Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
On Nudging In Public Policy By Alon M. August, University of Redlands (USA) April 6, 2015 This thesis examines nudging, a technique aimed at making individuals act, choose, and behave in the ways deemed rational by policy makers. Nudging has…
Designing Democracy: How designers are changing democratic spaces and processes An inquiry by the UK Design Commission March 2015 Abstract Featuring essays from leading designers, MPs and policymakers, ‘Designing Democracy’ asks what contribution design could make to improving both participation…
Satin Island: A novel by Tom McCarthy Knopf, 2015 From the author of Remainder and C (short-listed for the Man Booker Prize), and a winner of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, comes Satin Island, an unnerving novel that promises to give…
Until developers of wearable devices get the user experience down pat, the technology will struggle to gain adoption, writes Steve McPhilliamy on Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry (MDDI). “Understanding user behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles is the key to solving the…
New ethnographic and quantitative research from DrivingSales identifies how the growing gap between consumer expectations and the current automotive buying process is suppressing car sales volume. Automotive sales could grow up to 24% if the retail experience improves, according to…
The MIT Technology Review has just published a special business report on persuasive technology, i.e. how technologies from smartphones to social media are used to influence our tastes, behavior, and even habits. Free registration is required to read all the…
Two inspiring posts by Dr. Lucy Kimbell, a visiting Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Fellow at the UK-based Policy Lab, an experimental policy innovation center within the Open Policy Making team of the UK Cabinet Office: Ethnography in policymaking:…
Two methodological critiques on Big Data that caught our attention: In the Financial Times, economist and journalist Tim Harford points out that sampling bias and statistical errors are, if anything, magnified in Big Data research, and that theory-free analysis of…
The Gov.uk open policy making toolkit is a practical guide to techniques that can help you make better policy. The toolkit, which brings together the latest techniques to improve making and delivering policy, is based on the principles of open…
In a long Fortune Magazine article on IKEA’s successful global expansion, author Beth Kowitt devotes quite a few paragraphs to the importance of qualitative, ethnographic research: “Today research is at the heart of Ikea’s expansion. “The more far away we…
In many hospitals and clinics around the [USA], oncologists and surgeons simply tell cancer patients what treatments they should have, or at least give them strong recommendations. But [at UC San Francisco], under a formal process called “shared decision making, 
People talk about the future of technology in education as though it’s right around the corner, but most of us get to that corner and see it disappearing around the next. This innovation-obsessed cycle continues as we are endlessly dissatisfied…
Psychologist Susan Pinker on the importance of face-to-face contact in our era of disbanded families and virtual connections. “Research shows that people who feel socially disconnected are at a greater risk of dying young – especially if they are men.…
FAIR Money, a small research collective consisting of anthropologists and design researchers based in the San Francisco Bay Area, has just published its first report, Good with Money: Getting by in Silicon Valley. The report, which is based on interviews…
Invitation: sharing session, Singapore, 30 March 2015 What are the hopes and fears of the elderly in Singapore? How can designers offer solutions that support the elderly in managing their health and wellness? What can healthcare professionals do to help…
Reduced budgets mean innovation in the public sector is vital if our public services are to become more effective and improve the experience for users, argues Anna Whicher, Head of Policy, at the National Centre for Product Design and Development…
In the broader business world, writes social anthropologist Jay Hasbrouck, design thinking “is already a stale buzzword — a concept that spread widely as a panacea for dull and slow-moving corporate cultures.” “Some say it’s now “the happy meal†of…
In a battery of experiments, Imperial College’s Johannes Hattula and his coresearchers Walter Herzog, Darren Dahl, and Sven Reinecke interviewed marketing managers about their personal preferences for a selected product or service. The researchers then primed some managers to be…
It is no secret among Customer Experience (CX) professionals that most CX efforts fall flat. Forrester found that only 25% of CX professionals say their companies’ CX programs actually improve customer experience, and Avaya recently published a study indicating that…
Activists have leaked the latest draft of Europe’s planned data protection law – which is supposed to safeguard Europeans’ personal information when in the hands of businesses and governments, reports The Register “The proposed rules have been agreed by the…