Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
“The user experience of a product is everything that’s not human-computer interaction. It’s everything that affects how someone interacts with a tool–whether it’s software, hardware, a service, or whatever. To me, this meant that I had to deal with all of the squishy, abstract…
In a study entitled ‘HandyERGO’ conducted by the technical college in Gelsenkirchen in Germany, almost two thirds of the more than 1,200 subjects failed to send a simple SMS using a strange mobile phone. This vividly illustrates how mobile phone users are often unable to…
In reflecting on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Business Week’s Bruce Nussbaum concludes that one trend is clear: “Companies that want to succeed must be in the enabling business, not the product or even the service business. Today, you have to build…
Inclusive design is about ensuring that environments, products, services and interfaces work for people of all ages and abilities. Many people are interested in this, but there is no ready source of information, methods, tools and examples to help them achieve it. This website aims…
Here are some links for those interested in the role of creativity and design as tools for innovation, especially in the context of regional development. Creative London: realising the economic potential of London’s creative industries London’s mayor commission on the creative industries focuses on…
Innovation consulting firm BrainReactions LLC is now offering six-day “innovation tours” of America for Indian executives, with the first of these tours scheduled to take place in early April. Each Innovation Trip combines a mix of hands-on workshops, meet-and-greets with innovation thought leaders and cultural…
Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute: bright forward-facing eyes set low on a big round face, a pair of big round ears, floppy limbs and a…
In a recent CIO Magazine article about intranet trends to watch for in 2006, Shiv Singh of Avenue A | Razorfish highlights the user experience: “Employees are demanding simpler, more intuitive and more “Web†like intranet experiences. […] A few years ago, employees barely…
Nearly five years ago Judy Wert (based in New York) recruited me for a position at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (based in Italy), which eventually brought me to start an experience design company in Turin (with another recruitee of hers actually), as well…
According to the Register, Google is planning to provide an own-brand Windows-less PC and sell the low-cost system through a partnership with retail giant Wal-Mart. The machine and/or the sales deal could be announced as early as this coming Friday. Crucially, the rig is…
Nokia’s Charlie Schick shares with us his hopes and fears on the future of mobile. He is probably right on all of them. (via Rudy De Waele)
On January 12 the symposium ‘The Experience of Everyday Things’ will explore how the human sciences can inspire, feed and provoke designers. Four speakers operating in the field between the human sciences and design – Donald Norman, Josephine Green, Henk Janssen (Indes) and Paul Hekkert…
If you can track what consumers actually do, why bother with what they say? Instead of simply producing ads, advertising agencies now want to be seen as creative consultancies, helping clients develop marketing strategies or even new products. DDB, part of the Omnicom Group, last…
As part of a long and critical post on the design and usability problems of the iPod (entitled “What’s wrong with the iPod), Jeff Axup of Mobile Community Design also looks at the social systems surrounding iPod usage: “We all know Apple didn’t do an…
FORA, a research and analysis division under the Danish Ministry for Economic and Business Affairs, has just issued three industry reports on user-driven innovation, and a general report summarising the results and recommendations. This final report recommends that better research and education in knowledge and…
GIS is a technology, not a business process. As a result, taking GIS into the field by itself creates a number of potential challenges. Applications can be too slow, with learning curves that are too steep for rapid acceptance among end-users. To ensure a successful…
A long essay by Henry Jenkins explores the cultural geography of video game spaces, one which uses traditional children’s play and children’s literature as points of comparison to the digital worlds contemporary children inhabit. Specifically, it examines the “fit†between video games and traditional boy…
Even though the days when computer-human interaction revolved around the C: prompt are far behind us, one legacy from that era remains. Despite sundry advances in operating systems over the intervening two decades, it’s still not entirely clear who’s the boss: the human operator or…
According to a just released report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, women are catching up to men in most measures of online life. Men like the internet for the experiences it offers, while women like it for the human connections it promotes.…
Vodafone has just published the 14th issue of Receiver, its online magazine on the future of communications technologies. The current edition is devoted to applicability issues in mobile services: how can we work, learn, cooperate and know better using mobiles? Some articles: Jonathan Donner (Microsoft…
The British educational thinktank NESTA Futurelab argues that the logic of education systems should be reversed so that the system conforms to the learner, rather than the learner to the system. This is, according to them, the essence of personalisation, which demands a system capable…
