Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Dan Hill (of CityofSound, ARUP, Sitra and now Fabrica fame) is not only extremely prolific, but his writing is also very much to the point. His latest Smart City (or better “Smart Citizen”) manifesto is a case in point. Weighing…
The way we use maps is evolving fast, and it will change a great deal more than how we navigate, argues Kat Austen, an opinion editor at New Scientist. “Digital maps offer to enhance and optimise the world, giving us…
David Halpern, director of the Behavioural Insight Team at the UK Cabinet Office (widely known as the “nudge unit”), discusses research on how subtle changes in the way public services communicate with citizens can yield significant results. “The power of…
Festooned with digital accessories that track everything from his heart rate to his footsteps to his sleep patterns, Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott has plugged into the Quantified Self movement. Farewell to gut instinct, and hello to the “data-driven†life:…
Marco Steinberg, who directs the strategic design efforts of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, announced last week that Sitra’s Helsinki Design Lab will close in June 2013. Helsinki Design Lab is an initiative by Sitra to advance strategic design as…
A Sustainable Building Promotes Pro-Environmental Behavior: An Observational Study on Food Disposal by Wu DW, DiGiacomo A, Kingstone A PLoS ONE 8(1): e53856. doi:10.1371 – January 2013 In order to develop a more sustainable society, the wider public will need…
Smart Design’s Dan Saffer discusses on Fast Company on how we should interact with the automobiles of the (near) future: “What will this feel like, riding in our new robot cars? If the experience of being a “driver†in our…
Longtime political operative Joe Trippi advocates a bottom-up, people-centered politics, and cheers the innovations of Obama 2012, saying they restored the primacy of the individual voter. “New technologies can manipulate, empower, or do both. There will be plenty of actors…
The UK government’s deficit reduction plan may fall short of its targets, prompting speculation that austerity measures will have to continue into the next parliament. Local government officers who have already seen substantial cuts are now looking at a further…
Yesterday I plugged Connecting, a short film that explores trends in UI, Interaction & Experience Design. When Mark Rettig watched the video, he said he would “hesitate to refer friends and family to watch it as an explanation of some…
Business Technology 2020 Human-like technology. The potential downfall of the data center. Hyper-personalization of data. These are some of the responses IT leaders gave to us when we asked, “What will business technology look like in 2020?†In 2020, tech…
Also the New York Times is turning up the cyborg theme, but luckily more intelligently than CNN. All the technology and internet use has changed how we interact. But are we also changing what we are? The New York Times…
Though hats have long gone out of fashion, the custom should be a guide for how we adapt to the increasing pervasiveness of personal technology. It’s high time, writes Nir Eyal, that we started doing with our digital devices what…
This week London hosts a jamboree of computer geeks, politicians, and urban planners from around the world. At the Urban Age conference, they will discuss the latest whizz idea in high tech, the “smart city”. “But,” writes Richard Sennett in…
The war between natives and immigrants is ending. The natives have won, argues Oliver Joy on the CNN website. It was a bloodless conflict fought not with bullets and spears, but with iPhones and floppy disks. Now the battle between…
John Pavlus reflects in the MIT Technology Review on a short essay by Gary Marcus in the New Yorker about the ethical quandaries raised by Google’s driverless car. “The real problems that artificially intelligent cars will bring with them,” he…
As the sharing economy picks up momentum, its reach has become global. In cities and towns around the world, people are creating ways to share everything from baby clothes to boats, hardware to vacation homes. There are also groups emerging…
Big Data is the subject of a forthcoming glossy photo book, a smartphone application for personal data analysis and comparison, and an interactive version of the book for the iPad, reports Steve Lohr on the New York Times Bits blog.…
The language of learning today is full of references to “softness†and “openness.†Software, soft skills, soft performance, and the softening up of school knowledge go hand-in-hand with open source, open access and open educational resources in much current thinking…
In the last five years UK schools have spent more than £1 billion on digital technology. From interactive whiteboards to tablets, there is more digital technology in schools than ever before. But so far there has been little evidence of…