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Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. – Steve Krug
Steve Krug explains how we can create better Websites if we just stop wasting time on useless debates within teams and engage in 'usability testing' early on in the development process. His book provides the antidote.
He distinguishes between designers and developers in what they consider to be a 'good' website design. Designers prefer pleasant layouts, whereas developers enjoy a good amount of features. This is also compared to the duality between commercial culture and craft culture. Which is a question of aesthetics versus usability. Ideally, we would want to have both.
“A Human-Centered Technology.” – Don Norman
While innovation has a historical contribution in terms of providing appropriate and efficient tools for society that help enrich human knowledge and enhance mental capabilities (memory, thought, reflection), it has however created modes of entertainment that increasingly promote a consuming rather than a productive people and is accountable for the apparent social divider between the haves and havenots of technology.
“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.
Sketching User Experiences (2)- Bill Buxton
Bill Buxton defines "best practices" in designing for user experiences as a combination of both methods and skills relating to ideation: sketching, testing and problem-solving.
How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests – Jeffrey Rubin & Dana Chisnell
Testing has two main objectives: on the marketing level, it aims at improving sales; on a user-centered level, it aims at minimizing user frustrations and maximizing a product's usability. As the authors point out, testing goals inform the design of a product; those work in terms of the usefulness or relevance, learnability, efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction factors.