Less complex language, more participation: how consultation documents shape participatory patterns

How to do more with less?

Less is more… (more or less…).

In April 1981 Xerox introduced the Star 8010 workstation, the first commercial system with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the first to use the “desktop” metaphor to organize a user’s interactions with the computer. Despite the perception of huge progress, from the perspective of design and usage models, there has been precious little progress in the intervening years. In the tradition of ...

Less Is More, More the Merrier, or More From Less?

P hysicians deal with uncertainty all the time and chest pain in the emergency department (ED) is a typical example. Traditionally, coronary artery disease (CAD), pulmonary embolism (PE), and aortic dissection can present as chest pain, and the consequences of a missed diagnosis can be devastating, with the potential for rapid deterioration, and serious risk of morbidity and mortality. Moreover...

“Participation” in Participatory Design Research

This thesis is about defining participation in the context of fostering research cohesion in the field of Participatory Design. The systematic and incremental building of new knowledge is the process by which science and research is advanced. This process requires a certain type of cohesion in the way research is undertaken for new knowledge to be built from the knowledge provided by previous p...

Less Is More: How Reduced Activity Reflects Stronger Recognition

The mechanisms of recognition involve reductions of activity in the medial temporal lobe. This preview discusses recent fMRI and MEG data from Gonsalves et al. (this issue of Neuron) that provide some of the strongest evidence to date demonstrating that reduced medial temporal activity is correlated with stronger recognition of items in humans. This result provides an important test of theories...