer, inside an unknown setting, inside an unknown mind, in an unknown time and place. Even fewer designers can recognize the nature, importance and impact of thresholds between each of those spheres. Recognizing, understanding and shaping thresholds is the key to any form of superior interaction design. Thresholds both constrain and connect Text and Context. Creating, shaping and managing thresholds is a core challenge of the interaction designer. Moving between thresholds is transformational: You are one person at home, you are a different person when you leave the house, and another person when you enter the office. Thresholds allow you to adapt to new contexts and appropriately transform from, f.i. you at home, to you-as-a-pedestrian, to you-at-work. Discovering and reflecting on thresholds is mesmerizing, but be warned: Abstract thinking about thresholds can lead directly into a philosophical abyss as thinking about the nature of Interfaces. If all of this didn’t confuse you enough, here’s the killer: Interfaces are thresholds.
Thrilled: Since November 2022 onwards chances are high that product launch posts start with “We’re thrilled…” People are rarely truly thrilled. “We’re thrilled” indicates that someone used Artificial Intelligence to say it, in which case “We’re thrilled” really means “We’re too lazy”, “We’re too tired“ or “thinking hurts.”
Tire Kicker: A troll that poses as a potential client. A tire kicker wastes your time by asking for proposals, meetings and presentations without ever having the intention to hire you. Reasons for tire kicking are boredom, evilness, and the need to ask a series of agencies in spite of it being clear from the very beginning who will get the job in the end. Tire kickers come in all forms, but don’t usually wear Magic Underpants.
Tom Foolery: Deprecated reference to a legendary landlord who took a strong preventive stand against imaginary mischief that his tenants caused. Used by senior staff to point out theoretical design methodology that doesn’t work in practice, often presented at a Conference.
Troll: Twisted, shapeless, hungry creature that feeds on Entropy and gets high on Negativity. Defies all logic and reason. Mostly anonymous, often self conscious, but not always. Little is known about them. Do not engage.
Truth: The complex relation between what we experience and feel, feel and think, think and understand, say and mean, say and do. Truth is sometimes imagined as a metaphysical construct involving an omniscient God. While this may be a fun thought experiment, divine intelligence and understanding remain out of human reach. Human-relevant truth can be experienced through Maker's Knowledge.
Turn the Tables: Counterstrategy against the downside of Artificial Intelligence, namely its tendency to making everything the same rooted in its design to replace thinking with probabilistic calculation. Turning the tables on AI involves several techniques like "let AI prompt you and not the other way around" that lead to thinking more and not less. It requires us to consistently discern artificial from human authorship at any point of the interaction.