Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Europe could take the lead in the next generation of the Internet. In a document entitled “EU Communication on Future Networks and the Internet”, the European Commission has outlined the main steps that Europe has to take to respond to…
David Jennings, author of the book Net, Blogs and Rock’n’Roll, argues why he disagrees with Cass Sunstein on the future described in his book Republic.com 2.0, one where we all subscribe to the Daily Me, a filter that presents us…
On Sept. 22, 2008, Microsoft Research New England conducted an inaugural symposium in Cambridge, Mass., hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to open an extensive collaboration with leading research institutions in the region. The symposium included introductions to Microsoft…
Experientia’s senior partner Jan-Christoph Zoels is this week at the Picnic conference in Amsterdam and is sending regular updates. Here is his second one, covering the Thursday morning sessions: Group actions just got easier! – Clay Shirky jump-started the second…
The Financial Times argues that the ability of computers to read and understand our gestures is bound to move the mouse into retirement: At almost 30 years old, is the computer mouse ready for retirement? Certainly, a growing band of…
Nokia Research Center published a technical report, entitled “Homebird – Task-based User Experience for Home Networks and Smart Spaces”. Contemporary wireless networks in people’s homes are already enabling consumer electronics devices to communicate with each other. Standards like Universal Plug…
The Restaurant of the Future at the University of Wageningen investigates the influences on eating behaviour and carries out studies for the food industry. Ceiling cameras record not only what food you selected, but what you almost selected and how…
In March this year Trendbuero, the consultancy “for social change”, organised its 13th Trend Day. The topic was “Identity Management – Recognition replaces attention”, with speakers such as Richard Florida, Willem Velthoven of Mediamatic, Norbert Bolz (BANG-Design), Hartmut Esslinger of…
In March, the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (blog) organised a symposium on service design. Some time ago, I reported that videos of three of the presentations (Bill Hollins, Bill Moggridge, and Jørgen Rosted) were online. Meanwhile you can also…
Cross media storytelling, vibrant and fast moving technological and creative developments in cities across Africa and the new plans that Google, Vodafone and Nokia have for the region: these are a few of the things that will be discussed in…
The BBC reports that Sir Mick Jagger has taken on a new challenge, as an EU usability consultant: You can’t always get what you want – that was the EU’s message to rock star Sir Mick Jagger at a forum…
Advertising Age is waking up to a situation which for us in the experience design community has been apparent for many years: simple question-and-answer consumer surveys are not sufficient to be “in touch with the lifestyles of consumers”. “After issuing…
Building on the momentum in social networking for business, IBM Corp. is opening the IBM Center for Social Software in Cambridge, Mass., to research and quantify the effects of social software on workplace productivity. The center will bring together the…
Interesting article by Hubert Guillaud of InternetActu.net on understanding non-users (my translation): The French Marsouin research lab just published an interesting study on people who do not use the internet. The study starts off with the various existing typologies to…
Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, states that ethnic minority groups are the prime early adopters in Europe, thereby confirming ethnographic user research at Swisscom. “Ethnic minority groups are at the forefront of digital communications in the UK, with high levels…
Open source projects have historically suffered from featuritis and poor usability (even WordPress, which this blog runs on, has a cumbersome software update). Now a private company is investing in improving Ubuntu, the Linux desktop poster child: “Canonical, the corporate…
NLab is a lab developed by the Faculty of the Humanities of De Montfort University in Leicester, UK to connect creative businesses with writers and generate pioneering partnerships. In June they organised a very interesting one-day conference on social networks…
Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Hardcover) by Tom Boellstorff Princeton University Press Hardcover, 2008, 328 pages Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second…
Digital technology is changing the everyday forms and experience of money. Cheryl Miller reports on the Research@Intel blog how field research by Intel’s People & Practices Research team identified key themes and opportunities for technological innovation. The researchers presented their…
Normally Putting People First doesn’t promote conferences, but this is one organised by a good colleague, held at the Belgian university town where I studied, and on a topic that we at Experientia are professionally quite heavily involved with. So…