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Thought about concepts like ‘system-of-record’ and ‘safe-to-fail’, which I think are at the structures layer in a systems iceberg, and how ‘organisational environments’ that make those concepts possible or effective are at the mental models layer. So, when we see those concepts fail in the ‘patterns’ layer, maybe it’s because we didn’t understand them at the deeper layers. Systems-of-record, for example, only work in certain organisational environments, but if we don’t interrogate the environment we’ll only ever see the patterns of the system-or-record failing. Maybe the iceberg needs a different metaphor, perhaps a building where the mental models are the foundations and if they aren’t strong then the structures above will be shaky.
Read lots of research papers about donating to charity to help identify research questions for some interviews we want to do. I’m hoping that grounding the user research in existing academic research will give it more validity and intellectual robustness, which means we get more meaningful answers.
Wrote my weeknotes.