Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Jan Chipchase, the well-known Nokia anthropologist, has just published a blog post, an executive summary, and a paper (ppt, 7 mb, 70 pages) that explores mobile phone sharing in emerging markets and how it works. “Much of the growth in the telecommunications…
Ever since I live in Italy, I have always seen the Slow Food movement as one of Italy’s most interesting innovations of the last decades. In late 2006, they started developing a Slow Design concept – that I also interviewed…
“Transformers – how local areas innovate to address changing social needs” is a new report by the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) that explores why some places innovate more effectively than others. Taking a series…
Putting People First regularly features the work of UC Irvine professor Paul Dourish, whose interest lies in the crossover areas between computer science, anthropology, ubiquitous computing, mobility, design and HCI. Here are some of the recent publications by this very…
Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase reports on just published research from Microsoft Research India‘s Jonathan Donner that explores the practice of beeping – making intentional missed calls. The paper draws on field research from Rwanda in 2004, categorising three different types…
Nokia announced today that it unveiled two handsets that offer a range of useful features and colours aimed at consumers in emerging markets. Interestingly they have each been designed based on extensive user research. Nokia 2600 classic for personalisation The…
Demos, the UK think tank “for everyday democracy”, has published a new report on “self-directed public services”, entitled “Making It Personal“. Abstract his report advocates a simple yet transformational approach to public services – self-directed services – which allocate people…
This morning I received a print copy of Interactions Magazine with the mail. Wow. It looks, feels, and reads exactly like a magazine for our profession should be. Why did no one think of this before? It contains a lot…
About a month ago I announced the conference Changing the Change about the role and results of design research in the transition towards sustainability (see PPF and Core77). The conference will be held in Torino, Italy, 10 to 12 July…
Joe Nocera of The New York Times applauds Amazon’s Jeff Bezos tireless attention to the customer experience. Maybe, just maybe, taking care of customers is something worth doing when you are trying to create a lasting company. Maybe, in fact,…
Stephanie Hanes, a correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, reports on how Namibia’s plucky fix-it industry can handle all manner of disaster with your phone. “Cellphones are in the deepest rural areas in Africa,” says Saadhna Panday, of South Africa’s…
“Integrative Thinking” is the theme of the current Rotman School of Management magazine. Three articles caught my attention: The second road of thought: how design offers strategy a new tool kit (page 46) In this essay Tony Golsby-Smith goes back…
Last week I visited Eataly again, a fantastic “experiential” supermarket, right here in Torino. Associated with the Slow Food movement, you can dwell in it for hours and feel constantly stimulated, intellectually, sensually and visually. But I had never written…
A few weeks ago, I announced the new direction taken by Interactions Magazine under its new editors-in-chief Richard Anderson and Jon Kolko, and now the first issue is out. The content looks very exciting indeed and the editors-in-chief have done…
For sure Ray Kurzweil (author of The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology) and Bruce Sterling (who coined the term “Biot” – an entity which is both object and person – in his book Shaping Things) will enjoy this:…
Adam Greenfield is self-publishing his next book “The City Is Here For You To Use: Urban form and experience in the age of ubiquitous computing”. “The City Is Here For You To Use takes everything explored in Everyware as a…
On this University of Washington video broadcast Tapan Parikh describes his experiences developing CAM – a toolkit for mobile phone data collection – in the rural developing world. Designing technologies for an unfamiliar context requires understanding the needs and capabilities…
The report “User-driven innovation: when the user makes the difference” aims to clarify the awareness and use of user-driven innovation in the Nordic countries. The authors — a group of students from the Norwegian University of Science And Technology (NTNU)…
‘Experience Design in City Tourism‘ is a study by the Nordic Innovation Centre to gain more insight into what and how visitors want to see and experience during their stay and what the tourist industry can do in the long…
From Worldchanging: Sightline Institute’s blog The Daily Score recently noted that people always prefer streetcars and other light rail to buses. They aren’t just being subjective, either–history backs them up. In 2001 the Denver Business Journal wrote of new light…