The Ladder in Practice

I watched a fantastic talk by Amelia Wattenberger the other day. Since then, I’ve been thinking about how the concept of varying the level of zoom on a problem or topic to accomplish different aims, often referred to as a ladder of abstraction, can be applied to just about any problem in today’s world. I’ve been thinking about health and wellness, specifically. This concept allows us to focus on different aspects of a problem or task at different levels of detail, depending on our immediate needs and goals. The same is true of the users of tools, services, and products. The ladder is a designer’s tool to help someone tackle a larger problem that they might not be an expert in but are still interested in addressing.

Consider the example of writing a book. At the highest level, we have the entire narrative. This is where we can influence the tone, plot, and overarching actions of the story. It's akin to viewing the curve of a plot, where we can shape the trajectory of the narrative.

As we zoom in, each chapter comes into focus, allowing us to delve into specific events and character developments. Zooming in further, we see the individual paragraphs where we can manipulate the pace of the story, introduce new ideas, or build tension.

At the sentence level, we can polish the language, refine the voice of the characters, and ensure the flow of the text. Finally, at the word level, we can select precise vocabulary to evoke specific emotions or imagery.

The same concept can be applied to someone’s health. A user's goals at different levels might look like this:

1. I want to be healthy (highest level)

2. I want to improve or maintain specific aspects of my health

3. I want to control a specific element of my health

4. I want to improve a specific health metric (e.g., vitamin B12 levels)

5. I want to manage a specific physiological response (e.g., cytokinal response)

These goals can be mapped to system actions:

1. Automate overall health maintenance (e.g., prescription refills)

2. Address specific health goals or chronic issues (e.g., weight loss)

3. Address a specific health issue (e.g., back pain)

4. Track specific health metrics (e.g., LDL cholesterol)

5. Influence specific physiological pathways (e.g., cytokine activation)

In essence, the ladder of abstraction allows us to tailor our approach to a problem, depending on our immediate needs and goals. This concept enables us to navigate complex systems effectively. It’s our job as designers to help our users navigate the systems we build for them in a similar fashion—tailoring your interfaces and content to correctly help someone know what actions to take next, every time.

For more on the topic, check out Amelia's talk at AI Engineer Summit 2023 here.