Linking this subject together

[Dan Lockton]

So far then -- and thanks everyone for the introductions so far, keep
it up -- this group contains people from a wide range of disciplines,
backgrounds and interests. We've got architects, urbanists,
ergonomists, environmentalists, writers, engineers, HCI'ers,
interaction designers, web strategists, product designers, game
designers, security researchers, psychologists, philosophers,
economic, legal and political theorists, and probably others. (I'm
sorry if I left you out!)

Presumably all of us (to some extent) consider our interests to be at
the intersection of more than one discipline. Otherwise we wouldn't be
here, or what we're doing wouldn't be in the vanguard of anything. But
are the links across the 'design and behaviour' elements of each
subject really evident? Do we feel that we might be able to apply
lessons/examples/ideas from how behaviour is influenced in one field
to others? (I hope so!)

Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com ) called the Design with
Intent theme "a great riff" when I explained it to him in an email. Is
that the best way to think about this whole thing - a riff, a kind of
repeated element which can be repeated in a variety of contexts
forming the basis for influencing behaviour?

Some wise people have said to me before that anything which smacks of
'a theory of everything' for a type of problem rather than being
focused on solving specific problems in a specific domain will
inevitably meet with a great deal of scepticism (as well as being
potentially more difficult to implement once you have to translate it
to specific problems again). That's certainly a worthwhile thing to
bear in mind when it comes to validating the research some of us are
doing, but ultimately even being open to inspiration or adapting/
adopting ideas from other disciplines ought to prove useful, surely?

Your thoughts would be appreciated - and also any examples of
analogous/comparable "riff-like" themes and how they've been linked up
elsewhere.

Cheers
Dan

_________________________________________________________________
Dan Lockton MPhil BSc(Hons) FRSA | Cleaner Electronics Research Group
Brunel Design | Brunel University | London | UB8 3PH | http://danlockton.co.uk