The problem with cashless payments
Certain types of means of payment now seem indispensable for full participation in socioeconomic activity, yet they’re not necessarily available to everyone.
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category Left behind
New Reuters Institute Report on distrust in the news by disadvantaged communities
Why do disadvantaged communities distrust the news? And what can newsrooms do about it? These are the questions at the heart of a new report by the Reuters Institute Trust in News Project.
Europe’s digital divide is far from gone (and what Italians are doing about it)
Dutch and European research highlights the struggles of Europeans (incl. the Dutch) in accessing financial services in an increasingly digital society. A new Italian initiative, the Polis Project, seeks to do something about it.
But, besides the fairly low 54 percent EU average, a new study by the Dutch National Bank (reported on yesterday by De Volkskrant, a Dutch daily newspaper) highlights how the Dutch 80% number camouflages the real difficulties many Dutch have with financial services in an increasingly digital society.
[Book] Automating Inequality
Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor By Virginia Eubanks St. Martin’s Press, January 2018 272 pages The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years – because…
Uday Dandavate: “stupidity wrapped in ignorance” underlies Facebook’s Free Basics program
Uday Dandavate, co-founder and CEO of design research company SonicRim, is appalled about Facebook pushing its Free Basics program in India, which he think is driven by “an attitude that represents stupidity wrapped in ignorance”. He just posted this reflection…
Europe’s White Working Class Communities: A Report on Six EU Cities
Europe’s White Working Class Communities, a research series published by the Open Society Foundations, documents the experiences of “white†communities in six cities across Europe. Each report focuses on a specific district or neighborhood within a city. It provides new…
The challenge of connecting the unconnected
Every time we return to or sign up for an Internet service (e.g. Facebook, Google, Gmail, YouTube, etc.), writes Hassan Baig on TechCrunch, we rely on what UX experts call a “mental model†for navigating through the choices. “A mental…
Exploring customer centricity in financial inclusion
CGAP (a World Bank affiliated but independent policy and research center dedicated to advancing financial access for the world’s poor) has partnered with Janalakshmi Financial Services, one of India’s largest urban microfinance institutions to implement customer centricity in providing financial…
Intel’s ‘Women and the Web’ report
From the press release: Intel Corporation released a groundbreaking report on “Women and the Web,” unveiling concrete data on the enormous Internet gender gap in the developing world and the social and economic benefits of securing Internet access for women.…
What does it mean to be a digital native?
The war between natives and immigrants is ending. The natives have won, argues Oliver Joy on the CNN website. It was a bloodless conflict fought not with bullets and spears, but with iPhones and floppy disks. Now the battle between…
A qualitative study of internet non-use in Great Britain and Sweden
Living Offline – A Qualitative Study of Internet Non-Use in Great Britain and Sweden by Bianca Christin Reisdorf (U. of Oxford, UK), Ann-Sofie Axelsson (Chalmers U. of Technology, Sweden) and Hanna Maurin Söderholm (U. College of Borås, Sweden) Paper presented…
Is the 1,9,90 rule outdated?
The BBC have just released some interesting research around participation online, writes Neil Perkin on FutureLab. The findings (the result of a “large-scale, long-term investigation into how the UK online population participates using digital media today”) have raised a little…
Digital differences in the USA
When the Pew Internet Project first began writing about the role of the internet in American life in 2000, there were stark differences between those who were using the internet and those who were not.1 Today, differences in internet access…
Connected Learning
Together with a committed group of colleagues and partners, cultural anthropologist Mimi Ito has been engaged in the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative to address the challenge of how new media can support highly engaged, geeked out, and…
Digital fluency: empowering all students
Liz Losh writes on DMLCentral on an inclusive and interdisciplinary approach to “digital literacy†that is more in keeping with the latest thinking about “digital fluency†in the field “Although “digital literacy†is often a phrase associated with programs that…
A cyber-house divided
Online as much as in the real world, people bunch together in mutually suspicious groups—and in both realms, peacemaking is an uphill struggle. The Economist reports in an article that quotes Danah Boyd and Ethan Zuckerman. “A generation of digital…
Trapped in the Anglosphere
Martin Kettle thinks the UK has lost sight of next door Europe, trapped as Brits are in their Anglo-centric internet. “It is hard to recall a time when the national, not just the London, mind was less informed about…
Innovation in Kenya’s informal economy
In Making Do: Innovation in Kenya’s Informal Economy, Steve Daniels of Brown University illuminates the dynamics of Africa’s informal economy to enhance our understanding of emerging systems of innovation. “Wandering through winding alleys dotted with makeshift worksheds, one can’t help…
Time to break the cyber-utopian myth
Who do you read and associate with online? Ethan Zuckerman argues in this Guardian video that cultural and linguistic barriers stand in the way of our using the internet to tackle global issues.
Coercing people into a brave new digital world
Design consultant Martyn Perks thinks that a UK government-backed campaign to get the entire UK adult population online “threatens to make cyber slaves of us all.” “Is it not possible that some people simply don’t want to participate in this…