Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Financial times journalist/anthropologist Gillian Tett deconstructs the idea that the internet hands power to the people. In fact, she writes, in most countries power remains firmly in the hands of the elite. The bitter — and dangerous — irony of…
In a new report the McGraw Hill Financial Global Institute (MHFI) argues that we need a new thinking about how to create “age-friendly cities.” Adapting to the challenges of an aging urban population, they write, requires a fundamental change in…
Anthropologist Michael Thompson believes in the power of creativity from below in solving some of the smaller and bigger problems of our time. “People generally are very creative and innovative. Many anthropological case studies have shown that. If development happens,…
For going on four years now, IBM has been working to reinvent itself as a design-led business. In 2012, the computing behemoth employed just one designer for every 80 coders. Today, that ratio stands at 1:20. By the end of…
The radical Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, known for his pioneering social housing projects in Latin America, has been named as the winner of the 2016 Pritzker prize, the highest accolade in architecture. The 48-year-old, who is also the curator of…
The Hackable City: A Research Manifesto and Design Toolkit Authors – Cristina Ampatzidou (University of Amsterdam / University of Groningen) – Matthijs Bouw (One Architecture) – Froukje van de Klundert (University of Amsterdam) – Michiel de Lange (Utrecht University) –…
This short reflection on Eataly by Sergio Gutierrez, Ankur Johar, Christian Lillo, Anjali Singh and and Sofia Sourtzis positions it as a “third place”. Ray Oldenburg introduced the concept of the third place in 1989 in his book The Great…
Sebastian Berger, Assistant Professor of Organization at the University of Bern, writes in the Scientific American how the default option, a simple change based on psychology, will increase use of renewable energy. In a recent paper, Berger together with Felix…
Shaping the Library to the Life of the User: Adapting, Empowering, Partnering, Engaging by Merrilee Proffitt, James Michalko and Melissa Renspie OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. December 2015, 15 pages This report provides a recap of the October 2015…
The goal of self-service sites is to help users find answers themselves, forestalling the need to contact a real person. When such a site is done right, it leads you straight from symptoms to diagnosis to cure. However, if self-service…
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…
The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age By Astra Taylor Picador, 288 pages April 2015 The Internet has been hailed as an unprecedented democratizing force, a place where all can participate equally. But how true…
Joel Achenbach reports in the Washington Post on how digital dissenters say human needs are getting lost in the digital revolution and start to fight the tech establishment. Taylor is a 21st-century digital dissenter. She’s one of the many technophiles…
Data & Society is a NYC-based research institute focused on the social and cultural issues arising from data-centric technological development. The institute that was founded by danah boyd, principal researcher and Microsoft Research and frequently featured on this blog, looks…
For several years, Shareable has followed, and reported on, Sharing City Seoul, a pioneering project, created by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. With its government-sponsored sharing economy initiatives and community projects, Seoul has become a global leader in the sharing cities…
The transition to AVs is very much a human evolution grounded in designing a complex and nuanced relationship between the machine and us—regardless of how good the machine may be. For automakers, writes Artefact’s John Rousseau, this means adopting a…
Memorial Sloan Kettering’s new $300 million cancer center in New York focuses on the well-being of the patient—even as they move you through the process as quickly as possible. Inside the nearly-finished Josie Robertson Surgery Center (JRSC), the waiting room…
An increasing number of cities are using co-creation platforms to tackle challenging issues like mobility, air quality and urban regeneration too. The Nexthamburg project, for example, was launched in 2009 to source innovative and creative ideas for urban development in…
What happens when robot cars meet complex social interaction, like head nods, horn honks, or even road rage? Dr. Melissa Cefkin “is here to teach autonomous cars how to behave”. A design anthropologist based at the Nissan Technical Center in…
On the occasion of the U.S. launch of his new book, How to Thrive in the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s World Today, John Thackara sat down with Core77’s Allan Chochinov to talk about the book, changing attitudes about the future,…