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Beck is Back: Turning Reading Notes into a Tinderbox Map
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Posted by Jeffery Smith
Feb 9, 2019 at 04:02 PM
I think the issue I have had with Tinderbox’s learning curve is that the printed documentation seems to get immediately bogged down in assigning properties to a note, and how to access those properties by clicking on icons associated with the note. After an hour, I’m still at the beginning of the manual. At that point, I go to something easier to use because I’m losing patience.
Right now, I’m using DevonThink Pro Office at work. If it doesn’t fill the void left by Tinderbox, I’ll start on Beck’s series of videos.
Jeffery
PS: I didn’t mean to diss Dominique Renauld. I thought I saw his videos on Vimeo, but couldn’t find him there. I just upgraded to a new Mac Mini and am still in the process of restoring 500 gb of data onto it from my previous Mac Mini.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Feb 9, 2019 at 06:31 PM
I was thinking about “purposeful purposelessness” today and it occured to me that that could describe the design philosophy of Tinderbox. Mark Bernstein has created a very specific set of tools, but leaves it entirely up to the user just how to employ those tools and to what purpose. Beck, did I even get close to the correct definition of “purposeful purposelessness”?
Steve Z.
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
What I love about Beck’s videos is three-fold:
>
>1. You get a very nice primer on certain aspects of Tinderbox, of
>course, including the all-important (with Tinderbox) case example.
>2. You see a smart person working through the process of making sense of
>complex concepts.
>3. You learn something interesting about a subject (purposeful
>purposelessness, for example) you may never have heard of before.
>
>Well done, Beck. And definitely NOT boring.
>
>Steve Z.
Posted by Beck
Feb 9, 2019 at 08:05 PM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
I was thinking about “purposeful purposelessness” today and it occured
>to me that that could describe the design philosophy of Tinderbox. Mark
>Bernstein has created a very specific set of tools, but leaves it
>entirely up to the user just how to employ those tools and to what
>purpose. Beck, did I even get close to the correct definition of
>“purposeful purposelessness”?
Steve, you did! Tinderbox seems quite purposefully designed to let users determine the purpose, and Mark holds strongly to not determining that for us. Also, it takes a lot of time to understand it and what it can do — a rich experience of learning and experimentation. It is, perhaps, a very successful application of slow technology.
Another article I’ve read recently (citation below) is about how when you design slow technology in our world of fast technology, the initial user experience is often frustration (which mirrors what we often see with TBX) and that gives way to acceptance if you stick with it for several months (which has been my experience).
Odom, W., Sellen, A. J., Banks, R., Kirk, D. S., Regan, T., Selby, M. et al. (2014). Designing for Slowness, Anticipation and Re-visitation: A Long Term Field Study of the Photobox. Proceedings from Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
I love that we can think about purposeful purposeless together.
Beck
Posted by Paul Korm
Feb 9, 2019 at 08:27 PM
Interesting ctonversation.
The analog world is full of “purposeful purposeless” context: a kitchen, a woodworker’s workshop, an artist studio—- even a WeWork space, perhaps.
We don’t walk into the kitchen and ask the chef “ok, show me how to make food”, or the woodworker “let’s make furniture”.
We have to explore the cabinets and drawers, read the labels, fiddle with the tools. On day 1 in the kitchen, banoffee pie is not in our skill set. Maybe we start with toast.
There are lots of drawers and cabinets and odd-shaped tools in Tinderbox or Curio or DEVONthink or Scrivener. (Not intending to be Mac centric.) It takes a while to play around. PLAYing is the best way to discover purposes.
Unfortunately, lots of folks are told “go get Tinderbox, it’s terrific” and skip a few movie nights with their partner to afford the cost of Tinderbox. We shouldn’t hope to move into George Nakashima’s workshop a few days after picking up our first screwdriver. Take a long while to play, first.
Posted by Beck
Feb 12, 2019 at 12:47 AM
Playing is a wonderful way to think of it, Paul. I agree. Sometimes when I am putzing about in the garden or chicken coop, I feel like I am playing outside just as when I was a kid. The CRIMPing we do, well speaking for myself, it is a kind of play, isn’t it? I feel lucky that I have enough bandwidth to play so much (ha!).
Your woodworker analogy reminded me of something my good friend, Howard, a master woodworker once told me: that a carpenter’s first tool is a broom.