Job opportunities at Experientia
We have some job opportunities at Experientia, the company that I founded with three other partners some months back. However it is crucial that you are fluent in Italian, and it would help if you are based in or…
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category Methods
Estonians twice as likely to use public e-services than Britons [Usability News]
The UK’s e-government strategy is fragmented and producer driven, says Andrew Lomas, author of “Rewiring Democracy”, a study that compares Estonia’s record in e-government with Britain’s – and finds the bigger country lacking. “Despite a lower level of personal Internet…
An anthropologist at an architecture firm
I have always been convinced that the traditional research approach as applied in architectural practices is conceptually closer to user experience research than that found in most other contexts. Peter Merholz just alerted me to MKThink, an architecture firm which…
Recent Design Council publications
This morning I interviewed Richard Eisermann, Director of Design & Innovation at the UK Design Council, and you will read more about that soon. He pointed me to a number of interesting Design Council publications. They are all available for…
Digital interactive television for older people [BBC]
The University of Dundee’s Department of Applied Computing is looking for people who accept the potential advantages of new technology but whose experience is more pain than pleasure. It wants to explore how fear of change can be reduced by…
Philips design magazine provides vision for simplicity
Philips released today the January issue of new value by One Design, its online quarterly design magazine. The current issue starts with an introductory article by Stefano Marzano, CEO and chief creative director, and then continues with an overview of…
Forrester slams hard to use consumer electronics
Consumer electronics companies will miss out on up to $3.8bn in revenue by 2010 because buyers are not able to use their devices properly, according to a Forrester Research report. Apart from the obvious newsworthiness of this sales message,…
The user experience of a product is everything that’s not human-computer interaction
“The user experience of a product is everything that’s not human-computer interaction. It’s everything that affects how someone interacts with a tool–whether it’s software, hardware, a service, or whatever. To me, this meant that I had to deal with…
Mobile phones are so complex you can’t even send an sms
In a study entitled ‘HandyERGO’ conducted by the technical college in Gelsenkirchen in Germany, almost two thirds of the more than 1,200 subjects failed to send a simple SMS using a strange mobile phone. This vividly illustrates how mobile phone…
When consumers became producers
In reflecting on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Business Week’s Bruce Nussbaum concludes that one trend is clear: “Companies that want to succeed must be in the enabling business, not the product or even the service business.…
RSA website on inclusive design
Inclusive design is about ensuring that environments, products, services and interfaces work for people of all ages and abilities. Many people are interested in this, but there is no ready source of information, methods, tools and examples to help them…
The cute factor [The New York Times]
Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute: bright forward-facing eyes set low on a big round face, a pair of big round…
Google to launch its own PC
According to the Register, Google is planning to provide an own-brand Windows-less PC and sell the low-cost system through a partnership with retail giant Wal-Mart. The machine and/or the sales deal could be announced as early as this coming…
Hopes and fears on the future of mobile
Nokia’s Charlie Schick shares with us his hopes and fears on the future of mobile. He is probably right on all of them. (via Rudy De Waele)
Ethnography and the iPod
As part of a long and critical post on the design and usability problems of the iPod (entitled “What’s wrong with the iPod), Jeff Axup of Mobile Community Design also looks at the social systems surrounding iPod usage: “We all…
User-driven innovation in Danish industry
FORA, a research and analysis division under the Danish Ministry for Economic and Business Affairs, has just issued three industry reports on user-driven innovation, and a general report summarising the results and recommendations. This final report recommends that better research…
Video games as substitute play environments for children
A long essay by Henry Jenkins explores the cultural geography of video game spaces, one which uses traditional children’s play and children’s literature as points of comparison to the digital worlds contemporary children inhabit. Specifically, it examines the “fit†between…
How women and men use the internet
According to a just released report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, women are catching up to men in most measures of online life. Men like the internet for the experiences it offers, while women like it for…
Mobile services and applicability issues, in Vodafone’s Receiver magazine
Vodafone has just published the 14th issue of Receiver, its online magazine on the future of communications technologies. The current edition is devoted to applicability issues in mobile services: how can we work, learn, cooperate and know better using mobiles?…
Towards a learner-centred education system
The British educational thinktank NESTA Futurelab argues that the logic of education systems should be reversed so that the system conforms to the learner, rather than the learner to the system. This is, according to them, the essence of personalisation,…