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Sometimes you get stuck in a creative rut, and it takes a li’l nudgeto get out of the rut, jus’ sayin

This deck of 70 cards on professional playing-card stock offers insights into design, creativity, and software.

These insights prompt you to adopt new perspectives, identify dissonance, look for structure, and explore different approaches.

Drawn from Mary Shaw’s decades of experience in software design and engineering, they provide thoughtful guidance to overcome creative blocks and discover fresh perspectives.

Insightful nudges for creativity and design

Each card has an insight on the front, which is elaborated on the back with more detail and an attribution.

Nudges include observations about the nature of the world and advice on what to do in practice.

Nudges offer advice on design, engineering, systems & society, research, abstraction & specification, and education.

They draw heavily on software system design but apply to a wide spectrum of design and educational settings.


Identify the scarce resource and manage it carefully - In most designs there is a scarce resource. The key to successful design is to identify this resource and allocate it carefully.  [Brooks 10] Safety first.  In allocating resources, strive to avoid disaster rather than to attain an optimum. [Lampson 83] key =#9

Useful in many settings

You can use them individually or in groups.

These creative nudge cards capture what should be common sense about creativity and design, especially in software, but often isn’t recognized as such.

You can use them to guide discussions, for personal inspiration, for brainstorming, or as a game.

More details available

Get the bibliography that explains the citations on the cards.

Get a booklet with a full listing of the cards and the bibliography.