Stephen P. Anderson

Figure It Out


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      FIGURE IT OUT

      Getting from Information to Understanding

       by

      STEPHEN P. ANDERSON and KARL FAST

       Foreword by Christina Wodtke

       TWO WAVES BOOKS

       NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA

      “In this illuminating and profoundly unique book, Stephen and Karl have cracked the code on how to make complex concepts not only simple but tangible. And, as they show, that makes all the difference. When you need to give your ideas body, form, and shape, you need this book.”

      —Dan Roam,

      Author of The Back of the Napkin and Draw to Win

      “Figure It Out is about learning tools + spaces—perception, representation, metaphor, models, systems, interaction-in-the-world, thinking-with-things— and design. Required reading for designers and anyone else who needs to explain things.”

      —Hugh Dubberly,

      Principal, Dubberly Design Office

      “Figure It Out won’t just change the way you think, but it will change the way you think about the way you think. Figure It Out is an intellectual tour de force, a cogent and compelling synthesis spanning art, science, design, and philosophy to create an elegant picture of how the world shapes our minds and vice versa, and how the meaning we make from our world is what makes us irrepressibly, irreducibly human.”

      —Jesse James Garrett,

      author of The Elements of User Experience

       “We all think. But we rarely think about how we think. Stephen and Karl dissect how we naturally make sense of the world, using not only our minds, but also our bodies and our surroundings. They break down the process into its different constituent parts and lay out the mental operations, physical behaviors, strategies, and activities we all use on a day-to-day basis. By revealing and describing these processes in a structured way, they provide the reader with a rich and actionable toolkit for sharpening their thinking and extending their capabilities for understanding and reasoning.”

      —Eva-Lotta Lamm,

      designer and visual thinker

      “The challenge of making sense of the oceans of information brought to us by digital technology is the truly significant task of our era. Not since Pinker’s 1997 tome has anyone addressed this important arena with the breadth and clarity it deserves. We will never create machines that understand their world until we can wrap our heads around the more daunting question of how humans understand it. This book brings us a step closer to that day.”

      —Alan Cooper,

      author of About Face and The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

      “Designers need to help users make sense of an increasingly complex world. Karl Fast and Stephen P. Anderson have laid out an invaluable toolkit to design for understanding.”

      —Julie Dirksen,

      author, Design for How People Learn

       Figure It Out

       Getting from Information to Understanding

      By Stephen P. Anderson and Karl Fast

      Two Waves Books

      an Imprint of Rosenfeld Media, LLC

      125 Maiden Lane, Suite 209

      New York, New York

      10038 USA

      On the Web: twowavesbooks.com

      Please send errors to: [email protected]

      Publisher: Louis Rosenfeld

      Managing Editor: Marta Justak

      Sketch-Note Illustrations: Eva-Lotta Lamm

      Figures: Stephen P. Anderson

      Interior Layout Tech: Danielle Foster

      Cover and Interior Design: The Heads of State

      Indexer: Marilyn Augst

      Proofreader: Sue Boshers

      © 2020 Stephen P. Anderson and Karl Fast

      All Rights Reserved

      ISBN: 1-933820-96-9

      ISBN 13: 978-1-933820-96-5

      LCCN: 2019956412

      Printed and bound in the United States of America

      Stephen P. Anderson For my boys: Gabriel, Liam, Elijah, and Jonas Read this book carefully, and you’ll understand how the world works. —Dad

      Karl Fast For my students—keep asking good questions.

      Contents

Foreword
Introduction
Part 1. A Focus on Understanding
Chapter 1. From Information to Understanding
Chapter 2. Understanding as a Function of the Brain, Body, and Environment
Part 2. How We Understand by Associations
Chapter 3. Understanding Is Fundamentally About Associations Between Concepts
Chapter 4. Everyday Associations: Metaphors, Priming, Anchoring, and Narrative
Chapter 5. Everyday Associations: Aesthetics and Explicit Visual Metaphors
Chapter 6. Closing Thoughts and Cautionary Notes About Associations
Part 3. How We Understand with External Representations