I'm an applied researcher, focused on creating user interfaces that expand what people can think and do.
I'm an applied researcher, focused on creating user interfaces that expand what people can think and do. My current focus is an augmented book which actively helps people understand, remember, and use what they read.
I believe personal computers can enable transformative tools for thought: environments that radically transform what people can think and do, so much so that we expand the set of thoughts it’s possible to think. I want to produce alien cognitive and creative powers—as wondrous and magical to us today as a modern visual effects artist might seem to a cave painter.
I’m an independent researcher, supported by a crowdfunded grant from my Patreon community. If you find my work interesting, you can become a member to help make it happen. You’ll get regular essays on work-in-progress, access to events, previews of new prototypes, and more.
Prior to my current work, I helped build iOS at Apple and led R&D at Khan Academy.
Augmenting cognition and creativity; "how to create magicians?"; "what comes after the book?"; enabling environments.
What comes after the book?
Towards convivial AI-augmented learning
Barriers and opportunities, joint with Michael Nielsen
An experimental “mnemonic book,” joint with Michael Nielsen
On designing media to reflect how people think and learn
Extending the reading experience over time; joint with Michael Nielsen
An index of the questions and ideas I‘m exploring
Design properties, evidence of impact, top questions
Methods for developing ideas over time
Incomplete notes on a new kind of growth environment
Systems which systematically orchestrate your mind
Athletes and musicians vs. knowledge workers
Monthly essays on work in progress. Most are initially written for my patrons, but some are later made available to the public.
Less formal essays (some patron-only)
Transcending The Diamond Age's vision for learning
April '24 updates on Orbit, BookBridge, etc
What kinds of knowledge remain meaningful?
Pouring the silicon into the concrete
…and other lessons from 2023
Observations from working with 14 students
How to distribute time in study?
A new reading augmentation design concept
Some problems with problem-solving practice
Painting a text with explanation
Memory failures are often not the root problem
Reframing review sessions as practice sessions
Grappling with my moral obligations as a designer
Difficulties in knowledge transfer
Field work experiments in adult learning
Reflections on my membership program
Tentative plans for my 2023 research
Notes on whatʼs worked for me
Synthesis on new mnemonic medium
Demo/talk of a new floating design
Systems for dictation without audible sound
Notes from testing a new mnemonic medium
Demo/talk of a redesign around reader control
One way implicit practice fails in knowledge work
Patterns in preliminary data
Reflections on creative work, the field, crowdfunding
Lenses for progress in interface invention
Surprises in analysis of conceptual memory
Board game instruction manuals… and Figma
Interface approaches for reader control
Expanding beyond primers' assumptions
Notes on bridging skills and ideas
A challenge for tool-builders
Open-sourcing Orbit; technical collaborations
Surprising distributions in Quantum Country
How to accrete insight as a field?
From memory systems to meaning
Funding, culture, limitations, process
Problem-solving and -finding; The Uncertainty Mindset
Text-writing needs prompt-writing needs text-writing
Tensions with deliberate practice and flow
Challenges in explaining new mediums
… and fuzzy inboxes
Remarks on a milestone in crowdfunding
Escaping educational aesthetics
Integrating spaced repetition into prose notes
Extending the desktop for programmable attention
Work from my time at Khan Academy, where my team worked with teachers to invent novel interactive learning environments.
Creations from my R&D work at Khan Academy.
Beyond right and wrong: scalable open-ended learning activities
Designing digital manipulatives to reveal numbers’ hidden properties
Reframing early numeracy around adventure, wonder, and creativity
When author and learner share a canvas
A syntactic trick to emphasize student agency
Reflections on the team’s design process
Mastery learning’s limits for complex skills
Bridging behavioral interviews and prototypes
The gulf between application and explanation
Designing peer interactions to avoid abuse
The limits of teaching without words
Using student work to arrange social learning
Notes from literature / market review
Enabling open-ended online learning activities
Designing math manipulatives for fluid use
Making abstract properties more visible
Introducing our math manipulative project
Helping students surf their learning edge
Miscellaneous writing, appearances, and projects scattered across the web.
Miscellaneous writing, appearances, projects.