# From the world, to the head

Don Norman, in “The design of everyday things”, distinguishes between knowledge “in the head” and “in the world”. A “PUSH” sign on a door is knowledge in the world1. How to make coffee is knowledge in the head.

As kids, we start from a blank slate. We acquire knowledge through experimentation, absorbing knowledge in the world into the head. That is how we discover that fires will burn us, candies are sweet, and so on.

Every task that we perform will require a mix of “knowledges”. We’ll carry it out with different degrees of precision (based on the task and the context). To do that, we will leverage a mix of knowledge in the head, in the world, and the constraints that naturally exist in the world or that we have learned through culture.

# Design, back to the world

Now, here is where things get interesting.

When we design things, we start from what we know (our understanding of the task at hand) to design something that will help us achieve our goal. Good design strikes a balance between “in the world” and “in the head”. They reach that sweet spot where doing the correct thing is easy, because we intuitively understand the tool. “Intuitively” mapping what the tool will do based on knowledge in our head and the “shape” of the tool itself (its signifiers, affordances).

When we design things, we are embodying knowledge in our head back into the world. We advance. Progress begins2.

For instance, we used to tell time by looking at the position of the sun. Knowledge of how was embodied in ourselves and we each had to learn how to read the sun’s position. Our head is incredibly efficient at retrieving knowledge, but has very limited space. And telling time based on the sun’s position required some skills. Instead, we designed clocks and watches. That way, we embodied knowledge back into the world. We don’t need to squeeze into the sun anymore. Instead, we can read the clock hands or its (digital) numbers.

# Leaving marks

We left our mark. Even thousands of years from now, someone encountering the clock will understand that it was produced (artificially, instead of being naturally available). This way, knowledge compounds and it is difficult (if not impossible) to eradicate. It creates a feedback loop, where someone finding our watch, tomorrow, will increase the knowledge in their head by figuring out what it does and how it works. Knowledge that might lead them to design something, embodying more knowledge into the world.

We humans are unique this way: the knowledge in our head shapes the world around us, by producing and replicating knowledge.

# Replicators

Something else replicates knowledge: genes.

Evolution variates and then selects genes that fare well against others (i.e., they give the bodies hosting them a higher chance of surviving and reproducing). Genes encode knowledge from the world. For instance, a giraffe’s characteristic neck encodes knowledge about tall trees where to find sustenance. Genes give animals their instinctive behaviour, evolved through hundred years of selection.

Knowledge in the world, selected based on utility, encoded into genes, producing designs that fare “well” out there, thrive, and will experiment and evaluate slight variation. Those surviving will be tomorrow’s genes.

# Good design

Evolution’s and design’s feedback loop work the same. Working across generations takes much longer than designing – producing – evaluating prototypes (e.g., in Agile or lean developments). Eventually, both processes will land to the same result: designs that are very hard to vary without compromising their function.

That is what I like to think of as “good design”. One hard to vary, with the right mix of required knowledge in the head and in the world3. “Good designs” result from iteration and selection. Through them, we test the quality of our knowledge. Good knowledge will produce good designs, that will embody that knowledge back into the world. And allow us to continue progressing to infinity.

That’s all for this time, thank you for reading! 👋

# Footnotes

  1. Technically, it is a signifier. ↩

  2. I noticed the connection between good design and good knowledge while reading David Deutsch’s “The beginning of infinity”. The amount of progress we can achieve tends to infinity. ↩

  3. That’s how to turn this quote into reality: “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Magic is based on expectations (in our head) about what we can do and how technology enables us to do that without taxing us with excessive knowledge in the world (e.g., manuals). ↩