History of design and technology

• What the Post-it Note Teaches About Happy Accidents in Design

  A failed glue and a slipping bookmark became one of the best-known office products in the world. The story holds a lesson for every team that wants better ideas.

• The Switch That Taught Us to Stop Blaming Pilots

  B-17 crews kept retracting their landing gear on the runway. The fix was a knob shape, and the lesson still applies to AI products today.

• The Challenger Launch Decision as a Design Lesson

  The engineers had the data that predicted the Challenger seal failure. Here is how the charts hid the danger, and what that teaches anyone who builds dashboards.

• What Three Mile Island Taught Control Room Design

  A panel light showed a valve as closed while the valve was stuck open. Here is how Three Mile Island changed control room design, and what the accident teaches software teams.

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