Steven Johnson webchat – your questions answered on Trump, climate change and VR

The pop-science writer behind Everything Bad is Good for You and Wonderland came in to answer your questions, on everything from innovation in science and technology, to his thoughts on the Trump administration

2.35pm GMT

Thanks everyone for the great questions - I hope you'll get a chance to check out Wonderland, my new book. We didn't get to talk about it all that much, but I would like to just mention that the Observer yesterday called it "seductively erudite", a phrase that I am now going to put on my tombstone. Signing off!

2.30pm GMT

schtengraby2 says:

You talked about making a board game with your kid on Start the Week this morning. Sounded fun! How did you go about doing that?

That was really an incredibly rewarding experience as a parent. (And I think it was rewarding for my son too.) It was a summer-long project. We spent some time sketching out some ideas about what the theme of the game should be, which turned out to be a game about growing vegetables. And then spent much more time sketching out the actual board, just using paper and magic markers, and devising the rules. And then we would, in the language of product design, iterate: we'd play a couple of games, discuss what was working and wasn't working, and then tweak the game in a way we thought would make it more fun. And then we'd start the whole process again. I wrote a longer description of the whole process, with some reflections on game design as an educational tool and a great family experience, in this article at our site How We Get to Next.