All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: Some Ethical Guidelines for User Experience in Ubiquitous-Computing Settings

Essay on the threat and promise of ubicomp: It should be clear that ubicomp represents a substantial raising of stakes; that its field of operation is by definition total; and that its potential for harm is such that the user experience is too important to leave to chance.

Greenfield, Adam. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Technology

The Bathing Ape Has No Clothes

I do this because, well, I love design. More to the point, I crave design talk: who’s influenced who, what tools do you use, what trends do you observe, what rocks your world, and so forth. I get a lot out of this discourse. The signal-to-noise ratio of this particular subset of the Internet has always tilted strongly towards meaning. Until fairly recently, that is, when I started to notice a new feeling creeping into the sites I frequented. In what were nominally gathering places to discuss and celebrate online design, design seemed to be just about the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Greenfield, Adam. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Graphic Design>Web Design

Everyware: Always Crashing in the Same Car

Even where the application of ubiquitous technology would clearly be useful, I know enough about how informatic systems are built and brought to market to be very skeptical about its chances of bringing wholesale improvement to the quality of my life.

Greenfield, Adam. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Usability>Ubiquitous Computing

How to Architect Sites Across Cultures Without Losing Your Mind

Ever since I started working formally as an information architect, I've clung to the belief that there's a universal set of conditions that we're trying to achieve. But what I've slowly begun to believe over my time working here in Japan is that there is simply no such thing as a universal good.

Greenfield, Adam. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>International>Localization

What's in a Name? Or, What Exactly Do We Call Ourselves?

Defining the audience for Boxes and Arrows sparked the same heated discussion as the community-at-large about what exactly do we call ourselves?

Greenfield, Adam and George Olsen. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Information Design>Professionalism