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“Recruiting Participants” – Dumas & Redish
Dumas & Redish lay-out the steps and tactics for recruiting participants; those include: Finding Appropriate Participants, Reaching and Screening Potential Participants, Deciding Who Should Recruit Participants, Knowing What to Say When You are Recruiting, Arranging for Payment or Other Incentives, and Having a Back-up -- But Not Double Booking
An Introduction to Usability – Patrick Jordan
Based on the International Standards Organisation's categories of "effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction," the author determines ways in which usability can be quantified. 'Effectiveness' is the capacity for a product to generate (or enable) output; 'Efficiency' is measured as the level of effort invested in completing an action or task (for example, the author categorizes usability errors as distinguished between a 'slip' and a 'mistake' in user performance and experience. For him, a slip is when a user accidentally performs the wrong action which is readily corrected by the user, whereas a mistake is when a user thinks he is doing the right thing (intuitive action), but is unable to perform his task.
Rob Wynne
As a dyslexic, Wynne's work revolves around ideas of language and found defects in texts and matter. He uses a wide range of materials and works on a variety of scales and surfaces, from installations, glass text, drawings, embroidered paintings, to ceramics as well as glass sculptures.
“An Interview with Don Norman.” – Howard Rheingold
Norman stressed the importance of understanding the logic behind the act of designing, which includes considerations for the human factor. In this interview he sets ground rules for 'good design' and focuses on the idea that design should be inherently 'humane'; which is to say that technological tools need to be thought of with a user-centered approach. "Cultivate Sensitivity to Design" explains how experimenting (observing, testing, etc.) helps designers reach a place of "empathy" for the user and simplifies complex products or systems in accordance to audience feedback.
Designer/Artist + Co-Creation
With the advent of new technologies and the rapid dissemination and accessibility of information, artists and designers develop increasingly sophisticated ways of thinking about the world in visual forms and of approaching open-ended questions or specific problems in new and exciting ways. It seems that design and art now represent blurred categorizations: artists and designers grow more apt at interchanging roles and are increasingly willing to collaborate and co-create.
“Biomimicry in Action” : designing with nature’s technology
Janine Benyus is a writer and innovation expert when it comes to looking at design and the natural sciences.