Because McLuhan

By Dan Klyn from

Sketchcamp Chicago, 2013

MARSHALL MCLUHANbecause

faced with unmeasurables, people steer their way by magic”

“

As Tom Wolfe has aptly inquired, What if McLuhan is right? Suppose he is what he sounds like—the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein and Pavlov?

The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan, Playboy MagazineMarch 1969

I don't necessarily agree with everything that I say

1964 1967 1964 1967

the content of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar

to distract the watchdog of the mind

Give peace a chance

our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that

counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot.

media = environment

any understanding of social and cultural change is

impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as

environments

- Marshall McLuhan + Quentin Fiore, The Media is the Massage

• Has there ever been a time in digital when there’s been more interest in and focus on content?

WHY THIS MIGHT MATTER:

• You sometimes pick or influence the medium that your work is expressed within.

WHY THIS MIGHT MATTER:

• You sometimes do notpick or influence the medium that your work is expressed within.

WHY THIS MIGHT MATTER:

inherencies

herein

• The media ecology of UX has undergone profound change with the advent of “lean” and agile (!)

WHY THIS MIGHT MATTER:

Source: Langr Software Solutions

Source: Scott Adams, United Features Syndicate

FOUR LAWS OF

enhance reverse

retrieve obsolesce

mediaMCLUHAN’S

Enhances: scope and density of what we can talk about together in real time

Reverses: into documentation

Retrieves: dirt + stick

Obsolesces: chalkboard

Cool

Reverses: into specification

Retrieves: architect’s maquettes

Obsolesces: sketches

Enhances: ability of stakeholders to consider what might be good to do

Cool

Reverses: into the actual

product

Retrieves: engineer’s“working drawings”

Obsolesces: design “comps”

Enhances: ability of designers

to specify how a thing will be built

Hot

mutual occlusion

WH

AT

HO

W

HO

T

CO

OL

Mobile UI Wireframe by Siska Flaurensia

Wireframes for sticker app by Jordan Price

Some sketches by Jordan Little iPhone 6 Idea Sketches by Luke Zammit

UI Wireframe Sketch by Chris No

enhance reverse

retrieve obsolesce

wireframe

enhance reverse

retrieve obsolesce

sketch

enhance reverse

retrieve obsolesce

Reverses: into

billboard

Retrieves: stained glass windows

Obsolesces: boardroom projector

/ jumbo-tron TV

Enhances: ability of co-located mixed-context groups to simultaneously view what’s being considered

BIG PAPER

big paperwireframes

• Be Perseus, not Narcissus.

• Consider the not-necessarily-connected –ness of message and media.

• Align medium and message (and temperature), then set everybody’s expectations accordingly.

DO THREE THINGS

Reverses: into characature

Retrieves: cubism

Obsolesces: customer segments

Enhances: ability to understand person-level context

PERSONA