hFIDO Blog

Check out this neat article about new discoveries for user-customization capabilities:

New computer tool may unlock programs

Hello,

The One to One insights presentation on October 9th by Jeremi Karnell and Dan Berlin was fascinating!  Don’t worry if you weren’t able to attend.  Below, you will find a link to a file that will stream the video of the presentation when it is opened in RealPlayer.  (I apologize that you are required to install RealPlayer to view it)

OTOinsights RealPlayer video file

RealPlayer download

Thanks.

I recently started following some very interesting conversations on the IxDA discussion forum.

One fiery debate about User Centered Design (UCD) Vs. Activity Centered Design (ACD) was great.  It seems to have been instigated in a large part by Donald Norman’s polemic against “Human Centered Design” (HCD) in favor of ACD.

Jared Spool brought some good historical perspective to the discussion.

In this follow up discussion, I liked Robert Hoekman’s analysis of the distinctions between the two methods.  I’ve included the main points here.

1. UCD = persona descriptions; ACD = activity analysis (focused on users, objects, and the activities themselves)

2. UCD = research focused on user goals, aimed at a niche audience; ACD = focused on how people perform activities, abstracted to a wider audience

3. UCD = involves talking to users in (almost?) every case; ACD = designer can sometimes/often become a SME on the activity with very little or no outside research

4. UCD = users are unreliable, unstable, and often unpredictable; ACD = activities are relatively stable, by comparison

I feel strongly both ways.

By the way, Jared Spool’s User Interface 13 Conference is in Cambridge October 13-16.  It could be fun if you have the time and money to attend.