I hope this online collection of notes would prove valuable not only to me but to all students and colleagues looking to develop innovating and interesting products. This site focuses on product design, conceptual design, interaction design, interface design, and failure analysis.
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Interfaces.com
UCLA School of Law and International Criminal Court's Office of the Prosecutor partnered together to create UCLA Law Forum—a place to discuss international law issues. My company, Pipsqueak Productions, designed and developed the site. Please join the debate! UCLALawForum.com.
Processing emotions takes time and energy. Part of the working memory is taken up by analyzing the emotional state of others, environmental stresses, personal feelings, and anxiety. Since working memory is an extremely limited resource, anything that takes up space there without our bidding (against our will) takes away from our ability to think...
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Some 25 years ago, I came up with tiny application: each day, a person picks a color that represents his or her predominant emotional state; the collection of color moods are mapped onto a calendar and displayed as an animated film, summarizing the emotional life of person. It was simple and easy and very...
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There’s been a shift in our culture (at least in US) towards seeing medication as a sign of weakness from one of alleviation of suffering that predominated out society some 100 years ago. Some people I know are even proud of the fact that they’ve never taken a painkiller or were treated for cough....
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Empathy is a necessary component of product design. To design and make something that is comfortable to use for someone else, requires the maker of the product to imagine how another human being would feel while using it. This is a hard thing to do. Medical students have to take “bed side manners” classes...
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These are three necessary components of any product design: Knowledge: the background information that forms the foundation of product design Context: the ecosystem in which the product will be used Expectation: the alignment of goals between product creators and the users for which it was designed A failure to fully understand any of the...
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On Valentine’s Day, February 14 2011, New York Times ran an article “Web of Popularity, Achieved by Bullying” by Tara Parker-Pope—recent research shows interesting patterns in bullying and victimhood distribution in the school student body. As I was reading the article, I realized that much of what is being described there had a direct...
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I’ve been noticing a lot of praise and demand for mutlitaskers: “We are looking for a talented individual who is and is also a great multitasker!” or “Women are naturally better at multitasking.” or “Not only is he gifted, but he is able to work on all...
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Not much to add here — how many other cool video games are there for visually disabled? Using tactile clues instead of visual signals...
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A person uses a piece of software, a Web site, or any other product — “virtual” or “real” — to achieve a goal. The...
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This is an interesting collection of videos and background materials on End-User Development — situations when end users design and develop software for their...
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In the Galaxy Far Far Away… What if sentient being evolved on a planet with permanent cloud cover? What if these being never saw...
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Games can be used to change our behavior — make something fun, and we are likely to do it again and again. Psychologists call...
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Interfaces.com was given a free advanced preview of Thomas Erickson’s report and videos on social computing. The videos are very well produced and provide...
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Sometimes failure to communicate happens at the end of the product distribution line. Below are some examples of what happens when sales people don’t...
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