The week's Critique and Redesign project really made me think about all that is needed to update an already existing design. Of course there are basic concepts of good design, but there were a number of things I realized would have been helpful to know. It's difficult redesign one part of a larger program when you don't understand how the rest of it works. This resulted in a few designs that I felt like went beyond the scope of the assignment, so the design I settled on was in line with my understanding of the system based on that one dialog box.
I also found the readings regarding memory to be interesting. While I knew that memory is imperfect, I didn't know much about the interplay of recognition and recall in long-term memory. The chapter's discussion about it's implications for UI design was very interesting and made me think about my own interactions with software. Overall, I think quickly adapted to Macs because of their strong graphic user interface.