Andy Matuschak on physically-informed digital interface design

Andy is a software engineer, designer, and researcher working on technologies that expand what people can think and do. In past lives he helped build iOS at Apple and led R&D at Khan Academy. Now as an independent researcher, his methods bridge the gap between academia and Silicon Valley.

DEVON: Hello, and welcome to Tools & Craft. I'm Devon Zuegel and today I'm talking with Andy Matuschak, a programmer, designer and researcher who works on technologies that expand what people can think and do. The way Andy approaches his work is an interesting hybrid between academia and Silicon Valley. He explores theories by building and studying real world software systems, improving the systems with insights he's gathered and then repeating it all in a cycle. Andy was part of the early iOS team at Apple and after that, he co-led the research lab at Khan Academy.

He's a true craftsman who puts tremendous care into everything he does, whether it's cooking a complex meal, learning a piano sonata, or writing an essay summarizing a finding from his research. Andy had a fun and wide-ranging conversation. We talked about the importance of peripheral vision, the emotional experience the different technical systems evoke, what it means to build a serious context of use when building tools and much more. So, Andy, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. So for starters, how does the emotional experience of an e-ink screen differ from using a normal LCD?

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