Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
A long article on the Telco 2.0 blog entitled “Nokia’s dilemma: operator friend or foe?” has some interesting passages on presence and mobile devices in it. Here is an excerpt: “At Nokia’s own internal thought leadership conference in Helsinki nearly two years ago they had…
Bruno Giussani reports on the press conference announcing the LIFT08 conference programme (backgrounder): The conference LIFT08 will take place for the third time in Geneva, Switzerland, on 6-8 February 2008. The main structure of the programme has been presented tonight in a trendy bar downtown…
Business Week reports on how, with the success of the iPhone, mobile-phone players want to improve menus and other navigation tools on their handsets. “Of all the ways Apple’s iPhone is disrupting the mobile-phone industry, one of the most tangible is in how it’s shaking…
Phil Keys writes in Tech On how Japanese companies drew the attention of participants to their research at “Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC2007),” an event concerning ethnographic research at companies. There were programs related to researches conducted by Fujitsu Ltd., Hakuhodo Inc. and Ricoh…
The always very well-informed Internet Actu blog has posted an article by Bruno Marzloff, a sociologist and the driving force behind the Chronos Group, a research lab specialised in mobility and dislocation. Marzloff reflects on the future of our relation with the city, with our…
Virtualhosting.com has published a top 100 of user-centred blogs, that provide “the latest and greatest in the people-centric field of design”. The selected sites also cover themes such as accessibility, web standards, and interfacing. I am pleased to say that this blog is also included…
Amazon is in the process of rolling out a redesigned site with a completely new primary navigation. As it is being tested, only some users get to see the new navigation and UI right now. However, Amazon have a “remodel” page (UK version) where they…
The Pop!Tech conference is a four day summit that explores the deep forces shaping our collective future, the social impact of new scientific insights and emerging technologies, and the new approaches humanity is taking to address national and global challenges, with the aim to accelerate…
Just when you thought that science parks were based on a paradigm, a new mixed science, technology and business driven initiative – the Creative Conversion Factory in Eindhoven, Netherlands – will launch on 12 November. Note the current focus areas though! Turning bright ideas into…
Visitors to the Dutch Design Week will be able to see two projects from Philips Design’s ongoing ‘Design Probes‘ programme. These projects – SKIN; Tattoo and Off the Grid; Sustainable Habitat 2020 – take a provocative and stimulating look at subjects that could have a…
Business Week reports on a network of regional programmes, headed up by the UK Design Council that help harness the creative energy of small businesses as an engine for national growth. How can small and medium-sized businesses grow more competitive? Britain’s Design Council reckons it…
The American Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry magazine has published a long story on why device companies are increasingly incorporating human factors into their product development processes. “Only a few years ago, human factors was a discipline virtually ignored in the medical device world. Device…
The Economist has published a good, and critical, overview article on open innovation – the notion of looking for bright ideas outside of an organisation – that also features Professor Eric von Hippel, head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology…
The Copenhagen Prelude Conference inaugurated the alliance between INDEX: and AIGA/Aspen Design Summit on the role of design to improve life for people around the world. During four sessions in two days late August 2007, leading international design and innovation thinkers and doers from around…
A local Illinois newspaper has an exclusive report about a talk by Jim Wicks, Motorola’s corporate vice president and director of consumer experience design, at the University of Illinois. Wicks spoke at the UI in connection with Designmatters, a campuswide lecture series organized by the…
A few weeks ago Experientia partner Mark Vanderbeeken interviewed Jonathan Kestenbaum, the CEO of NESTA, the UK Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The interview, which is now published on the website of Torino 2008 World Design Capital in both English and Italian, deals…
“Is there a future for old-fashioned museums?” is the rather outlandish title of an otherwise good Washington Post article about the future of museums in the age of networked computers and virtual worlds. “As the Newseum puts the finishing touches on its new building in…
Susan Kish, vice president of the network and community practice at XING, has posted a long essay on how enterprises should look at Second Life and, more generally, at virtual worlds. “Is the topic still too early or too distracting from “real business”? Or is…
House of Fraser, the UK designer clothing retailer, has recently launched their first e-commerce site. Paul Rouke has posted a long user experience review “looking at how persuasion architecture has been adopted, key browsing functionality provided and the overall shopping experience you can expect at…
