Thank you, Austin!

“Describes design at the platform and site level (or across sites)” Yes! Spot on. This is certainly born out of mine (and Erik’s) experiences thinking about systems, strategy, level design, facilitation, and similar topics.

To clarify: ‘Alternative’ in this case is not meant to suggest a ‘replacement for’ but rather another tool in the toolbox for when the constraint of a linear flow is more hindrance than help. It’s what I’ve been looking for for those times (not all the time, mind you!) when a linear flow felt more like fiction. So, I’m not against linear representations.

That said, even if working on a narrow slice of the experience, there’s a difference between thinking of your work as following/preceding another step owned by another team (being part of a long narrative arc) as opposed to being a standalone moment of learning; depending on the narrative arc, this may not be the case, but if it is… Also, who is crafting the longer narrative arc? And are they closing themselves off to innovations by segmenting things in the abstract? It seems like there’s a tight coupling between the nuanced details of an interaction and the broad arc it’s a part of… I’m also finding it’s a great thought exercise to reframe that ‘feature’ or interaction being designed as a moment of learning.

I am concluding that the longer the narrative arc is, the greater the risk of that arc being wrong for more people. I definitely favor short arcs, that may happen in any sequence. But, all of this is theoretical until applied to actual experiences (this is all born out of my prior experiences).

Obviously, this way of working doesn’t apply everywhere, just certain places. Right tool for the job and all.