With too few young workers supporting an ageing population, somebody—or something—needs to fill the gap, especially since many of Japan’s young people will be needed in science, business and other creative or knowledge-intensive jobs. Many workers from low-wage countries are eager to work in Japan.…
To be competitive, companies need more than managerial decision-making capabilities; they need their people to be more creative and innovative. Therefore, leading management thinkers, corporations like Procter & Gamble, Nissan and Ford, and B-schools like Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), London Business School…
Books are being scanned to make them searchable on the Internet. Television broadcasts are being recorded and archived for online posterity. Radio shows, too, are getting their digital conversion — to podcasts. All these new resources have vast potential to shape how we live, study…
Drawing in consumers means studying their lifestyles and creating destinations where they delight in spending leisure time. To capitalize on the increasing prosperity of its customers, retailers must compete against the hugely expanded range of leisure pursuits on offer in the “experience economy.” To catch…
Victoria Shannon of the International Herald Tribune believes that in the world of Web 2.0 an internet-based rival for Word will soon emerge. Some excerpts from her article: “One [program] that I have been trying is called Writely. You sign in free and within a…
Manufacturers and service providers are starting to design, test and launch a stream of new products specifically for young children. To support the development of these new products and services, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has published a guide. The leader of the…
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (25-29 January) is devoted to creativity. One of the eight sub-themes is on “innovation, creativity and design strategy”, exploring how “business, government and social innovators are taking on new creative capabilities and innovation strategies…
The Net’s basic flaws cost firms billions, impede innovation, and threaten national security. We simply can’t keep patching the Internet’s security holes. While researchers are working to make the Internet smarter, experts like Google’s Vinton Cerf warn that this could make it even slower. It’s…
Karl Long of Customer Experience Strategy pointed to a very recent interview with the user experience lead at Mozilla, Mike Beltzner. It does rather focus on browser development than it does on user experience, and it needs some more editing, but it has some nice…
Last week John Thackara, director of Doors of Perception and author of In the bubble: designing in a complex world, lectured at the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) on Solidarity economics and design: life after consumerism. The word ‘development’…
They may not have the money of the hedge fund managers who line up at bonus time at the open houses for $5 million homes, and their numbers do not equal those of health care workers. But New York City’s creative sector – which includes…
Mike Kuniavsky, author of the book Observing the User Experience, was recently in Japan which inspired him to write a thoughtful reflection on the current value of user reseach, based on his observations there. “The Japanese classic Modernist “supply-driven” model means that a company produces…
Business Week comments on the recent Cox Review of Creativity in Business (see also my previous post) and publishes excerpts of an interview with the author Sir George Cox. According to the magazine, the report’s findings are worrying. “Far from reassuring Britain that its creative…
Backpackers in Australia often wish to organise group activities, but have few collaboration methods available and only a trickle of communication is possible between them as they move. They regularly explore unfamiliar locations quickly, but have only basic resources to inform them about those places.…
A challenge to the traditional view that new technology will widen inequality in the future comes from the UK Government’s Social Exclusion Unit. The new report shows how technology is already improving life chances and public service delivery, and is being embraced by those deemed…
What is the experience design terminology in other languages? Here are some equivalent expressions dealing with interface design, user experience, experience design, user-centred design and usability in six European languages: – Dutch: gebruikservaring, gebruiksvriendelijkheid, gebruiksgemak – Finnish: käyttöliittymäsuunnittelu, käyttäjäkokemus / käyttökokemus, kokemussuunnittelu, käytettävyys (thanks to…
In this French language article (sent to me by Régine Debatty), two specialists in hotel hospitality discuss the impact of new technologies on their sector, and the delay the hospitality sector is facing in providing services (such as WiFi) that many of their customers have…
Anyone who has ever visited a newsagents or coffee shop knows how annoying it is to rummage through a pocket or purse in an attempt to find the right change. But this experience could soon be a thing of the past if ambitious plans to…
In recent years, there has been a big increase in new electronic media products for very young children, including those as young as one month old. A driving force behind this new market is the advertising and package labeling that makes claims about the educational…