Hi!

Happy new year! I usually send this newsletter on the last day of the month, but I am late on the game due to the holidays. So here is the December edition of random things from my fuzzy brain.

Department of Random and Cool

Songs to write adventures

The playlist this month is on fire. Again, we have some bits of relaxing and calm Brazilian music: A masterpiece from Tom Jobim and Céu revisiting a Bob Marley classic.

But what makes this one special is the strong presence of Mulatu Astatke. Born in Ethiopia, he travelled worldwide, spreading the Ethio Jazz gospel. Besides living and studying in the UK and US, his influences are funk and Latin American music.

Mulatu masterpiece is the album Mulatu of Ethiopia recorded in New York City in the '70s.

An entire hip-hop generation discovered his music in the early 1990s, and today he is sampled by the likes of Nas, Damian Marley, and others. He recently recorded the album Information Inspiration vol 3 with The Heliocentrics.

Mulatu music is perfect for writing. It feels like a soundtrack for creating stories, which is the mood you will listen to. I hope you enjoy the playlist.

Things I am studying

Org Design and Decision Making

All designers aspire to operate at strategic levels, and I am not different. I have rambled in various design disciplines in my career, moving from old school UX to research, strategy and service design. I am most curious about recently at work is Organisational Design.

Regardless of size, all businesses will suffer from the lag time and the distance between strategy and having the right humans, structures and processes to deliver.

There is a lot of old school stuff in place from the usual suspects. From consultant speech to agile bullshit, we honestly are underserved in the topic. Perhaps this is the reason for the popularity of operations in all disciplines and product teams.

But what is innovative, in my opinion, is the idea of Decentralised Organisations enabled by technology.

A starting point for this world is the list curated by Richard D. Bartlett, The Handbook for Decentralised Organising.
If you are interested in decision making, team communication and governance models, you are in for a treat.

Experience Design

Experience Design and Sound

Have you ever thought about the importance of sounds in Interaction Design?

I honestly didn't until I met Noel Franus. I attended an IXDA event in São Paulo in 2008, and he was one of the speakers.

Noel talk was remarkable, and the way he explained the importance of sound for our attention, emotions and actions was mind-blowing.

I will give you two examples of when sound can make or break an experience: notifications and call centres.

Time is the core material of experience design. And the waiting time it's a standard expectation when you phone any company... When you called a business before, have you ever felt annoyed with the quality of the hold music?

Second example: if you are not crazy, you must probably be more careful about your notifications these days. I have muted all of it, and my phone is completely silent. But some people and apps have priority for me, and they are on an exception list. The sound used for the notification will generally create an instant emotional reaction when triggered. Think about the sound you assign for calls from your partner.

In my opinion, this is so important that it should be part of a Design System.

More about this topic in the future, but I hope you are now keen to explore the potential sound in interaction and experience design.

There is an entire world for non-visual interaction to be studied.

I recommend watching this video with Matthew Bennet about creating the Windows 10 calendar alert and the relationship between sound and the fight or flight response in humans.

That is it for today! Thanks for reading, and have a lovely weekend.

@danielsouza