Only today I've learnt on the saddening death of Professor Gary Marsden at UCT.
Here it is my little tribute to a human given to sciences and the work within the field of HCI/ICT4D:
At that time I first came across his name (09 January 2014 18:59:10) I was dedicating an preliminary literature review towards my PhD research proposal within the field of Human-Computer Interaction. This review was based on the Persona method in User-Centred-Design (UCD) working in conjunction with another UCD method, Participatory Design. I was by then 4 months into the project, and ever since, things keep evolving rather nicely, if through the chore and hard commitment to the unmissable if productive daily literature review, the sometimes-being lost-in-translation feeling comes included with the kit until all food is digested by the brain, and spat - straight out in my dearest lost-generation laptop.After having initially read seminal and insightful "Persona + PD" papers such as those by Cooper from @cooper, Nielsen, and Grudin, Pruitt and Adlin at #Microsoft to mention a couple, I was then considering and planning for further research options specifically developed within, and reported from outside Western settings.
Thus, in a #GoogleSearch for such matter, I encountered the below .ppt presentation on a 20-page .pdf doc put together, I guess, by Professor Marsden himself - and dated as of 2006:
"Participatory Design Personas"
At the time I encountered and opened the above, I vividly remember the sequential chain of thoughts:
Click hence the link above and a new window will once again open for you! Or don't open it and keep reading below, as I go to the point made in this blog post.
In his presentation and in a nutshell, Professor Marsden starts his argument from a previous lecture by arguing to move straight into co-design once naturalistic observation and ethnographic techniques have been carried out (I haven't as yet encountered, if existing, this previous lecture, so do feel free to pas-on if you find).
Marsden also acknowledges and encourages a mindset shift in technologists and engineers (not uncommonly widespread concern among the HCI community, such as Buxton 2007 and others), and explicitly exemplifies upon Microsoft's work from the authors above and their action and research with persona in PD.
He then goes into detail on what to practice the UCD philosophy in design means and why it is important to approach design with the end-user in mind and at sight at all times.
He then asks himself why at all the need to involve the end-user and scaffolds an argument that moves into PD to elicit user needs through techniques such as PICTIVE, LARPing and persona to help the design process, and advises on the pros these offer.
All in all, the above is a brief .ppt presentation that here online, it lacks of the voice of the academic and field experience Professor Marsden demonstrates to have achieved throughout his career and life in this world.
However, his ample research and prolific practice can be appreciated through this bibliography below, and which shows his collaborations with some of the most regarded HCI academics and practitioners worldwide such as Yvonne Rogers, Nicola J. Bidwell, Paula Kotzé, Susanne Bødker.
@informatik.uni-trier.de
Here it is my little tribute to a human given to sciences and the work within the field of HCI/ICT4D:
At that time I first came across his name (09 January 2014 18:59:10) I was dedicating an preliminary literature review towards my PhD research proposal within the field of Human-Computer Interaction. This review was based on the Persona method in User-Centred-Design (UCD) working in conjunction with another UCD method, Participatory Design. I was by then 4 months into the project, and ever since, things keep evolving rather nicely, if through the chore and hard commitment to the unmissable if productive daily literature review, the sometimes-being lost-in-translation feeling comes included with the kit until all food is digested by the brain, and spat - straight out in my dearest lost-generation laptop.After having initially read seminal and insightful "Persona + PD" papers such as those by Cooper from @cooper, Nielsen, and Grudin, Pruitt and Adlin at #Microsoft to mention a couple, I was then considering and planning for further research options specifically developed within, and reported from outside Western settings.
Thus, in a #GoogleSearch for such matter, I encountered the below .ppt presentation on a 20-page .pdf doc put together, I guess, by Professor Marsden himself - and dated as of 2006:
"Participatory Design Personas"
At the time I encountered and opened the above, I vividly remember the sequential chain of thoughts:
- What to do with it. Time is priceless when you are on a PhD project -insistent ear-rattling heard
- Yes, but this gentleman (by then unknown to me), is a Professor at University of Cape Town (UCT);
- He has also made me, I empower my reasoning, the kind effort of putting together a summary in the form of a presentation on the fields I research myself: "Persona + Participatory Design + non-western"
Click hence the link above and a new window will once again open for you! Or don't open it and keep reading below, as I go to the point made in this blog post.
In his presentation and in a nutshell, Professor Marsden starts his argument from a previous lecture by arguing to move straight into co-design once naturalistic observation and ethnographic techniques have been carried out (I haven't as yet encountered, if existing, this previous lecture, so do feel free to pas-on if you find).
Marsden also acknowledges and encourages a mindset shift in technologists and engineers (not uncommonly widespread concern among the HCI community, such as Buxton 2007 and others), and explicitly exemplifies upon Microsoft's work from the authors above and their action and research with persona in PD.
He then goes into detail on what to practice the UCD philosophy in design means and why it is important to approach design with the end-user in mind and at sight at all times.
He then asks himself why at all the need to involve the end-user and scaffolds an argument that moves into PD to elicit user needs through techniques such as PICTIVE, LARPing and persona to help the design process, and advises on the pros these offer.
All in all, the above is a brief .ppt presentation that here online, it lacks of the voice of the academic and field experience Professor Marsden demonstrates to have achieved throughout his career and life in this world.
However, his ample research and prolific practice can be appreciated through this bibliography below, and which shows his collaborations with some of the most regarded HCI academics and practitioners worldwide such as Yvonne Rogers, Nicola J. Bidwell, Paula Kotzé, Susanne Bødker.
@informatik.uni-trier.de
This above is [some of] the work produced by Professor Gary Marsden in the last sixteen years or so before he has now left us from this earthly life.
Susan Dray and others are paying homage to him here:
http://rememberinggarymarsden.blogspot.co.uk/
Thanks for what you've left us!
Rest in peace Professor.
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| Professor Gary Marsden |
By @UXGentleman
London, UK
13/04/2014
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| University of Cape Town. Image from http://www.ucttrust.org.uk/ |
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