There's Not an App for That

Chapter 11

Opportunity 3.1

Inspired by Mess

Abstract

Mess in the physical world has lots of advantages—it platforms personal expression, enables personalized and effective organization and search, can spark creative interaction and exploration, and so on. In this Opportunity chapter, we illustrate how relaxing your over-tidy, clinical designs can enhance app designs and services.

Keywords

mess; loose organization; visualization; personalization; self-expression

What’s the Opportunity?

By messiness we mean the opposite of the tidy, techno-centered, clinical look and feel of many apps. In contrast, we’ll look at ways to exploit mess creatively. The mess we use can be digital but we will also see how to use the rich complexity of the physical world around ...