Elements of Hackability

WARNING: Conceptual abstracts about hackability lie within this post. Don't read further if that sort of stuff makes your head hurt.

Dan Hill is a guy who knows a lot about a lot. An interaction designer out of London, he spends his time at the intersections of the web, music, architecture, and digital media...with a bit of European football thrown in for good measure. He writes about it all very eloquently at City of Sound.

While researching what had been written so far about hackability and its application beyond technology, I was really impressed by a post he'd put together in 2006, exploring the concept of hackability through architecture and urban planning, in addition to product design. It really swims in the abstraction, but is a great read if you are into that sort of thing.

For brevity, here is his list of the qualities of adaptive design, which overlap how hackable environments would be created.

• Think of platforms, not solutions - overbuild infrastructure, underbuild features
• Build with an architecture of layers; enable fast layers to change rapidly (learning); slower layers enable stability
• Create seamful experiences, based around behaviour not aesthetics; often includes modular design
• Undesigned products, or rather not overdesigned; to invite the user in, to encourage evolution
• Define vocabularies, or basic patterns of interaction
• Leave space to evolve (if physical/spatial, build with modular shapes which can extend easily)
• Enable users to manage the at-hand information and interactions; the surface layers
• Create an aesthetic of ongoing process (this could engender trust)
• This process implies that the designer provides support, engagement over time etc.

Read the full post here.