Africa’s mobile banking revolution
Millions of Africans are using mobile phones to pay bills, move cash and buy basic everyday items. So why, asks the BBC, has a form of banking that has proved a dead duck in the West been such a hit…
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category Industry sectors
Surveying the use of mobile phones in education worldwide
Michael Trucano explains on the World Bank’s EduTech blog why the World Bank will be kicking off a study next month looking at “The Use of Mobile Phones in Education in Developing Countries“. “This study is intended to help to…
Participle test driving a new youth services model
Participle, the UK social design consultancy, is doing on-the-ground testing of a new model for universal youth services. According to Sarah Schulman, it’s “less of a service, and more of a wholesale approach for community & youth development,” which they…
Service design – a matter for international security
The UK service design consultancy live|work is working with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) to design better community security services for humanitarian and development organisations. A news article on their site provides more background on this pioneering…
A user perspective on mobile banking in Tanzania
Gunnar Camner and Emil Sjöblom recently spent three months in Tanzania for their master’s thesis in Media Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, to investigate mobile banking services from a user perspective. In which contexts…
From chasm to convergence
Johnathan Bonnell and Jason Theodor explain in a two part series on Experience Matters how technology is increasingly closing the gap between manufacturers and consumers. “The chasm between consumer feedback and product offerings has virtually been erased, and this convergence…
Book: The myth of digital democracy
The Myth of Digital Democracy by Matthew Hindman Princeton University Press, 2008 Paperback, 198 pages Abstract: Is the Internet democratizing American politics? Do political Web sites and blogs mobilize inactive citizens and make the public sphere more inclusive? The Myth…
Technology will allow us to become digital nomads
Technology pundit Mike Elgan says on Nokia’s IdeasProject that we’re evolving a new paradigm for the workplace as technology makes it easier for white collar workers to engage in location-independent employment. These “digital nomads” will be able to travel the…
An interview with Eric von Hippel
Scott Wilson interviewed Prof. Eric von Hippel of MIT’s Sloan School of Management for the Deloitte Review. “Open source technology and lead user innovation: two subjects very much in evidence across a diverse number of business sectors today. But how…
Nokia in trouble? How fast can a mobile device giant react?
Fascinating and seemingly very realistic tale on the potential of Nokia (and other device manufacturers) to be able to react to the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, based on the time frame of their product development cycles. “When the…
User research at Apple
In a truly excellent article, entitled “You can’t innovate like Apple”, Alain Breillatt also discusses Apple’s approach to user research. “While I’m sure Jobs says he doesn’t do research, it’s pretty clear that his team goes out to thoroughly study…
People will be able to control and federate their own data
John Clippinger, who directs the Law Lab at Harvard University, predicts, in this video on Nokia’s IdeasProject, a huge shift over the next one to two years in the way people manage their identities. He asserts that “user-centric identity, “the…
Stanford seminars on people, computers and design
“CS547. Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design)” is a course of the Stanford HCI Group, coordinated by Terry Winograd, on topics related to human-computer interaction design. Below is a run-down of the 2008-2009 speakers (all videos are…
What is the interest created by conversational currency?
As the world moves to accommodate “everyone’s interest†could we be headed towards a global economy based on “free interestâ€, asks Jay Deragon on AlwaysOn. And what is the interest created by conversational currency? Social media is about depositing conversational…
Conceptual consumption
An article in the New York Times Magazine brought me to an interesting article by behavioural economist Daniel Ariely, who has been featured previously on this blog: “Anybody who is honest about consumer behavior knows that often what we buy…
IBM and the Internet of Things
Two articles by Richard MacManus on ReadWriteWeb caught my attention because they both deal with IBM and the Internet of Things. In a first article, MacManus describes how IBM is involved in some very interesting projects at the intersection of…
TEDGlobal updates
Both the Guardian newspaper’s PDA blog and TED itself are posting regular updates from the current TEDGlobal conference in Oxford, UK. (TED stands for technology, entertainment and design, and it’s an exclusive conference that brings togethers thinkers and doers from…
Storytelling and interaction design
The urge to describe experiences by telling a story runs throughout human history. From pictograms to hieroglyphs to the songs of the wandering bard, argues Ben Fullerton, we have developed many different ways of using storytelling devices such as allegory…
Creating one’s own economy of human well-being
Tyler Cowen (Wikipedia), a professor of economics at George Mason University, has written a thought-provoking piece for Fast Company, that is many ways highly complementary to our own KashKlash discussion on the future of value exchange. “Online, you can literally…
Power in People’s Hands: learning from the world’s best public services
The [UK] Government’s drive to reform public services by giving more power back to the citizen was accelerated yesterday, with the publication of a new study of innovative public services from around the world. Drawing on more than 30 of…