For all who have never climbed a tree [Christian Science Monitor]
‘Go out and play’ vs. ‘de-naturing of childhood’ Read full review
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category HCD / UXD
A back-to-basics mobile launched [BBC]
Vodafone is launching a back-to-basics mobile phone in response to customer demand for simplicity. Read full story
Office culture [Financial Times]
“So how do you feel about e-mail?” asks Simon Roberts, a social anthropologist. “How has it changed your workload?” This is not what social anthropologists are usually expected to ask: they observe courtship rituals, try to interpret ancient chants,…
A case study on Yahoo! usability
Yahoo’s multiple business units, each containing decentralised user experience teams, have a natural tendency to design different solutions to similar problems. Left unchecked, these differences would weaken the Yahoo! brand and produce a less usable network of products. This case…
User Experience Magazine
User Experience Magazine is the global publication of the UPA, Usability Professional Association. It comes out three times a year and is written in the easy reading style of Interactions Magazine. Go to website
It’s not just a phone, it’s an adventure [The New York Times]
Larry Azlin, a software engineer in El Cerrito, Calif., considers himself one of the lucky ones. His aging clamshell cellphone, a Motorola V60, seems to work just fine. But once he gives it some thought, it occurs to him…
The rise of the creative consumer [The Economist]
How and why smart companies are harnessing the creativity of their customers. Read full story
A spiritual connection [The Economist]
Around the world, mobile phones seem to have a spiritual or supernatural dimension that other forms of technology lack. Read full story
The empathy economy [Business Week]
“Design thinking” can create rewarding experiences for consumers — the key to earnings growth and an edge that outsourcing can’t beat. Read full story
Wearable computers you can slip into [Business Week]
The latest generation of these ever-smarter garments look like ordinary clothes, not something only a cyborg would don. Read full story
Wolves in shops’ clothing [Fortune]
“Lifestyle centres” make big-box retailers look and feel like small-town shops. How can entrepreneurs compete? Read full story
Sottsass’s ‘Architecture for People’ [Metropolis Magazine]
> Ettore Sottsass — one of the post-war architects who literally invented the idea of Italian Design — is today eighty-seven years old: a true éminence grise. Recently, I talked to the designer/writer and cultural provocateur at the Barry Friedman…
Experience experiment [Fast Company]
Sporting Puma sneakers and a downtown hipster haircut or two, a team from the design firm Imagination USA shuffles into a fourth-floor loft in New York’s SoHo district. They’re met by David Polinchock, who offers Blow Pops and ushers…
Microsoft Project Seeks ‘A PC in Every Village’ [Seattle Post – Intelligencer]
Microsoft Corp.’s research unit is turning to social scientists in a new effort to understand the long-term possibilities for computer technology in developing countries. A Microsoft Research lab, to be inaugurated tomorrow in Bangalore, India, plans to employ anthropologists, ethnographers…
Corporate anthropology: dissecting consumer appetites [NPR]
NPR’s Eric Weiner reports on the emerging field of corporate anthropology, where researchers dissect consumer appetites and help engineers build user-friendly products. Listen
We’re all cyberlab rats [Time|CNN]
Anthropologists have deserted the bush to study modern techno-man and how he’s adapting to a world of wild gadgets. Read full story
Bill’s excellent adventure [Inc.com]
Suddenly, Microsoft cares. If you run a small business, this may be just what you’ve been waiting for. Many companies talk about getting close to the customer, but Microsoft pushed this idea to the extreme when it hired Nelle…