Search for: All records

Traditional design galleries enable users to search for examples based on surface attributes (e.g., color or style), and largely obscure underlying principles (e.g., hierarchy or readability). We conducted three studies to explore how galleries could be constructed to help novices learn key design principles. Study 1 revealed that novices gain perspective by observing how designs evolve throughout a process. Study 2 found that novices are better at identifying design issues when viewing iterations that show improvements for just one principle at a time, rather than multiple. Building on these insights, we created ProcessGallery, a tool that enables users to browse contrasting pairs of early-and-late iterations of designs that highlight key improvements organized by design principles. In Study 3, a within-subjects experiment, sixteen participants iterated on a seed design after viewing examples in ProcessGallery versus a traditional gallery. Using ProcessGallery, participants found more appropriate examples, assessed designs better, and preferred ProcessGallery for learning compared to a traditional gallery. 

Glioblastoma ranks among the most lethal of primary brain malignancies, with glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) at the apex of tumor cellular hierarchies. Here, to discover novel therapeutic GSC targets, we interrogated gene expression profiles from GSCs, differentiated glioblastoma cells (DGCs), and neural stem cells (NSCs), revealing EYA2 as preferentially expressed by GSCs. Targeting EYA2 impaired GSC maintenance and induced cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and loss of self-renewal. EYA2 displayed novel localization to centrosomes in GSCs, and EYA2 tyrosine (Tyr) phosphatase activity was essential for proper mitotic spindle assembly and survival of GSCs. Inhibition of the EYA2 Tyr phosphatase activity, via genetic or pharmacological means, mimicked EYA2 loss in GSCs in vitro and extended the survival of tumor-bearing mice. Supporting the clinical relevance of these findings, EYA2 portends poor patient prognosis in glioblastoma. Collectively, our data indicate that EYA2 phosphatase function plays selective critical roles in the growth and survival of GSCs, potentially offering a high therapeutic index for EYA2 inhibitors.