I don’t remember exactly where this came from. A friend gave me a scan years ago. I came across it tonight while going through some backup CDs. It effectively illustrates how frustrating the design process can sometimes be. And, how it can often go astray.
I am constantly surprised at how long this one has been going around, and how many people haven’t seen it. This is a 30-year old cartoon, actually, and it’s been recycled and updated so many times — most show a tire swing attached to a tree, not a chair, as the main subject of the cartoon.
After doing a bit of searching, getting tipped off by Fred Tepfer’s comment here, and what seems to be the original cartoon here, it seems that this cartoon was first printed in the book entitled The Oregon Experiment, by Christopher Alexander et al., from 1975.