Great interview from Mark Hurst with Brian King on the re-design of Courtyard by Marriott. A great case study on segmentation, observation, user-centered design, branding, and prototyping. Fun to see these familiar concepts applied in a domain that’s less familiar (to me anyway). I loved the description of business travelers being invited to a life-size prototype of the new lobby, built out of foam core to see how they would react to Marriott’s innovations.
Interesting interview of Dana Chisnell by Jared Spool on why recruiting for usability participants should not be driven by standard demographics, but instead be more focused on task familiarity, skills, and behavior. I think this applies to our design thinking too; demographics reinforce stereotypes and can obscure the real audience issues you should be focusing on.