Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Data use and smart human-centric data visualisations are becoming the “next big thing” in UX design. A number of posts this week delve into the matter: Data for a better planet Now that more people have location-aware smartphones and the…
Boston University is participating in a $2 million National Science Foundation-funded Smart Neighborhood project that seeks to make a Boston neighborhood more energy efficient. But rather than just install solar panels or electricity monitors, researchers are focusing on ways to…
People pushing sustainability don’t tend to be the same types who love our digital-crazed iWorld. And that’s a problem because it means they don’t push one of the great advantages of dense, energy-efficient cities: urban life integrates far better with…
Adam Greenfield, Nokia’s head of design direction for service and user-interface design, is the author of this week’s Urban Omnibus feature. In the piece, he uses software design as a base to talk about the ways citizens call out trouble…
Today I received the catalogue of the Habitar exhibition, organised by LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre, an exhibition centre for art, science, technology and advanced visual industries in Asturias, Spain, and curated by José Luis de Vicente with Fabien…
The Grattan Institute, an Australian independent public policy think-tank, has published a new report, entitled “The Cities We Need“, that aims to set an agenda for thinking about the future of Australia’s cities. It asks how cities meet the individual…
BoingBoing reports that Professor William J. Mitchell, pioneer of urban computing, has passed away. Professor William J. Mitchell, director of MIT’s Design Laboratory and pioneering Smart Cities research group, died yesterday after a battle with cancer. Professor Mitchell was a…
I finally had a chance to listen to the two excellent keynotes of Design Everything, the futures conference that took place last month in Manchester, UK. Keynote: Ben Cerveny Ben Cerveny‘s keynote explored how, as newly-emerging urban-scale technology infrastructures are…
Architectural historian Mitchell Schwarzer has published a two-part essay that explores how technology — especially the real-time, mediating imageries of augmented reality — influences how we perceive and inhabit place. “We’re in the first stage of a transformation of our…
What might we gain, asks Adam Greenfield, if we begin to conceive of cities, for some limited purposes anyway, as software under active development? What if we imagined that the citizen-responsiveness system we’ve designed lives in a dense mesh of…
Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund and development partners, SRV and VVO today announce a 60m investment for a low carbon housing and commercial building complex in Helsinki. Work on the development will begin immediately, with completion scheduled for the end…
How cities became our greatest design challenge yet. Justin McGuirk, the editor of icon, the UK’s leading architecture & design magazine, argues in The Guardian that, amid unprecedented levels of urbanisation, designers must be trusted to fashion cities that not…
Situated Technologies Pamphlet 6: MicroPublicPlaces Spring 2010 Marc Böhlen and Hans Frei “In response to two strong global vectors: the rise of pervasive information technologies and the privatization of the public sphere, Marc Böhlen and Hans Frei propose hybrid architectural…
Merging complex systems science and ecology, resilience scientists have broken new ground on understanding—and preserving—natural ecosystems. Now, as more and more people move into urban hubs, they are bringing this novel science to the city. “Resilience theory, first introduced by…
Introducing new digital services in cities promises the change the way citzens live in cities around the world. “Only a few years ago, digital services were about bandwidth, wireless protocols, and emerging standards for mobile television. To the keen observer,…
A new report by NESTA, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, shows “how we can work better with communities to unlock ingenious solutions to complex social challenges. Abstract Policymakers increasingly recognise that many of the solutions…
Constantine Valhouli, principal of the Massachusetts based Hammersmith Group, which consults to developers on the marketing and branding of luxury properties, and to city leaders on reviving historical downtowns, just published an overview of the potential for connected devices entitled…
Good, the collaborative magazine, has published its “Slow Issue” with perspectives on a smarter, better and slower future: “At its simplest, slow stands for a focus on quality, authenticity, and longevity rather than a mindless adherence to the faster and…
The UK’s Technology Strategy Board is calling for individuals to take part in a five-day interactive workshop (‘sandpit’) to explore the challenge of reducing the demand for energy in non-domestic buildings, through human factors research and user-centred design. The focus…
Experientia collaborator Irene Cassarino went yesterday to the international “The social dimension of environmental sustainability†conference, organised at Turin’s Environment Park with the support of the City of Turin. The event, which focused on the importance of social aspects in…