Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Daniel Kahneman, the ‘godfather’ of behavioural economics, has been challenged by rival psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer, director of the Centre for Cognition and Adaptive Behaviour at the Max Planck institute in Berlin, who claims that Kahneman presents ‘an unfairly negative view…
The sharing economy is a harmful misnomer, writes John Harvey, a researcher at the University of Nottigham. It conflates people who actually share with those who make money through collaborative consumption. “It is true that much of the work within…
Sceptics fail to grasp that this is a strategy that improves lives while treating citizens with dignity – unlike coercion, argues Cass Sunstein. It is true that nudges are not a sufficient approach to some of our most serious problems,…
A long post by Rick Robinson, Executive Architect at IBM specialising in emerging technologies and Smarter Cities, admonishes Smart Cities planners and designers not to overlook the social needs of cities and communities. After all, he says, the full purpose…
Responsive urban technology sounds enticing but citizens must not be disconnected from plans drawn up on their behalf, argues Gary Graham in The Guardian. “It’s not clear at the moment whether future cities are strategic experiments for [large companies such…
The Forum for Social Innovation Sweden is a meeting place for academia, industry, government, civic society and non-profit organisations in Sweden striving to develop social innovation and social entrepreneurship. As part of its mission to share news, information, network and…
Are you a trainer? Do you facilitate meetings? Help the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (an Experientia client) to develop a mobile card set of 60 participatory knowledge sharing methods and technologies that you can use in…
Adam Gopnik, who writes for the New Yorker, has only ever sent nine tweets. In this long BBC article he explains why: ” Everyone insists that the technological transformation of the daily shape of our lives by new gadgets is…
Design Transitions – Inspiring Stories. Global Viewpoints. How design is changing. By Joyce Yee, Emma Jefferies and Lauren Tan BIS Publishers [Book site – Amazon link – selected pages] Abstract Design Transitions presents 42 unique and insightful stories of how…
Cheryl Heller of CommonWise argues that there’s a new design emerging that works from inside a community and at a systems level, impacting human relationships instead of things. It emerges from the new discipline of design for social innovation, in…
Small devices with embedded intelligence can do more than just measure; they’re showing their potential to change the way we act, writes Sean Madden in Fast Company. “For the first time, we have in essence a kit of parts–sensors, software,…
The Rational Animal: How Evolution Made Us Smarter Than We Think by Douglas T. Kenrick and Vladas Griskevicius Basic Books September 2013 [Amazon link] Abstract Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle…
War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views Douglas P. Fry Oxford University Press April 2013 [Amazon link] Abstract Have humans always waged war? Is warring an ancient evolutionary adaptation or a relatively recent behavior–and what…
Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics By Stephen Wendel Publisher: O’Reilly Media Released: November 2013 Pages: 400 [Amazon link] A new wave of products is helping people change their behavior and daily routines, whether it’s exercising more…
Megan Garber of The Atlantic interviews (alternate link) Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and a professor at MIT whose primary academic interest—the relationship between humans and machines—is especially relevant in today’s networked age. Turkle’s most recent book, Alone Together: Why We…
Mohsin Hamid and Anna Holmes discuss in the New York Times Book Review how technology affects our reading habits. Mohsin Hamid argues that in a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish…
As part of a European Union-funded study on social media (make sure to check also the UCL site and blog on the same project), the Department of Anthropology at University College London is running nine simultaneous 15-month ethnographic studies in…
The title of this New York Times article sounds like a Monty Python sketch (intentionally, I guess). But the article is luckily quite a lot more serious, exploring how the British government – inspired by American behavioral economics – is…
Public service design is about to hit the mainstream. In December the Cabinet Office will launch a new policy lab tasked with using design to “re-invigorate policymaking in the UK civil service”, reports The Guardian. The new lab to be…
Innovative design-based approaches to public service management can rapidly enhance user experience whilst driving effective and efficient policymaking, explains Lucy Kimbell on the site of the Policy Network (the UK’s leading thinktank and international political network based in London). “[The…