CHIFOO, the Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon, hosted a usability scavenger hunt for World Usability day 2011. In one day, hunters around the world captured a library of usability gems.

Everything around us provides clues about how our environment works. Some are more effective than others. The scavenger hunt gives all sorts of examples of the success & confusion that environmental cues can give. Usability is simply good logic, but it often takes a real live human to experience the user scenario and call out the issues, or success!

The hunt began on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 6:00 am (PST) and continued through 6:00 pm (PST) on Thursday, Nov. 10.

This is a newly launched and excellent service design community-built library:
servicedesignbooks.org

As the creators describe
‘Service Design Books is a co-created library of recommended reading for service designers. Formal books on service design are few and far between but many of the skills and values can be found elsewhere, scattered across disciplines. You just have to know where to look. Add your perspective by recommending books that service designers should read, or by seconding an existing recommendation. Contribute tags, comments, reviews, photos and ratings to help others make sense of an emerging field.’

The library is built in a way which expresses the ethos and method of Service Design – it supports the defining of a field by using a structured but open-ended process, built by an informed community. It’s also a reminder – our community of practitioners in these emerging fields needs support like this both to grow and help establish a better definition of practice.

This site, www.peopleandparticipation.net outlines ways to plan for and evaluate participatory practice for people who work in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors and who need to involve a wider group of people in their work. It includes a ‘process planner’ which helps to choose participatory methods that are suitable to your situation. They’ve got an excellent library of resources here.

Mark Hurst writes a blog – www.goodexperience.com with a focus on customer experience, user experience and the human experience. It’s got a great resource page listing relevant issues here. Mark is extremely active in thinking, writing talking and doing all things around what makes up a ‘good experience’. He is founder and president of the company Creative Good and also organises GEL (“Good Experience Live”) a conference and community, founded in 2003 which explores good experience in all its forms – in art, business, society, technology, and life. Watch some videos here.

The Architecture of Interaction site was created by a group of five artists and theorists (Anna Best, Yvonne Dröge Wendel, Nikolaus Gansterer, Lino Hellings, Mine Kaylan and Klaas Kuitenbrouwer) who have set out to develop a common language to talk about and compare the processes, meanings and effects of interactive work. What’s interesting is that this group came together around interactive practice which was really based not on technology or human computer interface but rather people + people, people + object, people + environment… you get the point. The notes on their discussions are valuable insights gathered from people who obviously have a lot of experience in the painful failures, hiccups, wobbly successes and also spot-on perfection of designing for people to participate. We were lucky enough to attend the talks at Chisenhale Gallery, London in 2004.

They’ve developed a tidy and useful list of considerations around the practice of interaction design:
Others / Intentions / Timeframes / Traces / Arenas / Sensitivities / Models

From discussions on the intricacies of orchestrating environments for people to interact with, their notes around the ‘intentions’ of participatory work, and what roles ‘others’ play are particularly interesting. You can check out the list of others here and intentions here. One favourite type of ‘others’ they’ve identified – errorists. If you’ve had experience with planning participation, you’ve most certainly come across an errorist. All of this is published in a slim and handy book by the same name, which you can purchase from their site.

Open Museum is an outreach service run by Glasgow Museums in Scotland. They work in partnership with community groups across the city to create handling boxes, reminiscence kits, travelling exhibitions, community venue displays and exhibitions inspired by Glasgow’s collections.

One of their most powerful tools are the Reminiscence Kits on offer through Open Museum to facilitate conversations and look back on times past. Kits focus on specific decades while covering themes from everyday life – Shipbuilding, A night out, Looking good, Tenement life, A night in, The 70s, Holidays, Sports, Shopping…

The Museum collections provide photos and real memorabilia – washboards, vintage fashion accessories, vinyl LPs (including record player) marbles and nappy supplies as talking pieces. What’s great is that the museum provides the structure and you provide the story. Being able to hold the objects from times past is a powerful trigger for bringing up memories and making connections. The kits purposely design experiences meant to make history exciting and personal.

You can find out more about the programme, browse the MUCH longer kit list, and even see the itemized inventory of what’s inside – here.

Her blog is concerned with arts management and development issues in the visual arts sector, and more widely. She looks at current trends in arts organisations, including thoughts on the role of participation in business models. The blog is an excellent resource for thinking about the current business sense for audience engagement.

Have a look over here.