Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Gartner says the bridge to the future with social networks will be with roles with origins in the social sciences, reports eWeek. Better understanding of the Web will require skill sets more closely aligned with sociology, psychology and other…
From pyramids to pancakes The era of elitism, top-down management and deterministic ideals is over. We are now living in an age of social innovation and sustainability that opens up the future to the many, not just the few. Mass…
Jonathan Donner, a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India, has submitted a paper — together with Shikoh Gitau and Gary Marsden — on first-time mobile internet use in South Africa to the upcoming (3rd)…
Helsinki, Finland – Yesterday, Turin-based company Experientia was announced as part of the winning team for a project in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki, which aims to construct an urban zone with low or no carbon emissions. Sitra, the Finnish innovation agency, revealed…
For years, the experience design community has been using the term ‘good enough prototyping’. Wired UK argues quite convincingly that this approach is now moving into product design: “Cheap, fast, simple tools are suddenly everywhere. We get our breaking news…
The New Media Consortium is hosting a Symposium for the Future October 27-29 that will explore actual and potential applications of technology that could impact issues of global importance over the next five years and beyond. To generate dialog and…
The UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering recently published a discussion document (pdf) on the social, legal and ethical issues surrounding the development and use of autonomous systems. The document is the report of a roundtable discussion from a wide range…
BBC News reports on the inaugural meeting of the London Futurist and Transhumanist Group. “While futurism involves trying to predict how technology will evolve over time, transhumanism is concerned with how that technology will change the fundamental nature human beings…
Alice Rawsthorn, the design critic of the International Herald Tribune/New York Times, approached the topic of co-design last week: “We can now “co-design†real objects thanks to digital technology, which enables us to communicate directly with manufacturers to personalize aspects…
Fred Beecher argues on Johnny Holland that “the iPhone is surprisingly difficult to use, but it sure is fun! And that is why it’s a game-changer.” “As a user experience designer, I thought my job was to make things not…
The last few weeks we have witnessed an avalanche of posts about augmented reality. To begin with there is Bruce – Bruce Sterling that is. He has been following the trend for months now, all culminating at his excellent keynote…
Fast Company explores what neighbourhood currency would look like: “Hyper-localized currencies have been popping ever since the economy went sour–not surprising, since local currencies also gained popularity during the Great Depression. Five local Massachusetts banks have developed Berkshares–there are 185,000…
Steve McCallion, the executive creative director at Ziba Design, is a bright man whom I had the pleasure of meeting during a service design event in Brussels in December 2007 — we got along immediately. As part of his introduction…
LG Electronics (LG) launched two new handsets exclusively equipped with Islamic features. “Launching across the region this August, pan-Arab consumers will benefit from a number of special features, including a Qiblah indicator that uses an inbuilt longitude and latitude orientation…
Don Hammonds of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on the use of market research and ethnographic observations by car manufacturers: “The tool that most people associate with automotive market research is the focus group but another tool has become more popular…
The User Experience Design blog reports that Jonathan Hassell of BBC online shared a presentation on the challenges and methodologies of the company’s Usability & Accessibility team. The short presentation describes the challenges, such as a wide range of platforms…
CGAP has published a brief entitled “Poor People Using Mobile Financial Services: Observations on Customer Usage and Impact from M-PESA”. “Despite growing agreement on the potential of technology to expand access to finance, or branchless banking, there is surprisingly little…
Cambridge Design Partnership and Instrata, a Cambridge-based user experience specialist, recently teamed up to approach mobile communications innovation from the experience of the consumer. More in particular, the team developed some ideas into new device and service concepts focussing on…
Richard MacManus reports on ReadWriteWeb that Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle released a white paper entitled Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On, which focuses on the intersection of social web technologies with the emerging Internet of Things (real world…
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…