What tools do you carry?

The tools a person carries for problem-solving says a lot about the kinds of problems they’re equipped to solve. When a person carries a computer, their solutions have a tendency to look rather digital.  It’s hard to imagine solutions for the real world, when those solutions are generated inside of an imaginary world carried around on a hard drive and animated with a video card.  Sure, it can look impressive — but when every designer on a team starts with a digital foundation, none of the solutions are going to look human.

Technological solutions scale — that is, they get bigger and more elaborate the more technology is added to the mix.  But scaling rarely cares — technological solutions don’t really care about the humans they serve. So, usually humans wind up serving the technology rather than the other way around.

That’s why we travel with a fully-analog tool kit — ruler, compass, folding tools, knives, pencils, and pens.  Sure, we’ll use digital tools when they’re appropriate. But we start with human-centered tools, and with a human-centered approach to finding solutions to your problem.