Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Nokia Open Studios are a design research method for engaging communities in shanty towns. According to Nokia’s senior design manager Younghee Jung, they were set up as a community design competition with the theme of ‘design your ideal mobile phone’,…
The New York Times reports on a nine-person team at Microsoft Research India that assesses whether quirky ideas can make technology useful to those who have heretofore lived without it. “A nine-person team at Microsoft Research India […] approaches the…
Mobile Revolutions is a great blog about mobile phones, youth and social change by Lisa Campbell, that I discovered via Mobile Active. What’s more, she has actually taken the time to write a lengthy, seriously researched and in-depth paper to…
Experientia’s senior partner Jan-Christoph Zoels is this week at the Picnic conference in Amsterdam and is sending regular updates. Here is his second one, covering the Thursday morning sessions: Group actions just got easier! – Clay Shirky jump-started the second…
Cross media storytelling, vibrant and fast moving technological and creative developments in cities across Africa and the new plans that Google, Vodafone and Nokia have for the region: these are a few of the things that will be discussed in…
Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, states that ethnic minority groups are the prime early adopters in Europe, thereby confirming ethnographic user research at Swisscom. “Ethnic minority groups are at the forefront of digital communications in the UK, with high levels…
MobileActive reports on how farmers in emerging markets are using mobile phones to improve their livelihoods: Agriculture is what keeps economies in most developing countries alive. However, farmers in many countries face major challenges. In an age of global markets,…
Coinciding with the introduction of Dell’s new laptops, the company launched a new community site called Digital Nomads (with not much Dell branding to be seen). According to a Dell press release, the site “is designed for individuals who are…
As part of its coverage on the Bellagio conference on mobile health, MobileActive interviewed Patricia Mechael who is coordinating the mobile strategy for the Millennium Village Project. She talks about mobile adoption, user-centric design, women and mobiles, how Millennium Villages…
Ken Banks writes in PC World on the capacity of the mobile phone to bridge the digital divide. While developed markets get excited by the iPhone, N95, BlackBerry, 3G, WiMax and Android, in developing countries, most excitement centers around the…
Jan Chipcase, Nokia’s user researcher, is the latest contributor in the ongoing series of emerging markets articles that are being published on a weekly basis in Vodafone Receiver’s magazine. Chipchase stresses that his research is more than just “an attempt…
The New York Times reports on software development for mobile devices in emerging markets, through a nice feature on what is currently happening in that area in Kenya: “While engineers in the United States lavish attention on expensive phones that…
As our lives become exposed to more and more technology, and companies become more and more interested in how technology affects us and how we interface with it, anthropologists have found themselves in increasing demand. Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net provides…
For the last two years, David Frohlich and Matt Jones have worked together on StoryBank (movie), a project enabling textual and computer illiterate people to build a repository of audio-visual content via camera phones. Vodafone Receiver magazine has published their…
In May this year, the Guardian weekly published a 5-page special report for World Telecommunication and Information Society Day on how new technologies are improving the lives of people around the world, with a particular emphasis on developing nations. Articles…
Two articles in design mind, the online and print magazine of frog design, are worth pointing out on this blog: 555 Million Subscribers & Counting As the competition grows in China’s mobile market, it is cultural dynamics that will determine…
Press release: Hyderabad, India – Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) today announced a series of new portable, compact patient monitors that provides a reliable, yet affordable means to observe and care for patients. Now available to healthcare providers…
MobileActive reports on two studies that explore how low-income people use mobile technology in Brazil and South Africa. This rise of mobile phone use by low-income and so-called ‘base-of-the-pyramid’ users raises a number of questions. Are low-income people using mobile…
I just wrote a long article on Core77 on the international three-day Changing the Change conference “on the role and potential of design research in the transition towards sustainability”, which just ended here in Turin, Italy.
Neil Clavin has written the latest contribution in the ongoing series of emerging markets articles that are on a weekly basis being published Vodafone Receiver’s magazine. In his paper for receiver Clavin argues that for better design, we must first…