Dave Evans

We make the big distinction between navigation and wayfinding, technical terms in design.

So navigation, I know where I am.

I know where I'm going.

I have the data about the space in between.

It's what your GPS does really well.

I can optimize the path, preferably as straight as possible.

In wicked problems where I don't know what I'm looking for until I find it and I'm going to this very important place called the future about which we have no data because it doesn't exist yet, I can't do that.

Because I barely know where I am, and I sure don't know where I'm going.

And I don't have any data about the space in between.

So what am I going to do?

Well...

I'm going to do an empirical thing called try it.

We call it prototyping.

So I'm going to make this move.

I'm going to go, I'm going to go talk to Chris and see how that goes.

You know, then what did I learn that day?

And then, you know, I'll go here and then I'll go over here.

It's a very jagged pathway.

Might go backward.

I might have to start over again.