I have been thinking a lot about software as I’ve been reading Alexander’s work for the last year and I don’t know if the future will hold an opportunity for me to apply any of these ideas. So … it was sweet to discover that Ryan Singer made a connection between Alexander’s work and user experience design. His talk frames software design as a reactive process to external forces (which represent activities of the world which software is supposed to support).
I feel it is a subtle and yet substantial reframing of the typical “requirements” modality which was dominant in software when I was involved in it. However I feel that Alexander’s process thinking has much more potential to affect how software is created … and that is not a part of this talk. Still, a good presentation and a pleasant presenter: