Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Researchers and practitioners meeting at CHI 2007 produced the surprising argument that user-centred design is a bad idea, writes Andy Daerden on Usability News. Instead, a range of alternative approaches were proposed for projects in developing countries such as “community…
Avnish Bajaj, co-founder and Managing Director of Matrix India (the $150-million India fund of Matrix Partners, a global venture capital company) thinks Web 2.0 is not for India: “I think people are wasting their time on Web 2.0 in India.”…
Yesterday I went to a press conference by Torino 2008 World Design Capital at the Milan Design Fair which presented TORINO GEODESIGN. TORINO GEODESIGN (described in more detail in this Core77 article) is an international competition which will bring designers…
Diane Brady of Business Week reports on The Doors of Perception conference in Delhi which focuses on applying design thinking to modern challenges in food, water and waste. “John Thackara is doggedly pragmatic. The British design guru likes nothing more…
Billing itself as a nonprofit venture capital firm, the Acumen Fund uses the principles of design to solve the problems of the poor. Just as the Procter & Gambles and Motorolas of the corporate world conduct extensive ethnographic research on…
GE Healthcare sells $15 billion a year worth of big X-ray machines, CAT scans, and ultrasound testing equipment. The healthcare division of General Electric (GE ) usually differentiates its products by getting better and faster readings from its instruments—”feeds and…
Business Week features a long story on Sugar, the breakthrough graphical user interface on the so-called $100 laptop. User testing only started this February when about 2500 beta test machines were shipped to beta testing countries, an approach that received…
When I met Ranjit Makkuni now over five years ago at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, I became immediately mesmerised by his approach to technology and culture and the work he has been doing. This has only grown since. Makkuni…
“The virtual (internet) network of people has always been a problem for [Indian] lawmakers,” reports Ritwik Donde in Infotech, an online technology news source of the India Times. “One of the problem with internet has been that it is impossible…
The CHI 2007 organisers have published an “advanced programme” of the conference, which will take place 28 April – 3 May in San Jose, California. Some highlights: Opening plenary: “Reaching for the intuitive” by Bill MoggridgeBill will attempt to show…
Illiterate consumers are in many ways lead users for the rest of us, argues Jan Chipchase, principal researcher at Nokia, at his presentation at the LIFT conference. A person is literate who can with understanding both read and write a…
Mobile communication is revolutionizing economic and social life in rural India, spawning a wave of local entrepreneurs and creating greater access to social services according to a new study by The Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS) commissioned by Nokia. Mobile…
Jan Chipchase and Indri Tulusan of Nokia Research are on a roll. Following a July 2006 field study in Uganda, and previous presentations on shared phone practices and street charging services, they now explored the Village Phone initiative between the…
In conjunction with the Massive Change exhibit that recently ended in Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the City of Chicago Department of the Environment organised a one-day symposium that brought together experts in urbanization, energy, evolution, information, wealth…
Amit Pande, who manages Oracle’s User Experience practice in Bangalore, wrote an interesting post about his impressions of the user experience scene in China. “First, let me start with saying that like many others in the technology & design space,…
Uganda is a country coping with a severe energy crisis resulting in frequent power cuts. In addition, access to mains electricity in rural locations is limited. Given that mobile phones require power, and access to power can be unpredictable –…
Business Week writes about how GE’s health-care unit went to design students at the Art Center College of Design for out-of-the-box ideas that are focused on people rather than technology, take a systems approach to problem solving, and are culturally…
What happens when people share an object that is inherently designed for personal use? Jan Chipchase and Indri Tulusan of Nokia Research set out explore this topic during a July 2006 field study in Uganda with a brief to understand…
The user interface for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, the initiative to put $100 laptops in the hands of children around the world led by Nicholas Negroponte, the founding director of the MIT Media Lab, “uses a highly…
Design 21: Social Design Network is an online community, created in partnership with UNESCO, where members of the design community, socially conscious individuals, local governments, businesses and non-profit organizations (NPOs) can address social concerns and create smart solutions through design.…