🏝️ Creepy robots, magical islands & witches
Equal parts whimsy and equal parts weird. Just how it should be.
I’ve been stuck in research synthesis swamp this week; both at work and on my PhD. Synthesis Swamp is right next to despair rock on this user research island I drew. Let’s all hope I steer clear and cross the river of clarity soon.
If this resonates with you, I created a free template to the island so you can use it for check ins with UXR teams or PhD supervisors!
Get writing! Here's a prompt to spark new story ideas & bedtime tales.When I get stressed I like to remind myself that I write to play, I don’t write to publish (that’s just a bonus). Solo role playing writing games are my new ritual here. I’m starting with The Magical Year of A Teenage Witch and still designing my character and mulling over skills. What are your main characters skills?
Skills are the capabilities of your witch. Things like Dancing, Gardening, Boldness, Calming, and Friendly with Squirrels can all be Skills.
If you like this, here’s another list I’m planning to work through + I want to try ‘A Magical Year’. I truly don’t know why I didn’t know about solo TTRPG’s, this one just raised over $200k on Kickstarter.
My favourite playful web picks for the month.A definitive list of the creepiest robots I’m on the fence with Telenoid R1 mini version…as a life long fan of Casper the friendly ghost I think I could love it.
Not really a playful pick, but a cute useful way to think about technology: as emotional tupperware. Start a ‘bliss list’ and schedule emails to yourself.
The original Guided Tour of Macintosh from 1984 had to teach people how to use a mouse (something I take for granted) and did so through mini games
Futuring Machines: a HCI exploration that warms my heart, getting close to true collaboration & human AI collaboration that moves beyond ‘1 click outputs’. One for the educators out there.
Turn your drawings into 3D animations: I find text prompting for outputs wholly uninspiring, and am much more excited for interactions like this where you can take (imperfect) drawings done by you, and make them jiggle, wiggle and worm.
Mute distracting notifications, grab a warm cuppa and find a seat in the sun.Why Books Don’t Work by Andy Matuschak. A POV on why books are magical…
What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.- Carl Sagan
…yet completely floppy as tools for learning.
Something well thunk and beautifully made!We’ll end this newsletter with another island. Summer Camp Island is one of my favourite shows. One that was definitely made for kids but that brings me so much joy. The teenage witch camp counsellors, talking magical pyjamas and badge system. If I ever wrote something like this, I’d retire happy.
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