Outsider

It is in very few occasions that I disagree with Javier Cañada, so when this happens, I should try to make the most of it.
Let me draw your attention to his recent rant on usability testing and the comments that follow, mine among them. You might like to join the rumpus
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Honestly, the news that Google is releasing a new browser hadn’t succeeded at catching my attention.
But that was before I learnt that Scott McCloud had been commissioned to write a comic on Chrome’s innards.
Boy, if you’ve ever wanted an example of how the language of comics can be used to convey complex concepts in a [...]

When it comes to designing conversion-critical processes, usability and persuasion are two concepts that often come to mind. They may be complementary, but they can also be opposing sometimes.
This is my oh-so-biased view:

Usability
Persuasion

Is the brainchild of…
engineers
advertisers

Treats the user as…
an agent: will consider her options and do what she thinks is right
a patient: her behaviour can [...]

Recombination is one of the tactics nature uses to generate diversity. For instance, genetic recombination is responsible of the fact that all our children are genetically different (with the exception of identical twins, of course).
Recombination, as in mixing parts of different concepts or disciplines, is a very useful creativity technique. Take two very disparate things [...]