Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
It is innovation’s biggest paradox: We demand more and more from the stuff in our lives–more features, more function, more power–and yet we also increasingly demand that it be easy to use. And, in an Escher-like twist, the technology that’s…
Abstracts and posters of the first Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC, that took place on 14-15 November in Redmond, WA, are already online. The conference proceedings are also downloadable (pdf, 1.9 mb, 198 pages), be it for a limited…
Identity 2.0 is a new user-centric and secure concept of identity on the web, rather than the current directory or site-centric one, which is not exactly safe. Dick Hardt, CEO of Sxip Identity, made a brilliant presentation of what this…
MuLiMob is an EU financed multi-partner project aimed at using Europe’s linguistic and cultural diversity as hallmark to bolster the mobile market. MuLiMob will review and analyse elements to be changed, fine-tuned and solved in order to develop wireless applications…
The Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) just published the inaugural issue of the Journal of Usability Studies, a UPA peer-reviewed, on-line journal dedicated to “promoting and enhancing the practice, research, ethics and education of usability engineering”. A great positive is…
UPA 2006: Usability Through Storytelling brings together engaging speakers from the fields of education, culture, design, technology and entertainment, including: – Steve Denning, “organisational storyteller extraordinaire” – Kevin Brooks, senior staff researcher, Motorola Labs – Nelson Soken, senior engineering manager,…
UC Berkeley and Yahoo! recently established a joint research laboratory, headed by Prof. Marc Davis, to explore and invent social media and mobile media technology and applications that will enable people to create, describe, find, share, and remix media on…
Since recently Nokia publishes Usability eUpdate, a monthly newsletter completely focused on mobile usability and user experience. – June issue – August issue – September issue – October issue – Click here to subscribe. It is developed by the…
This Christmas, tech-peddlers are turning their gaze toward kids, with new lines of grown-up gadgets built for tiny hands. “There’s a shift in need in terms of what a child finds fun and entertaining,” says Jim Silver, editor of the…
At the Mandarin and other high-end hotels, new computer systems that connect individual rooms to network servers can now keep track of guests’ preferences and change the room conditions automatically. These “smart” systems can learn whether a frequent guest likes…
“Embedding design into business” is the title of a long article by Roger Martin, dean of the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management in Toronto, Canada, that just appeared in the School’s magazine. “Firms everywhere are realising they can jump-start…
The British Government is working on a series of strategies to put an entirely different dynamic in place to drive the UK public services: one where the service will be driven not by the managers but by the user –…
Katja Battarbee and Ilpo Koskinen of the University of Art and Design Helsinki provide a social view on user experience in their paper “Co-experience: user experience as interaction”, published in the first issue of CoDesign. “User experience is becoming a…
More and more B2B companies are turning to experience marketing to woo business customers. “B2B companies, especially in the technology, pharmaceutical and banking industries, are looking for ways to immerse their business clients in experiences that tell a brand…
We clearly have a love-hate relationship with digital technology, a new study confirms. We love how easily it allows us – through e-mail, sending photos and exchanging news and information – to communicate with friends and family, but we…
In this long feature, Rick Robinson, global director of GFK NOP‘s Observational & Ethnographic Practice, discusses ethnography and branding, and argues in much detail how ethnography can help companies gain a true understanding of their customers — including their interactions,…
The new HomeLab allows Philips to test its new home technology prototypes in the most realistic possible way. The research facility, which is located on the Philips campus in the Netherlands, is essential in speeding up the time-to-market for technological…
Rachel Jones of Instrata reflects on the recent “People-Inspired Innovation” conference organised by Chimera* at Adastral Park, Ipswich, UK. When she was last year part of the DTI mission to the west coast of the US (see earlier post),…
Business Week just published an interview by Liz Danzico (AIGA) with author Peter Morville on his new book Ambient Findability and on what it means to be able to find anything from anywhere at anytime, thanks to ubiquitous computing and…
Being sent to your bedroom used to be a punishment: now it’s a teen dream. Through personal computers, mobile phones and gaming consoles, teenagers are spurning antisocial angst for a culture of “connected cocooning”. It’s a phrase coined by…