D&T Special Edition #21

Academic Reading for Designers

Hi there,
This is the twenty first edition of D&T Special, a more in-depth view of topics that interest the Canvs team.
Today’s topic – Deep, more academic reading for designers (and non-designers alike.) We hope you enjoy the reads.

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✍️ From the Canvs Research & Editorial Desk

Product design has become a common term in the working vocabulary of companies worldwide. In fact, we believe that it may be reaching a point in its lifespan where strategic maturity and academic thought are taking center stage.

Cheap tricks and surface-level strategies are no longer sufficient for the complex challenges that product designers will face in the coming decade. The necessity of the hour is a well-read, and highly consequential designer.

We have compiled a set of research papers which have a sometimes obvious and sometimes not-so-obvious link into product design. All in all, the idea is to create a list of resources that help back up your cognitive process when thinking out the broad strokes of how you can approach your product.

These research papers encapsulate academic concepts and heuristics which could be employed to deliver meaningful experiences.

Key takeaways from this read:

1. Personality of Interaction: Expressing Brand Personalities Through Interaction Aesthetics

This research paper relates attributes of interactive experience to ‘brand personality’, a common way of quantifying how a brand should be perceived. It shows that particular characteristics of interactivity, are related to particular brand traits and reflect the brand personality.

Read the paper here

2. Investigating a multi-faceted view of user experience

This study explores the influence website design and brand has on its users’ experience. Content, usability, aesthetics, pleasurable interaction, service quality, and overall judgement by the participants of the study was assessed through questionnaires and interviews. Read on to find out what were users prime preferences.

Read the paper here

3. Cross-cultural applicability of user evaluation methods

This research is a case study amongst Japanese, North-American, English and Dutch users. It investigates the cultural applicability of user evaluation methods. It sheds light on how some user evaluation methods are less applicable than others are for a culturally diverse user base.

Read the paper here

📚 What we were reading this week

While AI’s role in shaping graphical user interfaces is well-acknowledged, the scope of its impact extends far beyond mere layout designs. A noticeable gap has emerged between the current AI offerings and the demands of deep design thinking.Canvs Editorial writes.

Scientists in Sweden have discovered that stimulating a plant’s roots electrically can help it grow faster.

Gene therapy has experienced a complete renaissance — where will it go in 2024 and beyond?

The platform is well on its way to a 2024 takeover.

With commercial tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney becoming widely available, AI was used for all things wonderful … and worrying.

Dive into the latest UI/UX design trends for 2024. Take advantage of them to level up your business and strengthen your digital services.

Data continues on its upwards trajectory and with it comes the importance of visualization.

Some highlights from the past month of D&T

And that’s the lot! Thanks for checking out what we had to share with you this week, we shall catch up with you next Wednesday. Incase you aren’t subscribed to the newsletter, you could subscribe here.

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