To między innymi dlatego kolorami modernistów, którzy wymyślili wielkie bloki, były miel i szarość. Uważali, że wielkie domy dominują w przestrzeni na tyle, że dodawanie do nich silnych akcentów kolorystycznych byłoby już wizualnym barbarzyństwem. Wielka elewacja miała być jedynie tłem dla życia osiedla, a nie jego głównym elementem.

Źródło: Wanna z kolumnadą, Filip Springer, Wydawnictwo Czarne 2013

Więcej na temat pastelozy:

• Pasteloza – opis przypadku, Filip Springer, Polityka, 22 stycznia 2013
• Pospolite Ruszenie, akcja społeczna.

W 1986 roku (red. Svein Hatløy) zakłada Bergen Arkitekt Skole. To trzecia pod Olso i Trondheim uczelnia architektoniczna w kraju. Pytanie “czym jest architektura” zostaje tu niemal zakazane. Wykładowcy zastępują je trzema innymi: gdzie ma ona stanąć? kto będzie jej użytkownikiem? dlaczego ma w ogóle powstać? Odpowiedzi na te trzy pytania wystarczają, by rozpocząć projektowanie lub go zaniechać.

Źródło: s.250, Bergen, Zaczyn, O Zofii i Oskarze Hansenach, Filip Springer, Karakter 2013

Istnieją co prawda dziedziny działalności bardziej szkodliwe niż wzornictwo przemysłowe, ale jest ich bardzo niewiele.

Źródło: Przedmowa do wydania I, Victor Papanek, Dizajn dla realnego świata

For many cell owners, their phone is an essential utility that they check frequently, keep close by at all times, and would have trouble functioning without:

• 67% of cell owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating. Some 18% of cell owners say that they do this “frequently.”
• 44% of cell owners have slept with their phone next to their bed because they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss any calls, text messages, or other updates during the night.
•  29% of cell owners describe their cell phone as “something they can’t imagine living without.”

Despite this connection to their devices, most cell owners don’t worry too much (or get many complaints from their friends) about spending too much time with their phones:

• 11% of cell owners say that they themselves sometimes worry that they are spending too much time with their phone.
•  12% of cell owners say that people they know tell them that they are spending too much time using their phone.

Indeed, many cell owners hear complaints from friends that they don’t devote enough time to monitoring their mobile communications:

•  39% of cell owners say that people they know have complained because they don’t respond promptly to phone calls or text messages.
•  33% of cell owners say that people they know have complained because they don’t check their phone frequently enough.

Źródło: The Best (and Worst) of Mobile Connectivity, Aaron Smith, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

Q:Was Facebook Home UX research unique in any way, compared to testing that has gone into other Facebook products or features?

A: One of the most interesting things about this research was the fact that we actually used so many different techniques: the diary study, interview, and observation, user surveys. We used logging for different types of events. We used focus groups. We had internal conversations with users to get feedback as well. I think the combination of those different approaches allowed us to see some patterns emerge and focus on the right things. Each of those individually was really usable for certain types of interactions, to cover certain types of issues that the product has. The combination was something that was really interesting and I think really paid off in the end.

(…)

Q: How many people are we talking about, total?
A: I interviewed around 60 people with the diary study. The amount of data that we required, the amount of feedback, and the level of interaction that we had with each of those participants. For the first batch, we had around 12 people doing the diary study and for the second one we had around 10 people doing the diary study over the course of four or five weeks. Each of these users was interviewed several times. They provide feedback four or five times a week, so it’s a pretty intense study and we couldn’t do it with a lot of people. Usually, this type of approach is used with fewer people, actually, but because of the importance of this project and the type of experience that we’re providing, so intense. It’s interesting and different from what people are used to.

Źródło: How Facebook Did UX Testing For Facebook Home (With Fewer Than 60 People), Chris Dannen, Fast Co.Labs

Uroczy, ale paskudnie prawdziwy tekst o tworzeniu i dostarczaniu produktów.

The first such truth is that at least half of our ideas are just not going to work. There are many reasons for an idea to not work out.  The most common is that the customers just aren’t as excited about this idea as we are. So they choose not to use it. But sometimes they want to use it, but it’s so complicated that it’s simply more trouble than it’s worth, which yields the same result – the users don’t choose to use it.  And sometimes the issue is that the customers would love it but it turns out to be much more involved to build than we thought, and we simply can’t afford the time and money to deliver.

If that’s not bad enough, the second inconvenient truth is that even with the ideas that do prove to be valuable, usable and feasible, it typically takes several iterations to get the implementation of this idea to the point where it actually delivers the expected business value.

In my experience, there simply is no escaping these inconvenient truths.

Źródło: The Inconvenient Truth About Product, Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group

Ważny tekst z okolic 2008. Polecam. Dziwne, że nie znalazłem tego wcześniej :)

The truth of the matter is that pretty much all of our methodologies for quantitatively evaluating user interfaces suck. Nobody wants to admit it. The evaluationistas would have you believe that their user interface experiments are every bit as definitive as Galileo dropping balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. User interface research has a bad case of physics envy.

First of all, for an experiment to yield a definitive result, all the variables need to be controlled. In Galileos experiments, he was able to control the experiment such that the only variable that differed was the weight of the balls. Trouble is, people arent balls. There are so many variables when presenting a user interface to someone that it is very difficult to make sure youve controlled all the relevant ones. There is no “ISO standard human”.

Więcej (źródło):  The Tyranny of Evaluation, Henry Lieberman, MIT Media Lab

Bardzo interesujące badania, pokazujące że e-podręczniki to nadal pieśń przyszłosci, a papier jest bardziej pożądaną opcją.