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The Simplicity Shift – Scott Jenson
Scott Jenson defines 'feature blindness' as users being blinded by a feature list. He identifies the bottom-up approach of creating a user persona and a task scenario as more efficient than the top-down approach, in terms of organizing a commonsensical hierarchy of a product's features. The ideal visualization would be to 'tame' the feature list and prioritize features in accordance to a set of usage requirements and subsequent usage frequency.
“calm technology” (Weiser & Brown, 1996)
According the Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown (1996), "peripheral information" extends the notion of "affordances" to describe action enabling technologies that are reachable, yet on the periphery of perception and therefore encalming.
“Conducting a Usability Evaluation” – Patrick Jordan
After having listed various evaluation methods, Jordan provides a guideline for choosing the most appropriate method(s) depending on the level at which a prototype is developed and shows an example of how such testing might be conducted.
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.
The Backtalk of Self-Generated Sketches – Gabriela Goldschmidt
"The inventive process" is an iterative process of jotting down ideas in the form of language or graphic drawings and of modifying them, reevaluating them, editing them, and so on, to transform or perfect an initial concept or solution.