Technology has profoundly changed how we interact with one another without necessarily improving the quality of these interactions or even the quality of our lives.
Humane digital tools for augmenting communities need to follow fundamental design principles:
Each community is made of individuals: An augmented community is made of augmented people
Attention is a limited resource: Decrease cognitive overload
Digital communication is fuzzy by nature: We must strive to decrease mistrust and misunderstandings
Empowerment and constructivism: New tools must be easy to learn and to experiment with
Augmented Communities aims to foster the discussion on these topics and help bring about the next step in community-enhancing software.
Augmenting Communities: A Revolutionary Idea
Rules of Trust in Humane App Design
A Purpose-Driven User Experience
Computers format our way of thinking about tasks. This is upside-down. They should help us express our goals and achieve them.
The Future of Context
Context as we understand it today is software-controlled and opaque. In order to achieve a purpose-driven user experience, contexts have to become human-readable, user-controllable, and shareable objects.
On-Demand Serendipity
Time and focus are the most precious resources of our digital lives, yet we’re systematically trained to squander them. Smart customizable filters can put us back in control.
True Interactivity Requires Artificial Intelligence
Computers are not truly interactive and it’s by design. They were never meant to be. True interactivity requires that actors understand one another.
