It's not secret that I'm a huge fan of William Lidwell's Universal Principles of Design (which I reviewed in 2006) and the subsequent Deconstructing Product Design (which I contributed to and reviewed in 2009). So I was eager to contribute to Bella Martin's and Bruce Hannington's research focused book, also published by Rockport.
The full title of the just-published book is Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions, but we can just call it UMD for short.
As with Lidwell's books, UMD is a highly-organized and visual. The book covers a variety of methods including card sorting, eye tracking, design ehtnography and Kano analysis. Less of a text book than a guide, it would be useful as an introduction for those learning about reaserch methods for the first time, and for professionals as a tool with useful examples and references.
I contributed to the Ergonomic Analysis section, much of which draws on methodologies I have presented on this blog. The section also shows images from the crimping tool analysis that we conducted at Bresslergroup.
Universal Methods of Design is available from Amazon.com
