Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Highly recommended read in The Guardian on the end of the golden age of motoring (or for non-Brits: car travel): “The most radical change [according to German entrepreneur Stefan Liske] is that “in big societies, there is a huge status…
Intel’s corporate anthropologist Genevieve Bell has written an elegant introductory article for the BBC site on the role of anthropology in the corporation – particularly aimed at a lay audience. “Ultimately, my team’s role is about making sure the product…
Hivos (The Netherlands) and the Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) have consolidated their three year knowledge inquiry into the field of youth, technology and change in a four book collective “Digital AlterNatives with a cause?â€. This collaboratively produced…
The draft proceedings of EPIC 2011, the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, currently taking place in Boulder, CO, USA, are available for download during the conference. They contain drafts of papers and workshop abstracts, and photos and abstracts from Pecha…
Design thinking and techniques can help create radical innovations needed to meet the challenges facing local communities and services, says Philip Colligan, executive director of Nesta‘s public services lab. “What we’re now learning is that there are low-cost and low-risk…
An essential part of any design activity is understanding the context one is working in, particularly the social context. Eventually when proposals are made, these too must be measured by their likely impact on the people who will use and…
Dr. Kusum Gopal, an anthropologist who has served as a United Nations (UN) Expert and Technical Advisor to government agencies, speaks to The Chronicle on challenges facing developing countries and offers solutions. Q: You mention Ethnographic analysis – what…
In the next ten years, smart machines will enter virtually every domain of our lives, including assisting doctors during surgery, fighting on battlefields, building things in factories, and assisting in classrooms, nursing homes, and offices. As machines augment and replace…
Forget the dysfunctional approach of the national curriculum, we need to open young minds to the creative possibilities of computing, writes John Naughton in today’s The Observer. “Instead of laying the dead hand of key stages 1-4 on our children,…
Applying Anthropology in the Global Village Christina Wasson (Editor); Mary Odell Butler (Editor); Jacqueline Copeland-Carson (Editor) 288 pp. – Nov, 2011 Left Coast Press Hardback (978-1-61132-085-5) Paperback (978-1-61132-086-2) [Amazon link] Synopsis The realities of the globalized world have revolutionized traditional…
A two-year, five-campus ethnographic study on how students view and use their campus libraries showed that students rarely ask librarians for help, even when they need it. The idea of a librarian as an academic expert who is available to…
In a series of blog posts Rebecca S. Kuchar of Sylver Consulting illustrates the challenges and rewards of orchestrating global and multi-cultural research. A first focus is on France and Rebecca talks with Caroline Baker, founder and managing director of…
In the ever-changing and expanding world of the web, reaching the end user effectively is paramount in the minds of businesses, writes Stephanie Hamilton on Onextrapixel (OXP), a weblog dedicated to delivering useful, comprehensive and innovative information for designers and…
The latest issue of the peer-reviewed research journal, International Journal of Design, is devoted to service design. It is edited by Birgit Mager of the Köln International School of Design, Cologne, Germany, and Tung-Jung (David) Sung of the Department of…
The commonly held belief that the internet is turning an entire generation into solitary web-junkies is a myth, according to new research. In a paper to be presented to a gathering of Nobel prize winners later this month, three influential…
Four interesting articles in Research Magazine, a UK industry magazine. This month we… browsed a virtual supermarket Robert Bain explores a simulated supermarket used to research products and store designs. Behind the sofa Simon Lidington thinks researchers have forgotten the…
Kevin Miller, global head of insight at in-flight magazine publisher Ink discusses how the environment impacts airline travellers psychologically and in turn affects their choice of media. “The airline passenger journey, from home to boarding the plane and beyond, is…
Architects and construction companies can learn a lot still from the techniques of ethnographers and UX designers. Here is an example from the Real Estate section of the Washington Post: “What do home buyers want? For more than two decades,…
The Spring 2011 Journal of Information Architecture, Issue 1, Vol. 3 is now available, with an editorial by IA Institute Board member, Dan Klyn describing this addition’s articles as a collection of “…no-fuss, panoramic views into IA’s way of seeing…
Tablet platforms break traditional paradigms of computer and mobile use, shows ethnographic and interview-based research conducted over the last year by UX research firm AnswerLab. “We have learned that although many people purchased iPads thinking they would be “big iPhones,