This handout provides a structured template for workshop participants to conduct protocol watching—a systematic practice of observing and analyzing how protocols function in real-world contexts. The material offers concrete methodological guidance for identifying, documenting, and interpreting protocol behaviors and effects.
This worksheet guides participants to identify and document protocol patterns in urban space through a structured template that captures problems, infrastructure, and visual documentation. The tool is part of a larger pattern language project that enables DIY protocol discovery and design in built environments.
Drew Austin
Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAFs) are cryptic, haiku-like weather predictions produced continuously by meteorologists worldwide that directly inform pilot decisions and shape aviation operations at every scale. These terse textual protocols encode atmospheric phenomena and thresholds that determine individual actions, airport procedures, and global traffic patterns.
Matthew McDowell-Sweet
The Casio F-91W, a $14 plastic watch worn by everyone from Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden, exemplifies a design philosophy of \"unreasonable adequacy\"—meeting basic needs through durability, reliability, and ubiquity rather than sophistication. Its emergence as both a cultural icon and an object of security concern reveals how humble consumer gadgets become entangled with geopolitics, popular culture, and surveillance.
Timber Stinson-Schroff