Lessons from the Kitchen

I'm (in) Ambidextrous

I was pleased to be asked to contribute an article to Ambidextrous Magazine (from Stanford’s d.school) in their upcoming “Food” issue (available soon). What’d I write about? Well, it’s been a number of years since I stopped cooking professionally, but I have been struck by what I think some interaction designers could learn from watching how a restaurant kitchen operates. My original pitch sounded like this:

Chefs organize their cooks and their space with a few key principles in mind:  maximizing consistency of product, ensuring creative freedom to experiment, and encouraging effective problem solving under incredibly stressful conditions… For those who manage creative organizations, the professional kitchen can provide inspiration for how to balance these principles effectively.

If you’d like to read the article, it’s available here as a three page PDF. If you take the opportunity to read it, please let me know what you think. Huge thanks to Amanda Willoughby and Evany Thomas for their careful editing work, and to Lora Oehlberg and Mike Pihulic from Ambidextrous for making it a pleasure to contribute to the magazine.

There are 13 comments on this idea.

Great stuff, Ryan. It rings entirely true. I feel like there’s also an analogy to be made about “user research” here somewhere. It seems to me that the most innovative chefs tend to wander, combine influences, and create not based on comment cards, but observations of what works and what doesn’t. Then design proposals are vetted as specials or tasting menus, and eventually added to a repetoire. The very best “patterns” are added to cookbooks.

Jim, thank you for the link, I’ll give it a read this weekend.

Mike, I completely agree with your analogy. Your “user research” is very much in line with the way most of the cooks I know seek out inspiration. Jason (who I mentioned in the article) was just sent to France for a month to live, eat and work in environments that are sure to be reflected in the menus he dreams up in the months and years to come. (I know, rough gig, huh?) Good observation about the patterns making their way into cookbooks - effectively, they’re artifacts of all the inspiration and experimentation that have worked their way into the vernacular.

Thanks for the comments, and glad you dug the article.

As an interaction designer, avid cook (and eater) I found your cooking/design concept right on, and also found myself paralleling my own experiences in the kitchen with your thoughts! Bravo. Nice to know that I, in my early days as a starving artist, was not the only one that turned to culinary disciplines as a way of feeding our creative thoughts and gullets. Bon Appetit!

Ryan, a wonderful and excellently succinct article!  Thank you for sharing!  It always amazes me how interaction design tends to draw the most interesting and inquisitive minds from all sorts of fields ... cooking now among those on my list.  The lessons you’ve extracted from your experience in both areas ring true.

i’m also a cooking & food addict ;-) I ve already discussed often with big chief and always amazed by their generosity. The desire more than anything giving pleasure to their guest. We could also learn a lot of them in UX design : some restaurants really offer such an experience. You re welcomed, they offer you a place full of little details, confortable chairs, nice service, nice flowers, all is selected very careffully. Meal is tasty, delicious, inventive and beautifull to watch ....

In the old conflict beautifull vs usable, big chief now since a long time it’s beautiffull and tasty

thanks for your article

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