Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category Research
What do European businesses and citizens think of widespread RFID use?
The role of ethnographic research in driving technology innovation – Lessons from Inside Asia
In a story in Pakistan’s Daily Times, Bill Siu (whom I presume to be an Intel Vice-President), shares some of the insights gained from Intel’s ethnographic research in Asia. The Inside Asia project team, led by Dr Genevieve Bell [which…
Improving usability to drive customers to self-service
In the fourth quarter of 2005, Forrester Research conducted a survey of more than 100 companies with annual revenues of $200 million or more. According to Nate Root, the author of the resulting study, one trend became crystal clear: Respondents…
Britain turns off and logs on [The Guardian]
More time is now spent on the internet than on watching TV, according to Google survey Television addiction has been Britain’s national pastime for years, but experts agree that viewers around the country are increasingly switching on their computer screens…
Most web users only visit six sites
Web users now have almost 76 million sites to choose from, yet most only visit six on a regular basis, it was revealed today. The research, published today by Directgov, points to a new era in the use of the…
Complexity causes 50% of product returns [Reuters]
Half of all malfunctioning products returned to stores by consumers are in full working order, but customers can’t figure out how to operate the devices, a scientist said on Monday. Product complaints and returns are often caused by poor design,…
Sun making user interaction intuitive through SPOT sensors [San Jose Mercury News]
What if you could transfer the address book from your old cell phone to a new one by tilting the old phone like a pitcher and wirelessly pouring hundreds of numbers into the new phone — instead of punching in…
Media Lab director on confronting social problems and user-driven innovation [Christian Science Monitor]
A long article in the Christian Science Monitor reflects on the new directions for the MIT Media Lab, including how it will relate with its sponsors. Director Frank Moss also speaks about confronting social problems and user-driven innovation. Moss wants…
The art of building a robot to love [The New York Times]
If robots can act in lots of ways, how do people want them to act, happy or sad, bubbly or cranky? Reporting on the recent conference on human-robot interaction in Salt Lake City, Henry Fountain of the New York Times…
Upcoming conferences on intelligent environments
Two upcoming conferences are exploring some of the implications that widely distributed technologies in our living environments (also called ambient intelligence, intelligent environments or ubiquitous computing) might have for people and the way we live. International Symposium on Intelligent…
User-led innovation projects at BBC
In her Outside Innovation blog, best-selling author and management consultant Patty Seybold engages MIT professor Eric von Hippel (author of Democratizing Innovation) in a lively debate about lead users and lead customers. In a response Matt Locke, Head of Creative…
Interview with head of Yahoo! Research [Tech Confidential]
In a long interview with The Deal’s Tech Confidential, Prabhakar Raghavan, head of technology research at Yahoo! Inc., says Yahoo!’s goal is to let Internet users retrieve precisely the information they’re seeking on the Web without having to search for…
Philips researcher provides cognitive science angle on experience economy
Mark Van Doorn of Philips Research published a short paper on the website of the European Centre for the Experience Economy, that provides a cognitive science angle on the experience economy. "Many views on the experience economy start with…
EU to challenge MIT with new institute [AP | CNN]
The European Union is to unveil plans Wednesday for the creation of a rival to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reflecting fears that academic standards are slipping further behind the United States and risk being overtaken by China and India.…
Innovative technologies for disabled children
When six-year-old Tilly Griffiths from Staffordshire wanted to join her elder sister’s ballet class, her parents turned for help to a little known charity that designs and manufactures one-off pieces of equipment for disabled people. Based in an old chapel…
Historic city of Bath to host wireless experiment [Reuters | CNN]
Britain’s historic city of Bath is to host an experiment in advanced wireless computer technology that could provide the blueprint for developing the world’s next generation of mobile phones and lap-tops. Called Cityware, the project will see 30 volunteers using…
Vision through sound [Toronto Star]
Researcher Bill Buxton started his career as a musician in Toronto, but found his true calling mixing computer science with his passions for music and design. Now at Microsoft Research, the human-computer interaction and computer graphics pioneer will collaborate with…
Mattel workshop on play experiences for the next generation
Looking to generate new ideas about the future of play, Mattel invited the Interaction Design Institute to present concepts during its company-wide Play Experiences for the Next Generation workshop. Children discover the world through play. Playing shapes human mental and…
Growing numbers surf the web just for fun
More than ever, people are getting on the Internet to hang out or just blow off some time, a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said Wednesday. Some 40 million Americans said they go online just for…