Feels a bit foreboding, to be honest. It took me a while to fall into a pattern of productive working and now I’m optimally suited to self-directed work. Except that reading week is over. I can haz another week, pls?

I have a handle on my coursework papers and managed to do plenty of relevant reading. I’m bemused by Usability Evaluation Methods generally: it’s a very different approach to intuition and creativity that guided my designs at Reading University. It’s very scientific. Then again, I’m very absorbed by these ideas of, for example, the differences and misfits between user concepts and system features. I’m actually finding HCI very deeply compelling.

I’m also intrigued by think-aloud testing and the level of attention academics give to spoken narratives. It reminds me of analysing stream of consciousness style modernist texts: Beckett, Joyce, Woolf. Verbal protocol analysis and grounded theory are examples of this kind of close analysis. These ideas are both borrowed from psychology.

As well as being academic, it’s mucky. Talking to users is messy, and both verbal protocol analysis and grounded theory involve, first of all, gathering data and talking to real people. Second, you must roll around in that data and try to make sense of it.

Tomorrow is exciting as there will be presentations for each of the option modules for next term. I’m currently leaning on something to do with the emotional aspect of design and something to do with group-working systems.

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In other news: I’m amazed by this plug design. Mind-blowingly brilliant.