Interaction design of Roam Research

RSVP opens at 12pm FRIDAY, 23 April 2021

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This month, we're doing a ixd teardown of Roam Research, a "tool for networked thought".

It's an unusual combination of...
....an outliner tool where every bullet becomes its own living thing
....a graph network of notes instead of folders and categories
....a unique markup syntax to support the rapid referencing, recombining and updating of notes

We see it as a really interesting interaction design case study, where the details matter quite a bit. It's an opportunity for us to study Roam's ixd aspects which blends personal productivity features with coding-like paradigms.

We'll be joined by the talented John V Wilshire and Nico Macdonald, with possibly one more panelist if we're lucky!

Boon and Jason will be there to host, yet again.

And we invite everyone who's already been using Roam, as well healthy skeptics and curious observers.

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About our panelists:

John V Willshire is the founder of Smithery, a strategic design unit based inLondon working across four broad territories of strategy, design, culture, and prototyping. All of Smithery’s work is rooted in the idea that it is betterto make things people want than make people want things.

Central to all of this work has been helping organisations learn to quickly
adopt appropriate stances through a system of movement, maps, loops and
layers. This approach creates compelling projects where both a) the specific
innovation and ideas and b) the broader experiences and behaviours can
take hold in a company.Recent beneficiaries of this approach include the BBC, Konica Minolta, Experian, EA, The Royal Society, Immerse UK, KTN, LEGO, The British Council, The Science Museum, the FSA and the V&A.

John also teaches these methods at further education establishments, and is
Visiting Professor at IED in Barcelona, where he is also Co-ordinator for their
Innovation and Future Thinking course. He also delivers keynotes at
conferences like dConstruct, Webdagene, and The Conference. One of the tools designed for this approach, Artefact Cards, have grown to become a successful range of different creative tools for ideas practitioners and companies across the globe.

Prior to starting Smithery, John was Chief Innovation Officer at PHD Media in
London, and led innovation there from 2007-2011.

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Nico Macdonald lectures on social media at the University of East London and the council on International Educational Exchange in London. He is also a visiting fellow at the School of Arts and Creative Industries at London South Bank University. He has worked in digital media since the early 90s, including consulting with BBC Future Media & Technology and leading digital design for Guardian Unlimited. He founded the media innovation startup Media Futures, which facilitated early debate around the role of social media. He is co-author of BIG POTATOES: The London Manifesto for Innovation, and has written extensively on media, technology and society for publications including the RSA Journal, DCM (the UK Design Council magazine), and the Online Journalism Review (US).

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Learn more about Roam Research here:
https://roamresearch.com

Watch some quick videos to see how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SwQ4usbCX4&list=PLirPuSjy7wZAbEY6nLcyQC6HZXRDt_qEL

Read Boon's recent reflections on it:
https://boonych.medium.com/adding-life-back-to-my-notes-roam-after-4-months-e419f543b74d