recess recess

A Zamde publication

Somewhere to stop and read.

A recess is an alcove set back from the corridor, where you stop for a while. It is also the break between lessons. Recess publishes short pieces on designing with more clarity: one idea each, in about five minutes, with something to try before the bell.

Start with No. 01 See all 17

Start here

Good design starts before anything is built.

It starts with how the problem is framed. The first piece is about writing a problem statement the team can actually design from. Everything after it builds on that habit.

No. 01 · Field notes The brief before the build. Writing problem statements that lead to better outcomes: trace it, tell one small story, then test it five ways. 6 min read

Contents

17 pieces, 5 short series.

Read them in order or out of it. Each piece stands alone. The series follow one argument across three or four sittings, so each sitting stays short.

A series of 3 · 18 min in all

Good design

Practical notes for the everyday work: shaping a brief, reviewing a build, hearing what users mean. One idea each, in about five minutes.

  1. No. 01 · Field notes The brief before the build. Writing problem statements that lead to better outcomes: trace it, tell one small story, then test it five ways. 6 min read
  2. No. 02 · Field notes Look for the second click. Five things to watch for when you sit with a build before it ships, and how to log what you see so it survives until someone fixes it. 6 min read
  3. No. 03 · Field notes What people say, what people do. And the two layers below. Why interviews only reach the top of what people know, and how to get at the rest. 6 min read

A series of 3 · 20 min in all

Who decides

Design as a kind of decision, not a job title. What a system makes easy, hard and impossible, and who is actually holding the pen.

  1. No. 04 · Essay Design is a decision, not a job title. Every system makes some things easy, some hard and some impossible. Somebody decides which. Usually they don’t know they are doing it. 7 min read
  2. No. 05 · Essay Take the option away. Fixes that remove the possibility of failure hold up. Warnings, labels and reminders mostly fade. How to tell them apart. 7 min read
  3. No. 06 · Essay The checklist was never the intervention. The same one-page checklist halved deaths in one study and did nothing in another. What that says about artefacts, evidence and where design is worth most. 6 min read

A series of 4 · 21 min in all

Built to be learned

For people who build learning products and aren’t educators. Where good product instinct and the science of learning pull in opposite directions.

  1. No. 07 · Primer Ease of use is not ease of learning. What feels best in the moment often teaches least. Why learning products need a different instinct about friction. 5 min read
  2. No. 08 · Primer Clean is a learning requirement. Hierarchy, whitespace and one primary action aren’t only good craft. In a learning product, they decide how much gets learned. 5 min read
  3. No. 09 · Primer Confetti is not feedback. Rewards can crowd out the reason to learn, a third of feedback makes things worse, and the most famous motivation idea is a fraction of its reputation. 5 min read
  4. No. 10 · Primer Write principles that can lose an argument. A method for turning learning science into design principles a team can defend, and five tests that throw out the slogans. 6 min read

A series of 4 · 21 min in all

Zero is an average

Forty years of edtech research average out to a modest number. The spread underneath it is enormous, and that spread is where design lives.

  1. No. 11 · Essay Zero is an average. Forty years of edtech research pool to one modest number. The spread underneath it is where design decides the outcome. 5 min read
  2. No. 12 · Essay Measure it after you take it away. An AI tutor made practice easier and the exam no better. Performance with a tool and capability without it are different numbers. 5 min read
  3. No. 13 · Essay Aim at the floor. The average user doesn’t exist. The people who need a product most are the furthest from it, and the biggest gains are found there. 5 min read
  4. No. 14 · Essay Feed the pig. Two school-technology failures with more money than most well-designed things. The honest case for design is insurance, and our own statistics need checking first. 6 min read

A series of 3 · 17 min in all

Finishing the work

Good work does not speak for itself. Communication is where the work gets finished: claim first, say how sure you are, check what was heard.

  1. No. 15 · Workshop Good work does not speak for itself. Most work is told the way it was done. Readers need it in the order they will use it. Communication is where the work gets finished. 6 min read
  2. No. 16 · Workshop Say how sure you are. A hedge is not a confidence level. Quantify instead of hedging, sort claims into bins, and find the step in your argument most likely to break. 5 min read
  3. No. 17 · Workshop Silence is not agreement. A document informs the undecided. Relationships move the decided. How to brief before the room, and check what was heard after it. 6 min read

How to read Recess

Short on purpose.

Reading something and thinking “that makes sense” feels like learning. Mostly it isn’t. So every piece asks a little of you along the way.

  1. 01

    Predict before you look.

    Most pieces stop and ask you to commit to an answer first. Being wrong in private, cheaply, is how judgement gets calibrated.

  2. 02

    Take one thing away.

    Each piece ends with a short list of takeaways and the one line worth carrying out of the room.

  3. 03

    Try it this week.

    Then an exercise you can do on real work in under half an hour, and a few questions to mull over on the way home.