Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
From a young age, humans love to press buttons that light up and make a noise. The thrill of positive feedback lies at the heart of addiction to gambling, games, and social media, reports Adam Alter for The Guardian. “The…
IKEA has undertaken a major research-driven project in 2014 across 12 countries (report here) to explore the subjects of children’s development and play, and young people and parents’ perception of family life at home. This is a follow-up to the…
The latest contribution to Ethnomining, the April 2013 Ethnographymatters edition on combining qualitative and quantitative data, edited by Nicolas Nova, is by Rachel Shadoan and Alicia Dudek who present an interesting case study, based on visualizations, involving an on-line role-playing…
At a Fisher-Price lab, researchers watch children at play to come up with ideas for new products, including toys that incorporate apps on iPads and iPhones. At Fisher-Price, “we bring babies in with their moms and watch them at play…
So how are we doing to augment our senses through digital technologies? Here are some of the products currently on the market that allow people to augment their sensing (and sense-making) through external sensors, with result summaries visualised on smartphones…
In this long article, Peter Steen Høgenhaug explores how and when to use gamification to improve the user experience of websites and apps, and also when not to use it. Using game theories in areas not otherwise associated with games…
Greg Laugero writes about two trends that have recently entered the realm of digital product development. First is the incorporation of gaming concepts into products that seemingly have nothing to do with gaming. Second, the importance of designing products that…
Ethnographies of the Videogame: Gender, Narrative and Praxis by Helen Thornham, City University London, UK Ethnographies of the Videogame Ashgate, July 2011, 218 pages [Amazon UK link] Ethnographies of the Videogame uses the medium of the videogame to explore wider…
Social currency is shared information that encourages further social encounters. It’s not a new concept, but the social web increases its prevalence. In the web-based collaboration software platform called Rypple, a simple act of thanking someone on a team and…
A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown Publisher: CreateSpace – January, 2011) Paperback, 140 pages (Amazon link) The 21st century is a world in constant change.…
The current issue of Interactions Magazine is generally on the nuances of what makes us human, writes co-editor-in-chief Jon Kolko, and more in particular “about authenticity, complexity, and design-and the political, social, and human qualities of our work”. Here are…
Imon Deshmukh of Cooper thinks that interfaces can be more closely integrated with the environment in which they operate. In an article on the Cooper blog, he shares some of what he heas learned from the universe of video games…
Playreport is a global research project on children, families and play, initiated by IKEA. The company conducted 11,000 interviews in 25 countries, and spoke to 8,000 parents and 3,000 children aged 7-12. It is therefore, according to IKEA, the largest…
UX Matters is another one of these great resources for the user experience community. Here three recent articles: Designing user experiences for children By Heather Nam (Mediabarn) Creating a great experience for Web site users should always take the users’…
In his blog, Dan Lockton, a Ph.D. researcher at Brunel University (UK), describes eleven behavioural change patterns “drawn from games or modelled on more playful forms of influencing behaviour.” “My main interest here is to extract the design techniques as…
Fred Beecher argues on Johnny Holland that “the iPhone is surprisingly difficult to use, but it sure is fun! And that is why it’s a game-changer.” “As a user experience designer, I thought my job was to make things not…
Joe Lamantia, an Amsterdam based experience architect, discussed the role of emotion in game design. In his article, Lamantia draws heavily on the work by Nicole Lazzaro, a leading games researcher and design consultant. “Emotion is one of the most…
“CS547. Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design)” is a course of the Stanford HCI Group, coordinated by Terry Winograd, on topics related to human-computer interaction design. Below is a run-down of the 2008-2009 speakers (all videos are…
As part of a feature series on Facebook (see below), Newsweek explores how the digital world is changing the rules of modern courtship: “It wasn’t so long ago that the idea of a college romance playing out online—for better or…
In an exploration into how games can add value to the innovation process, Philips Design has created ‘Spark’, a board game that stimulates creativity and innovative thinking. To play Spark, the players move counters representing different characters around the board,…