Thinking doesn’t just happen in our heads. When faced with a problem, we rarely sit perfectly still and just think. Instead, we interact with the world around us. We move around the room, talk to other people or to ourselves, write notes, draw diagrams, build prototypes, act out scenarios. We externalise the thinking process. Each externalised thought forms a model — a simplified representation that allows us to preserve, communicate, or reflect on the thought.
Computers have given us many new ways to work with our thoughts. Digital tools for professional drawing (CAD), music production (DAW) and video editing (NLE) allow us to create with amazing precision and to quickly explore multiple ideas. If we learn to program, we can even create richly dynamic simulations of our world, and the worlds of our imagination.
Despite these advances, the pen & paper is the most versatile tools for externalising our thoughts. Why is this? Can we design a new tool that helps us think, with simplicity similar to pen & paper, but also with the flexibility and dynamism that computers can offer?
To explore this question we built Crosscut, a prototype stylus & tablet tool for drawing dynamic models. It aspires to be a thing-to-think-through. In Crosscut you sketch, cobble, tinker, and play toward a deeper understanding — bring your own problem.
