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Kuniavsky’s “Information Shadows”

Information shadows enable users to access information about their products and experience them in very different ways than could have been imaginable before the Internet. Today, products mean so much more to people and impact their product/customer experiences in new ways. With built-in ubicomp, customers experience products that have a much wider network of associations.

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Empowering Design

In 2016, design will empower people, giving them a sense of control over their bodies and environments. More importantly, this is the year that design will fuel all aspects of our social and private lives, and play a role in how we deal with the everyday as a society and as individuals.

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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.

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Introducing ‘Systems Thinking’

Systems Thinking teaches us how the design of a complex information system often needs to include mechanisms to account for “short term” and “long term” (or chronic) disturbances of flow caused by environmental changes, by dealing with the “whole” system rather than its parts. By creating systems able to adapt to environmental changes and thus to learn to sustain themselves in the face of unforeseen shifts, design can plan for more effective and efficient complex information systems. This is depicted primarily in the study of Cybernetics.

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Designing for Perceptual Differentiation

The contextual scale of information matters; that is, to design at the human scale with considerations for accessibility, readability, and reachability, that correspond to user-centric demographic and psychographic requirements. To design for user-centric perceptual processing is to coherently integrate a belief system. Whitehouse explains how belief may contribute to the ways in which information is assimilated and interpreted, thus affecting the understanding of what one sees.

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