All design is situated—carried out from an embedded position. Design involves many participants and encompasses a range of interactions and interdependencies among designers, designs, design methods, and users. Design is also multidisciplinary, extending beyond the traditional design professions into such domains as health, culture, education, and transportation. This book presents eighteen situated design methods, offering cases and analyses of projects that range from designing interactive installations, urban spaces, and environmental systems to understanding customer experiences.
Each chapter presents a different method, combining theoretical, methodological, and empirical discussions with accounts of actual experiences. The book describes methods for defining and organizing a design project, organizing collaborative processes, creating aesthetic experiences, and incorporating sustainability into processes and projects. The diverse and multidisciplinary methods presented include a problem- and project-based approach to design studies; a “Wheel of Rituals” intended to promote creativity; a pragmatist method for situated experience design that derives from empirical studies of film production and performance design; and ways to transfer design methods in a situated manner. The book will be an important resource for researchers, students, and practitioners of interdisciplinary design.

An open collection of communication tools used in design processes that deal with complex systems. The tools are displayed according to the design activity, the kind of representation, the recipients and the contents of the project.

Last week I enrolled in a GIGA-Mapping course held by Birger Sevaldson. Very inspiring and very interesting! GIGA-Mapping is a way of showing your process (think of it as a process tool) and using generative thinking instead of only descriptive thinking. GIGA-Mapping is proactively working with a subject: Think of everything as being super complex and try to unfold it. The point is to map until you start feeling silly and you’re mapping silly things. By doing this you are defining (and discovering) the boundaries of your project, and it also helps you spot those small things far out in the system that are easy to miss, but might have a big say in your work.

Designers across disciplines share strikingly similar approaches to the creative process, which we’ve mapped out as ‘the Double Diamond’.

People will use tools you give to them in the most unexpected, but still effective to them ways

If you’re working on any kind of redesign project involving a large amount of content, such as that of a website, intranet or mobile site, one of the first tasks you’ll need to perform is a content audit.

I say need, not want—a content audit isn’t something you’re necessarily going to want to tackle. It’s one of those un-sexy, tedious jobs that hardly anyone talks about. But you can’t undertake a redesign of a content-heavy site without it.

Every website needs an audience. And every audience needs a goal. Advocating for end-user needs is the very foundation of the user experience disciplines. We make websites for real people. Those real people are able to do real things. Everyone is happy. But, it’s not really that easy, is it? via Pocket

Whether creating an the newest app, an interactive kiosk or an entire Web presence, excellent, usable and understandable design is central to a communicator’s success. Usability and UX Design combines the basics of visual layout with several strategies for building and testing interfaces.
This course is about being a knowledgeable journalist, a media artist, an informed designer and an innovator. Passion for ethical communication and creativity are essential to your success. Understanding users and their behaviors will lead you to becoming an effective creator of digital products. This work opens many possibilities, some of which we are yet to discover. The goals of this class, therefore, are to familiarize you with usability and UX design concepts and allow you the opportunities to experiment, create and explore.

A content strategy must achieve a harmonic balance between business goals, editorial mission, user expectations, design vision, the content production process, and technological capabilities.

“Observe how your users approach information, consider what it means, and design to allow them to achieve what they need.” I discovered the concepts in this article while preparing material for an introductory information architecture workshop. via Pocket

В любой момент времени человек может сосредоточить свое внимание только на одном предмете. Это может быть какой-то объект реального мира (например, лист бумаги) определенная область экрана или окна, а может и какой-нибудь процесс «в уме» (например, когда человек обдумывает свои действия или что-то рассчитывает).

UX Movement is a user experience blog that shows how good and bad interface design practices affect user behavior. We believe that a clear, fast and easy-to-use interface is the greatest user experience. It’s the UX designer’s job to make this happen.

People come to GOV.UK with specific needs. Anything that gets between our users and meeting those needs should be stripped away. The design of GOV.UK reflects this, existing primarily as a way of providing the right content and services to our users. Find out here how we approach this challenge.

From April 2014, digital services from the government must meet the new Digital by Default Service Standard.

The Brains, Behavior and Design toolkit draws from academic research in behavioral economics and cognitive psychology to help designers and business leaders understand and influence consumer decisions.

We believe that better products, services and outcomes result from a richer understanding of the people they serve.

The toolkit is designed to be both informative and actionable - helping you integrate the latest research in human behavior and decision making into your practice.