Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counter-intuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we’re not as rational as we think when we make decisions [...]

Elizabeth Bacon — Chief Design Officer of Devise, IxDA Vice President and Director — presented a webinar thru Catalyze called ‘Death to Personas! Long Live Personas!‘: Personas are way of describing users as fictitious individuals. As the use of personas has spread, however, they have encountered criticism. This presentation tackles some common concerns about personas, including whether they are: fluffy; expensive to create; non-actionable; limiting; or counterproductive for innovation; some of these misconceptions are addressed and best practices are shared for leveraging personas during the research and design process [...]

As part of its on-going commitment to support the practice of sustainable design and green building in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries, Autodesk announced two acquisitions to improve building performance analysis in the building information modeling (BIM) process. Autodesk has acquired substantially all the assets related to the Ecotect software tools for conceptual building performance analysis from both Square One Research Ltd. and Dr. Andrew Marsh. Autodesk also announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets of Green Building Studio, Inc., a provider of web-based whole building energy, water and carbon-emission analysis software [...]

About a year and a half ago, when Dan Saffer — experience design director of Adaptive Path — first started thinking about the material that would eventually become ‘UX Intensive: Interaction Design‘, he wondered what it was that helped designers make those leaps of faith, the great guesses, that we have to make on projects. So he came up with this talk, ‘How to Make Good Design Decisions‘ [...]