And the gold medal for spectacular feedback design goes to…MacGregor.    

Oliver Sacks, the incredibly compassionate neurologist, tells the story of MacGregor, an “alert, bright as a button” 93-year-old, who walked into his office one day with a pronounced ‘tilt’.  Mr. MacGregor said, “others keep telling me that I lean to the side…a bit more tilt and you’ll topple right over.”  He had lost his innate sense of balance due to complications related to Parkinson’s. MacGregor himself was completely unaware of his tilt until Dr. Sacks showed him a video recording of his walk into the office. He was “profoundly shocked” – a common reaction to disconcerting feedback.    

After a thoughtful moment he said, “I used to be a carpenter, and we would always use a spirit level to tell whether a surface was level or not.”  He reasoned that if he can’t use the spirit levels inside his head, he needed them outside, where he could see them.  Brilliant.  Soon they had a prototype – spectacles with spirit levels mounted on an extender, a few inches from his eyes.  The brilliance of this ‘feedback’ device was that it was ‘accurate’ and ‘always available’.   While it was exhausting in the beginning to look at the levels and correct his tilt, with practice it became unconscious, “like keeping an eye on the instrument panel of one’s car.”  Every time I read this case; I am in awe of Mr. MacGregor’s ingenious feedback apparatus.

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