Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
The art of spurring creativity [Wall Street Journal]
The multitasking generation [Time Magazine]
London Business School studies experience economy
Creative communities: a bottom-up perspective on welfare and local development
Arup’s trend cards
Nike, Google kick off social-networking site [Business Week]
African mobile phone subscribers hit 100 million mark [Mobile Africa]
The number of mobile telephone subscribers in Africa has risen from 8 million, five years ago, to 100 million, Kenya`s information and communication minister Mutahi Kagwe said Tuesday. He said one in every nine Africans subscribes today to a mobile phone, and noted that Kenya…
Peter Morville presentation on ambient findabilility at SXSW
The shape of robots to come [The New York Times]
“The next big thing is us” or Time Magazine’s take on what’s next
Business Innovation Insider reports on the cover story in this week’s TIME Magazine which looks at cutting-edge developments in nearly every sphere of human endeavor, including politics, technology, sports, medicine and fashion: There’s one unifying theme here: “We are on the verge of the greatest…
Gadgets and the consequences of their design
Design Studies journal has user focus
Man versus machine in newsreader war [Wired News]
Going off the beaten path for new design ideas [The New York Times]
The future of television [The Guardian]
Europe losing education race, study shows
Europe is falling behind Asia in terms of education and skills, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and released today by the Lisbon Council. It blames France and Germany which are criticised for mediocre education systems and their…
How the masses will innovate [Business Week]
Designing for Stanford’s d-school
Bruce Sterling on the internet of things
“Value creation through experience” executive course
Wireless networking baffles some customers [Reuters]
Jim Wicks on weaving design into Motorola’s fabric
Design for social justice
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 is part of the People…
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 want to shift more customers…
Wi-fi set to re-wire social rules [BBC]
Once the net becomes ubiquitous like power and water, it had the potential to be “transformative”. The divide that separates people from their online lives will utterly disappear. Instead of leaving behind all those net-based friends and activities when you walk out of your front…
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 instead of their TV sets.…
You can’t understand the future without demographics
Futurist Andrew Zolli, founder of Z + Partners, reflects in a Fast Company feature on the future demographics of society. The composition of a society–whether its citizens are old or young, prosperous or declining, rural or urban–shapes every aspect of civic life, from politics, economics,…
Digital media ’empowering users’ [BBC]
As more media become increasingly available in digital formats, and traditional models of media packaging and distribution start to unravel, “the customer is king” is fast becoming the industry’s new catchphrase. During a session at the Financial Times Digital Media Conference on what media consumption…
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 internet that experts are calling…
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, but companies frequently dismiss them…
Half of American children obese by 2010, 38% of European ones [AP]
Associated Press reports that according to a study published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, rates of childhood obesity are expected to skyrocket in the coming years, with half of the children in North and South America obese by 2010 (via FutureWire). Europe doesn’t…
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 each one? Life would be…
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 to more strongly focus the…
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 tries to address the question…
CeBIT Usability Award 2006
For the first time in 2006, Deutsche Messe AG will select a project from the iF digital media category to receive a CeBIT usability award. This special prize goes to the most usable and user-friendly project, with the emphasis on intuitive navigation that is ideally…
Microsoft’s Windows Vista mainstraims user experience discourse
The Windows Vista campaign is very much centred on the concept of “user experience”: the Vista promotional website contains an “Experiences” section with a subsection on “User Experience” (currently not yet online). Also the “Features” section contains an extensive subsection on “User Experience”. This is…
Creativity, design and business at Kellogg School of Management
Need proof that the business world is playing catch-up in regards to creativity, innovation and design? The prestigious Kellogg School of Management is hosting a four-day learning session on managing product design and development this month. Here’s the program content: – Introduction to Product Development…