India is one of the world’s hottest mobile design locations today. The Hindu Business Line reports on what handset makers think of design in India, and how they track trends and make gadgets that reflect people’s personality and needs. The article features quotes from people…
The San Francisco Chronicle has a story about how virtual worlds are becoming more and more popular, and provides an extensive update on how the playing field is changing. The online universe is brimming with dozens of virtual worlds vying to build sustainable life. From…
How can a city perform as an open-source real-time system. Although the approach of this project seems to be driven quite a lot by a cultural engineering mindset, there are some interesting people-focused elements in it: In the past decades, real time control systems have…
Charles Leadbeater is an innovation thinker and a spokesman for collective creativity. In Charles Leadbeater’s latest project, We-think, he argues that mass creativity, mass participation and open standards will be the next big thing. The Danish Innovation Lab just had a conversation with him. Societies…
The upcoming “New trends in Nordic innovation” conference, organised by the Finnish presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Innovation Centre, will focus on regional and user-driven innovation. In the Nordic region, as in most other regions, innovation policy has generally focused…
Together, the Danish Design Centre and the production company TWO+ have made the film “Innovation via Design – The Danish way to compete in the world market”. The film will be used in the branding efforts for Danish design in China, among other purposes. The…
For the first time in recent memory, the number of internet connections in India has fallen, reports India’s Economic Times. The total internet connections in the country declined to 9.22 million in April-June from 9.27 million in the previous quarter, according to telecom regulator TRAI’s…
Today is the closing day of EPIC 2007, the third international Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, in Keystone, Colorado, USA. EPIC is the premier international forum bringing together artists, computer scientists, designers, social scientists, marketers, academics and advertisers to discuss recent developments and future advances…
Everyday Engineering: What Engineers See by Andrew Burroughs, IDEO Hardcover: 204 pages Publisher: Chronicle Books (September 6, 2007) Book page | Amazon page Abstract From soaring industrial structures to the humble manhole cover and streetlight, everything in the built environment is engineered. By observing the…
An anthropological take on wireless broadband technology Genevieve Bell, a highly respected anthropologist and director of user experience at Intel, gave a lecture this week at Rice University in Houston, Texas, entitled “From the Electrical Fairy to the Magic Box: An anthropological account of invisible…
This year’s World Usability Day (WUD), a global series of events organised by the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA), will take place on 8 November forthcoming. The WUD was founded to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler…
Business Week published a special report on design schools which contain a few stories that are quite relevant to what is being dealt with in this blog: The cross-discipline design imperative In a new, multi-skill approach, traditional design tactics are wedded to the needs of…
When designers and politicians put their heads together, are we seeing the dawn of a brave new world or just the re-birth of big brother? Kevin McCullagh investigates in an article, published in the October issue of Blueprint magazine. “The pace of change is often…
Lucas Pettinati has published a long article on the design challenges for mobile user interfaces on the Yahoo! User Interface Blog. The single most important concept to master when designing mobile device interfaces is “contextâ€. The context in which an application is used and the…
The latest issue of Frog Design Mind (permalink), the bi-monthly newsletter of Frog Design Inc., is devoted to identity and contain a rich group of articles on “the struggle to find new meaning in the growing landscape of design”. Here is a selection (and the…
Via Richard Florida’s blog, I found out about a new paper on “The Creative Class and Regional Growth in Europe” by Ron Boschma and Michael Fritsch from the Max-Planck Institute of Economics in Germany. Florida summarises it as follows: “They’ve assembled cool data on the…
Thoughtful Interaction Design A Design Perspective on Information Technology Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman MIT Press, 2007 ISBN: 0262622092 212 pages The authors of Thoughtful Interaction Design go beyond the usual technical concerns of usability and usefulness to consider interaction design from a design perspective.…
Mobi Ad Network has published an interview with Blyk’s Marko Ahtisaari where he talks about the design of the service, user testing, targeting and personalisation. Blyk – the first completely ad-supported MVNO – launched this week in the UK market. There has been a lot…