Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Design Anthropology takes user research to a whole new level. Dr. Elizabeth Tunstall explains in an essay on Adobe Design Center’s Think Tank how this emerging field can help to redefine design by exploring what it means to be human.…
The Danish programme for user-driven innovation (English summary) aims to strengthen the diffusion of methods for user-driven innovation, and to contribute to increased growth in the participating companies, and to increased user satisfaction and/or increased efficiency in participating public institutions.…
Consumer Reports WebWatch released the results of an ethnographic study on how children interact with online environments. The study, “Like Taking Candy from a Baby: How Young Children Interact with Online Environments,” used ethnographic methods and focused on young children,…
Last year, The Economist published an article about ethnographic user research at Swisscom. One of the findings it highlighted was that immigrant workers are the most advanced users of communications technology: “It is migrants, rather than geeks, who have emerged…
Here is my selection on mobile banking related papers presented at CHI 2008. (Papers are linked to their pdf downloads, if available.) From meiwaku to tokushita!: lessons for digital money design from Japan [abstract] Authors: Scott Mainwaring (Intel Research), Wendy…
Here is my selection on papers related to social applications presented at CHI 2008. (Papers are linked to their pdf downloads, if available.) Ambient social tv: drawing people into a shared experience [abstract] Authors: Gunnar Harboe, Crysta J. Metcalf, Frank…
Here is my selection on sustainability related papers presented at CHI 2008. (Papers are linked to their pdf downloads, if available.) A bright green perspective on sustainable choices [abstract] Authors: Allison Woodruff (Intel Research), Jay Hasbrouck (Intel) and Sally Augustin…
Buongiorno commissioned a qualitative research in November 2007 to understand mobile internet behaviour of 18-34 year olds in the UK — what role it plays in their lives, key themes shaping their behaviour, and what’s in stall for the future…
A group of researchers from the University of Southern California and University of California at Berkeley presented their first findings from one of the largest ethnographic studies on kids in digital environments. Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic…
Design Flanders and Flanders In Shape organise a one-day conference and intensive training on user-centred design in the Flemish Parliament in Brussels on 22 May. Experientia’s Jan-Christoph Zoels and Mark Vanderbeeken (the author of this blog) are in charge of…
A two-day conference this week will bring together scholars, developers and participants in virtual worlds to discuss the emerging cultures being created from a range of online communities. Event organizers theorize that virtual worlds can be studied by researchers in…
Fast Company interviews Gartner researcher Tom Austin on why your head of IT should be a cultural anthropologist and why you should think twice before you block YouTube. “A new species of Information Technologist is emerging from the primordial ooze…
Daniel Lende wrote a good annotated summary of the New York Times magazine feature of Jan Chipchase, on the “Neuroanthropology” blog. He thinks the “world is going to see a transformation through the convergence of four factors: people-driven processes, change…
The Chipchase hype has hit the New York Times Magazine. Nokia’s user anthropologist Jan Chipchase is becoming very popular. Just a day after the Economist, now one of the world’s top newspapers has published a 6,000 word feature on him,…
The Economist asked Nokia’s “user anthropologist” Jan Chipchase to self-document his nomadic life in Tokyo and Seattle, taking pictures and leaving phone messages. The video is part of The Economist special report on mobility and “digital nomads”. Watch video
Architecture and design magazine Icon has published a 4 page article on video ethnography in its latest issue. “The video ethnographers’ findings are gold dust to their clients and video ethnography has become one of the fashionable research techniques that…
Stephen Wilcox describes in Medical Device Link how ethnographic research, when used correctly, can provide hard data for guiding a device company’s business decisions. The use of ethnographic research has since become much more common in medical device development. However,…
Gain, the AIGA journal of business and design, seems to be awake again (after a long slumbering period). The latest contribution, entitled Design Meets Research, is by Debbie Millman and Mike Bainbridge, both of Sterling Brands, one of the leading…
The Boston Globe ponders what happens now that women are wielding increasing influence in a high-tech world that has been largely built and engineered by men, and how that changes the technology itself. No one would make the argument that…
Several blogs report on the user experience session of the recent LIFT conference. Read what Nicolas Nova, Tom Hume, and Bruno Giussani had to say.