Our cells, ourselves
The Washington Post reflects on what it means that there is now one cellphone for every two humans on Earth. “From essentially zero, we’ve passed a watershed of more than 3.3 billion active cellphones on a planet of some 6.6…
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category Technology
Bringing medical devices home
As medical devices transition from hospital to home, device manufacturers must create a positive experience for users, argues Matthew Jordan, director of research and interaction design at Insight Product Development, in a long article in Medical Device Link. Certain macrotrends…
Tech’s feminine side
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…
Research identifies mobile internet user types
Broadband analyst group Point Topic says that it has identified six main types of users of mobile Internet. With uptake of mobile Internet services growing rapidly, Point Topic believes that six distinct clusters of users are emerging – road warriors,…
It’s the user experience, stupid
While a blue-ribbon panel of human behavior and technology experts at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain agreed that the best recent advance in the mobile telecommunications user space came not from a mobile telecom company but from Apple…
Time for businesses to get serious about location technology
Information Week published a long story about location-aware technologies. “Even more difficult than employees’ privacy concerns will be those of consumers, once companies start reaching people based on where they are. For years we’ve heard the notion of a coupon…
Human factors in mechanical engineering
February’s issue of Mechanical Engineering is focused on the role of human factors in design. The lead article, the new point of view, discusses the renewed importance of human factors in product design, with a veritable who’s who of IDSA…
User experience trends from the Mobile World Congress
“Amid the marketing blitz and pumping music of the show floor [of the Mobile World Congress] it is often difficult to pick out the trends which will have a real impact on the user experience,” writes Marek Pawlowski of MEX…
User experience session at the LIFT conference
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.
The street as platform
Dan Hill, former head of interactive technology and design at the BBC and currently director of web and broadcast at Monocle, has published a long article on the street of the future. Here is his introduction: “I was recently asked…
Mobile phone users shun new services
AppTrigger, the telecom application connectivity specialist, released new statistics revealing that more than half (57 per cent) of UK mobile phone owners use their phone for the same things that they did in 2003, despite 74 per cent believing that…
Where technology meets anthropology, conservation and development
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…
Africa’s portal to the internet
Nicole Ferraro investigates in a long article in Information Week if cell phones and other inexpensive wireless devices can close the digital divide in the world’s poorest countries. “For the developing world, the Internet experience is going to be a…
Interactions Magazine now fully available online
In a previous post I wrote how it would be a good idea for the publishers of Interactions Magazine to make the magazine content available online. It just happened. Here is the announcement by Scott Delman, ACM Group Publisher: ACM…
Jan Chipchase of Nokia on mobile phone sharing
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…
Australian research on user led innovation
Darren Sharp of the Smart Internet (Australia) contacted me about the new research ‘User-led Innovation: A New Framework for Co-creating Business and Social Value,’ that he co-authored with Mandy Salomon. Abstract The sources of innovation are shifting rapidly from the…
Blyk as a user-generated media company
Marek Pawlowski of MEX thinks that Blyk, the advertising-funded MVNO, is really a user-generated media company: “Blyk is typically described in press reports as ‘an advertising-funded MVNO’, but after spending some time looking at the company’s model and talking to…
Mobile phones mainly used for calls and texts, research shows
Usability News reports on a new survey which shows that despite heavy investment in mobile phone development and services, the majority of UK consumers continue to use their mobile phones for calls and texts only. The research, commissioned by mobile…
Prof. Ollivier Dyens about the “inhuman” revolution
With the publication of the book “La condition inhumaine: essai sur l’effroi technologique” [The inhuman condition: essay on the fear of technology] by Ollivier Dyens, the French newspaper Le Monde published an interview with the author. Here is a quick…
Thinking about tomorrow
The Wall Street Journal looks 10 years ahead and imagines how technology will change the way we shop, learn, entertain ourselves, get news, protect our privacy and connect with friends. The long article is structured in seven sections, each written…