FIGURE IT OUT
Getting from Information to Understanding
by
STEPHEN P. ANDERSON and KARL FAST
Foreword by Christina Wodtke
TWO WAVES BOOKS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA
“In this illuminating and profoundly unique book, Stephen and Karl have cracked the code on how to make complex concepts not only simple but tangible. And, as they show, that makes all the difference. When you need to give your ideas body, form, and shape, you need this book.”
—Dan Roam,
Author of The Back of the Napkin and Draw to Win
“Figure It Out is about learning tools + spaces—perception, representation, metaphor, models, systems, interaction-in-the-world, thinking-with-things— and design. Required reading for designers and anyone else who needs to explain things.”
—Hugh Dubberly,
Principal, Dubberly Design Office
“Figure It Out won’t just change the way you think, but it will change the way you think about the way you think. Figure It Out is an intellectual tour de force, a cogent and compelling synthesis spanning art, science, design, and philosophy to create an elegant picture of how the world shapes our minds and vice versa, and how the meaning we make from our world is what makes us irrepressibly, irreducibly human.”
—Jesse James Garrett,
author of The Elements of User Experience
“We all think. But we rarely think about how we think. Stephen and Karl dissect how we naturally make sense of the world, using not only our minds, but also our bodies and our surroundings. They break down the process into its different constituent parts and lay out the mental operations, physical behaviors, strategies, and activities we all use on a day-to-day basis. By revealing and describing these processes in a structured way, they provide the reader with a rich and actionable toolkit for sharpening their thinking and extending their capabilities for understanding and reasoning.”
—Eva-Lotta Lamm,
designer and visual thinker
“The challenge of making sense of the oceans of information brought to us by digital technology is the truly significant task of our era. Not since Pinker’s 1997 tome has anyone addressed this important arena with the breadth and clarity it deserves. We will never create machines that understand their world until we can wrap our heads around the more daunting question of how humans understand it. This book brings us a step closer to that day.”
—Alan Cooper,
author of About Face and The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
“Designers need to help users make sense of an increasingly complex world. Karl Fast and Stephen P. Anderson have laid out an invaluable toolkit to design for understanding.”
—Julie Dirksen,
author, Design for How People Learn
Figure It Out
Getting from Information to Understanding
By Stephen P. Anderson and Karl Fast
Two Waves Books
an Imprint of Rosenfeld Media, LLC
125 Maiden Lane, Suite 209
New York, New York
10038 USA
On the Web: twowavesbooks.com
Please send errors to: [email protected]
Publisher: Louis Rosenfeld
Managing Editor: Marta Justak
Sketch-Note Illustrations: Eva-Lotta Lamm
Figures: Stephen P. Anderson
Interior Layout Tech: Danielle Foster
Cover and Interior Design: The Heads of State
Indexer: Marilyn Augst
Proofreader: Sue Boshers
© 2020 Stephen P. Anderson and Karl Fast
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 1-933820-96-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-933820-96-5
LCCN: 2019956412
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Stephen P. Anderson For my boys: Gabriel, Liam, Elijah, and Jonas Read this book carefully, and you’ll understand how the world works. —Dad
Karl Fast For my students—keep asking good questions.
Contents
