Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
The Future Tense programme on Australia’s ABC Radio features bottom-up, user-generated innovation in Africa: “In this program we’ll highlight several interesting initiatives, one in Africa and one in the South Asia region, initiatives which have had success largely because of…
Barclays 360 magazine, a quarterly thought leadership magazine for senior management within the Barclays Group, is devoted to simplicity in product and service design. Here are the feature articles (of which the last one, which is excellently written and directly…
The latest issue of Vodafone’s Receiver Magazine is all about a new era of human interaction that is marked by perpetual conversations and perpetual info drip-feed, as enabled by the umbilical of the mobile. Two new contributions explore the time…
Robert Fabricant wrote about the role of the designer in behavioural change and describes three new design strategies: persuasion design, catalyst design and performance design. “Instead of aspiring to influence user behavior from a distance, we increasingly want the products…
The Economist this week comes with a new edition of its 24-page Technology Quarterly supplement, which contains four articles that are related to the theme of this blog: Taken your medicine? Health care: Mobile phones provide a cheap and simple…
The Financial Times has published a special report on connectivity, analysing the implications of a connected planet. My preferred pieces: Skills: Business must learn from the new tribe So-called ‘digital natives’ are bringing down the barriers to collaborative working, finds…
The Wall Street Journal reports on the use of the internet by homeless people in San Francisco. “A few years ago, some people were worrying that a “digital divide” would separate technology haves and have-nots. The poorest lack the means…
The Nokia Siemens Networks has created an extremely well produced website and video series, entitled “Round. The World. Connected.” that sets out to understand what connectivity means to different people and cultures across Europe, Asia and the Americas. The project…
“The main activity of designers will be as social innovators,” said Ezio Manzini during an intimate conversation with o2NYC on May 6. Ezio’s talk outlined an exit strategy for conscious designers, a shift from making things to designing tools for…
Ken Banks, creator of FrontlineSMS, writes in PC World on the future of mobile phones and believes that many future mobile innovations will be borne out of the realities of the developing world. “In order to understand what users need…
In Asia, Africa, Europe and elsewhere, cell phone technology has always been way ahead of what’s available in the states. Around the world, people use their phones in innovative, creative ways. For example, mobile phones help rural farmers gather information…
New York Magazine has published a long article by Sam Anderson on “Twitter, Adderall, lifehacking, mindful jogging, power browsing, Obama’s BlackBerry, and the benefits of overstimulation.” “Free-associative wandering is essential to the creative process; one moment of judicious unmindfulness can…
Stephen Wolak, the brain behind Vodafone’s Betavine community, has launched a new social change community “where we look at how mobile technology and mobile services can bring about positive social change, particularly in developing countries.” The concept, he says, “is…
Dr Paul Twomey, president of the internet admin body Icann, talks about the net’s potential for change. “The mobile global internet is growing quickly to connect billions of people, devices and things. It offers much greater productivity and lower barriers…
Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow and Under Pressure and a self-proclaimed proponent of the Slow Movement, is the writer of the latest contribution to Vodafone’s Receiver magazine. In his piece, Honoré argues that in a world of…
Alice Rawsthorn of The New York Times has published an article on social design and service innovation: “When Ritt Bjerregaard became lord mayor of the city of Copenhagen in 2006, she was astonished to discover how many working days were…
Changing behaviour will be as vital as new technologies in tackling climate change. So where is the funding for linguists, anthropologists and sociologists? Tariq Tahir reports in The Guardian. “Multidisciplinary work helps engineers and scientists, as well as the professional…
Our friends at Adaptive Path have posted some information on a design and research project that aimed to understand how mobile technology can work more effectively in emerging markets. The company went to rural India to investigate the impact of…
The blog series on New Media Practices in International Contexts, which I announced in January, is now complete. It covers the unique characteristics of digital media user behaviours in very different socio-cultural contexts of China, Korea, India, Brazil, Japan…
Watch this excellent 1 hour documentary film about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet. “In his student flat in Colchester, Jack Howe is staring intently into his computer screen. He is picking the team for Ebbsfleet United’s…