In a case study of the development of three electronic consumer products, we traced the origins of usability issues. Based on the data collected, an initial, explanatory framework was induced of important drivers of usability in product design. We conclude that – while usability methods mostly focus on gaining knowledge about users and usability issues – in many instances the primary cause of usability problems seems to be a lack of design freedom to implement usability-improving design changes. In addition, the organisational context seemed to influence the design process considerably. Thus, it can be concluded that to conduct user-centred design effectively, the design process should be considered holistically and the organisational context should be taken into account.

Current public lighting is predominately directed to reducing energy and often is understood as a technical issue rather than a human one, mostly based on photometric visual performance. By taking advantage of the inherent flexibility of current lighting technologies, this research aimed to contribute to a more sustainable lighting design practice, through the design of adaptive lighting solutions that improve the relationship between users, the space they inhabit and energy use. To confirm the hypothesis, it was developed a user-oriented method that considers a specific user-space relationship and the user’s perception of well-being. Tested via two outdoor field experiment in an urban space in the south of Portugal, qualitative and quantitative statistical analysis of the collected data, suggest that the method can provide data to aid the design of more tailored and flexible public lighting solutions that can balance the user-energy relationship, improving the overall sustainability of our cities.

Teacher and student interaction in a design studio setting has always been the basis of design education. A fundamental difficulty of design education is that the content of these one-on-one meetings between teacher and students remains remarkably implicit. In this paper, we present an explorative study that uses the design grammar model (DGM) as an observational framework for teacher–student interactions. The DGM is rooted on the concept of design grammar that can be broadly defined as the visual language used to design. The study focuses on the industrial design junior students’ meetings with their teacher; our research proceeds from a protocol analysis of the transcripts that are coded according to the DGM. The resulting data are then used to develop a series of diagrams that are employed as a visual analysis tool. The diagrams synthesise and convey large amounts of data that permit immediate analysis and elicit new interpretations. The study resulted in encouraging results regarding the DGM’s potential as an analysis tool for teacher and student interactions, as well as a diagnostic tool for teachers.