Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
From pyramids to pancakes The era of elitism, top-down management and deterministic ideals is over. We are now living in an age of social innovation and sustainability that opens up the future to the many, not just the few. Mass…
Abhijit Kadle explains how the mobile phone can easily be used as a learning tool: “Like all communication and computing devices, mobile phones can be used to learn. The content delivered would depend on the capabilities (features) of the…
Jonathan Donner, a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India, has submitted a paper — together with Shikoh Gitau and Gary Marsden — on first-time mobile internet use in South Africa to the upcoming (3rd)…
What happens when a large % of your target market wants your brand cachet but is happy with a decent-enough quality fake? Nokia’s user anthropologist Jan Chipchase has published an essay on the current state of the fake mobile phone…
Via Dina Mehta, founder and managing director of Mosoci India, I found out about Progress, a highly interesting new website set up by Nokia and Lonely Planet: “The Progress Project is the initiative set up by Nokia and Lonely Planet…
Helsinki, Finland – Yesterday, Turin-based company Experientia was announced as part of the winning team for a project in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki, which aims to construct an urban zone with low or no carbon emissions. Sitra, the Finnish innovation agency, revealed…
Dina Mehta, founder and managing director of Mosoci India, reports on how Nokia Life Tools actually gets used in India, and more in particular, how the how the Learn English program, a part of Nokia Life Tools, really works on…
Yesterday, Nokia launched Nokia Money, a new mobile financial service enables financial management and payments from a mobile phone – aimed specifically at emerging markets. From the Nokia press release: “Nokia Money has been designed to be as simple and…
David L. Ulin, book editor of the Los Angeles Times, argues that the relentless cacophony that is life in the 21st century can make settling in with a book difficult even for lifelong readers and those who are paid to…
Abdul Bayes, professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, has written a nice article in the Daily Star newspaper where he condenses some recent research on mobile phones, farmers and the rural poor. “Coming back to the Bangladesh…
Today, Microsoft is launching OneApp, an app for people running Windows Mobile phones with slow processors and not a lot of memory. Basically, it’s a lightweight app that lets you run more intensive apps by grabbing just the basics of…
Jonathan Gosier, a software developer, writer and social entrepreneur in Kampala, Uganda, shares his ideas on what augmented reality could mean for Africa. “Already people are recording audio, video, and blogging to keep donors abreast of their work in the…
CGAP has published a brief entitled “Poor People Using Mobile Financial Services: Observations on Customer Usage and Impact from M-PESA”. “Despite growing agreement on the potential of technology to expand access to finance, or branchless banking, there is surprisingly little…
Paula Fortner, iHealthBeat senior staff writer, reports on how innovative mobile technologies are helping to fundamentally transform health care in many developing countries. “Last month, the Rockefeller Foundation announced a $100 million initiative to strengthen health systems in Africa…
Millions of Africans are using mobile phones to pay bills, move cash and buy basic everyday items. So why, asks the BBC, has a form of banking that has proved a dead duck in the West been such a hit…
Michael Trucano explains on the World Bank’s EduTech blog why the World Bank will be kicking off a study next month looking at “The Use of Mobile Phones in Education in Developing Countries“. “This study is intended to help to…
Gunnar Camner and Emil Sjöblom recently spent three months in Tanzania for their master’s thesis in Media Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, to investigate mobile banking services from a user perspective. In which contexts…
Nokia’s MeraNokia (Majha Nokia in Marathi) is actually a Nokia Life Tools (NLT) application coded into the 2300 and 2323 handsets being used in the pilot. Farmers and villagers pay around Rs 2 per day, every 10 days, for the…
Scott Wilson interviewed Prof. Eric von Hippel of MIT’s Sloan School of Management for the Deloitte Review. “Open source technology and lead user innovation: two subjects very much in evidence across a diverse number of business sectors today. But how…
In a truly excellent article, entitled “You can’t innovate like Apple”, Alain Breillatt also discusses Apple’s approach to user research. “While I’m sure Jobs says he doesn’t do research, it’s pretty clear that his team goes out to thoroughly study…