Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
The LIFT conference started on Wednesday and unfortunately I could not attend due to work pressures (our partner Jan-Christoph Zoels is there though). But there is a solution: fifteen presentations can already be viewed online. Check out Genevieve Bell (Intel),…
Kiwanja.net is a very interesting initiative, led by anthropologist Ken Banks, helping local, national and international non-profit organisations in developing countries (mostly in Africa) make better use of information and communications technology in their work. The Kiwanja website also has…
Jan Chipchase, the well-known Nokia anthropologist, has just published a blog post, an executive summary, and a paper (ppt, 7 mb, 70 pages) that explores mobile phone sharing in emerging markets and how it works. “Much of the growth in the telecommunications…
Putting People First regularly features the work of UC Irvine professor Paul Dourish, whose interest lies in the crossover areas between computer science, anthropology, ubiquitous computing, mobility, design and HCI. Here are some of the recent publications by this very…
In a blog post, Danah Boyd (a Berkeley Ph.D student and a Harvard Fellow) relates the story of a mother who describes how her daughter’s approach to shopping was completely different than her own: “Using Google and a variety of…
On this University of Washington video broadcast Tapan Parikh describes his experiences developing CAM – a toolkit for mobile phone data collection – in the rural developing world. Designing technologies for an unfamiliar context requires understanding the needs and capabilities…
Neuroanthropology is a collaborative weblog created to encourage exchanges among anthropology, philosophy, social theory, and the brain sciences. Here is the blog statement: “Neuroanthropology is a collaborative weblog headquartered in the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University. We hope that…
All kinds of things apparently, as described by this revealing story on the BBC, commented on by Bruce Nussbaum of Business Week: “Clearly, children love the machine. Most of them had never seen a computer before and the great design…
Steven Bell writes about the implications of the user experience approach in library design. One characteristic of delivering good user experiences is that it typically results in return business. Whatever that experience is, it is something the user wants to…
Nicolas Nova has been going through the EPIC 2007 proceedings (the ethnographic praxis in industry conference), and ran across this interesting paper entitled “Ethnography as Design Provocation†by Jacob Buur and Larisa Sitorus. The paper starts off by explaining how…
The EPIC 2007 conference on ethnographic praxis in industry has a blog, and it’s not what you think. The format is that of a newspaper or magazine advice column where readers can ask questions to a specialist. Each week the…
Business Week profiles Anne Kirah, former design anthropologist at Microsoft, and now Dean of the new Danish school called 180°academy, where she is “shaking managers out of their traditional ways of doing things and forcing them, perhaps for the first…
Tom Davenport (Babson College) has written a Harvard Business column entitled “The Rise of Corporate Anthropology” where he lauds the contribution of anthropology because of its emphasis on observation: “What’s so good about systematic observation? It’s the key to knowing…
From Intel’s Essential Computing website: Intel Research’s over-arching vision for the future is evolving from one of proactive computing to one of Essential Computing. Over the years, we’ve been part of a steady evolution moving computing from the machine room…
Aparna Kalra reports in Mint, a new Indian business newspaper produced in collaboration with the Wall Street Journal, on how the trend of cool hunting – and then innovating – in India by companies also illustrates how the country is…
In “Responsibilities and Implications: Further Thoughts on Ethnography and Design“, presented a few weeks ago at DUX2007, UC Irvine professor Paul Dourish continues to elaborate on the use of ethnography in human-computer interaction and the “implications for design” issues he…
Doing Anthropology in Consumer ResearchPatricia L. Sunderland; Rita M. DennyLeft Coast Press, Inc.352 pp.Nov, 2007 Abstract Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research is an essential new guide to the theory and practice of conducting ethnographic research in corporate consumer environments. Patricia…
At the first keynote of Toronto’s Future Play 2007 conference for game educators and developers, Dr. Constance Steinkuehler, assistant professor in the Educational Communication & Technology program for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argued that MMOs and online worlds are good…
According to an article in Adweek magazine, P&G’s efforts to reinforce consumer perception of quality in its brands will be a key to the company’s success. “Historically at P&G we looked at product performance. We didn’t pay as much attention…
Bruno Giussani reports on a recent talk by Swisscom anthropologist Stefana Broadbent on how people really use technology. The talk was delivered at the 6th Communication Days conference in Bienne, Switzerland. “In traditional marketing research, she says, if you ask…