CONCEPT
Designing for the Gap
The design philosophy Suchman's framework implies — AI systems should be designed not as oracles that deliver outputs but as structures that keep users in the developmental friction through which situated knowledge accumulates.
Designing for the gap is the alternative design philosophy that emerges from Suchman's framework. The dominant AI design paradigm — the oracle model — treats users as agents with questions who need answers, problems who need solutions, intentions who need artifacts. The system's job is to produce the best output as efficiently as possible. Designing for the gap rejects this framing in favor of a different question: what is the user's situation, and how can the system support her capacity to act intelligently within it? The resulting designs may be less efficient by output metrics, because they preserve the developmental friction through which practitioners are formed. They are designs for situated use rather than for output production — scaffolds for human competence rather than substitutes for it.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The oracle model is the path of least resistance for AI product design. It is what users, in the short term, prefer. It is what organizations measure. It
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