Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
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…
For those seeking the new experience design company Experientia on Google, here it is: www.experientia.com. Google might be the most important search engine in the world, but it takes a (fairly long) while before new domain names make it to the top of the…
A group of museums are exploring how tagging can enable use of museum collections — and foster links between people and institutions. Popular Internet applications that take advantage of social tagging – think flickr and del.icio.us – have captured our collective imagination over the past…
A News.com special report explores how a new generation, technologies return the net to its social roots. The report, which is aimed at a broad audience, is organised in five chapters and provides an insight in the importance of grassroots opinions in the entertainment business…
A consortium of blogging startups wants to give deeper meaning to the Internet by giving people tools to categorise web pages. A consortium of young companies declared their support this week for building categories into web sites that would make them more easily searched and…
From information design to experience design: smart artefacts and the disappearing computer The rate at which computers disappear will be matched by the rate at which information technology will increasingly permeate our environment and determine our lives. This notion of the “disappearing computer†and the…
Schulze & Webb are working with Chris Heathcote of Nokia’s Insight Foresight Group to develop experimental prototypes to explore personalisation in mobile phones. This project blog discusses their work. There are three overlapping strands in the project: craft, hacking and mass customisation. Craft is broadly…
This is not a story about experience design as such. It is a story about inspiration, innovation, creativity, humanity and life. And I hope that some of it wears off on you, makes you think and inspires you in your desire to become better professionals.…
Creativity is the generation of new ideas – either new ways of looking at existing problems, or of seeing new opportunities, perhaps by exploiting emerging technologies or changes in markets. Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. It is the process that carries…
The Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) is leading the United States’ charge to develop and deploy emerging technologies that can improve the aging experience in America. Established in 2003, CAST has become a national coalition of more than 400 technology companies, aging services organizations,…
Today I visited Italy’s National Museum of the Mountains (“Museo Nazionale della Montagna”), which is located just a few minutes from my home on a hill overlooking the city of Turin. In fact, the museum re-opened today after an extensive two-year renovation and the result…
My hometown Turin (or “Torino” in Italian) has been selected as the 2008 World Design Capital by ICSID, the international council of societies of industrial design. With this nomination, Turin has been given the go-ahead to organise a series of activities and events to present…
I have created a number of new experience design resources. They are all shared and public, so you can easily add your own contributions. Make sure to update your bookmarks and RSS feeds: Experience design calendar, featuring conferences and workshops worldwide, is now hosted…
Yahoo Inc., the world’s largest Internet media site, had agreed to acquire Del.icio.us, a popular Web site that helps users share links to their favorite Web sites, the site’s founder said on Friday. Joshua Schachter, the founder of Del.icio.us, confirmed a posting on the New…
Potential computer users in the developing world will not want a basic $100 hand-cranked laptop due to be rolled out to millions, chip-maker Intel Corp. chairman Craig Barrett said on Friday. “Mr. Negroponte has called it a $100 laptop — I think a more realistic…
Mobile Community Design is a frequently updated blog that provides research and design information on mobile communities. It is maintained by Jeff Axup, a Ph.D. student in Information Environments at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and contains some remarkable and detailed comparison charts.…
Bruce Nussbaum argues that Design in India is beginning to take off, as American companies discover the inexpensive but high-grade work consultancies such as Elephant Design and others, and alerts me to the great Design in India website, where you can find links to a…
The Apple website has, perhaps a bit surprisingly, a rather extensive feature on the design consultancy IDEO on its website. A first article entitled “Bigger than a breadbox design” describes how IDEO uses innovative design methodologies and applies them to housing, cities and even governments,…
Nokia today announced its intention to opening several Nokia Flagship Stores in “shopping capitals of the world.” The first Nokia Flagship store opened today in the prestigious Pushkin Square district of Moscow, Russia. In addition to generating sales, a key objective of each Nokia…
The [just published] Cox Review of Creativity in Business has been eagerly awaited by the design industry. Many creatives in the UK (as in other industrialised countries) fondly believe that while manufacturing and call centres may emigrate to cheaper countries, their brand of ‘creativity’ is…
New McKinsey research reveals how the shift from transactional to tacit interactions requires companies to think differently about how to improve performance—and about their technology investments. Moreover, the rise of tacit occupations opens up the possibility that companies can again create capabilities and advantages…
The 2006 Participatory Design Conference will take place in Trento, Italy, July 31 – August 5, 2006. The conference theme “Expanding Boundaries in Design” focuses attention on the multiple contexts in which design takes place and on an expanding range of possible design outcomes, and…
With the help of screen-readers–programs that speak the text on the monitor–and magnifying and contrast-enhancing features, the approximately 260,000 blind and 10 million vision-impaired people in the United States have a way to access the Internet, which has become critical in obtaining goods and services…
Rather than simply providing clear answers to questions, the best design solutions must take into account human emotions, argues MIT Media Lab’s John Maeda in this Business Week article. Read full story
Teenagers are using more technology at a younger age to connect with more people than ever before, according to a study of young consumers prepared by Forrester Research, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based market research company. The report, based on a survey of more than 5,000…
About two months ago, I complained in this blog about the fact that i2010, the EU’s website on digital inclusion and participation, was about the opposite of accessibility and inclusivity. I sent the same message to the cabinet of the EU Commissioner in charge of…
China Daily has an extensive English language report on the Beijing design and innovation meeting “Next Generation Design, Innovation and Creativity for China” (30 November 2005), co-hosted by China Daily and the Illinois Institute of Technology, and apparently a prelude to the Design for the…
A couple of months ago I posted about a very exciting experience design case study by Marc Rettig and MAYA Design on work done for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Maya Design has meanwhile posted a case study synthesis of this project that highlights how…
Industry insiders told a gathering of about 150 people at the Digital Living Room conference that consumers have yet to see a need for home networks and that the complexity involved in setting one up scares away potential buyers. According to Don Norman, a co-founder…
“I have been teaching mechanical engineers the process of design for more than 15 years. Traditional engineering design courses focus on technology and not context. The result is a downstream focus on making a design work rather than on identifying the best design in…
The second day of the Fortune Innovation Forum featured a panel discussion called “Design Matters” with Chris Bangle of BMW Group Design, Minda Gralnek of Target and Richard Koshalek of the Art Center College of Design. Is design the same thing as innovation? Is design…