Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Plugged into it all From Japanese girls texting their friends to the BlackBerry-armed executive, it’s now who you are connected to, not who you know. But does this mean greater freedom or loss of control? Failed to fly Why do some inventions just not take…
Anna Valtonen of the University of Art and Design Helsinki reflects on the different roles of the industrial designer over the last six decades, as applied to Finland. When the professional practice of industrial design first started to form, the designer was a creator whose…
In this long feature, Rick Robinson, global director of GFK NOP‘s Observational & Ethnographic Practice, discusses ethnography and branding, and argues in much detail how ethnography can help companies gain a true understanding of their customers — including their interactions, thoughts and behaviors, as well…
The new HomeLab allows Philips to test its new home technology prototypes in the most realistic possible way. The research facility, which is located on the Philips campus in the Netherlands, is essential in speeding up the time-to-market for technological innovation. Philips researchers carefully watch…
Rachel Jones of Instrata reflects on the recent “People-Inspired Innovation” conference organised by Chimera* at Adastral Park, Ipswich, UK. When she was last year part of the DTI mission to the west coast of the US (see earlier post), she focussed on the integration…
Men keep their texts short and snappy while women have seized on the mobile as a new way of expressing support and affection, according to sociologists at Sheffield Hallam University. But the researchers [also] found that women also used the ubiquitous mobile to avoid awkward…
As part of the process of opening up its new media production and development to independent producers, the BBC is collaborating with Creative London, ERDF Objective One, Yorkshire Forward, Screen Yorkshire, North-West Vision, and Unexpected Media on a pilot series of ‘Innovation Labs’ in February…
Business Week just published an interview by Liz Danzico (AIGA) with author Peter Morville on his new book Ambient Findability and on what it means to be able to find anything from anywhere at anytime, thanks to ubiquitous computing and the Net. “Intelligence is moving…
Being sent to your bedroom used to be a punishment: now it’s a teen dream. Through personal computers, mobile phones and gaming consoles, teenagers are spurning antisocial angst for a culture of “connected cocooning”. It’s a phrase coined by music channel MTV to describe…
Chris Luebkeman, director for global foresight and innovation at the innovative top engineering firm Arup, talks in a series of short videos about foresight and innovation. “Foresight is not crystal-ball gazing, it is not about predicting trends. Instead, foresight helps others frame their thinking about…
Ease of use determines take-up of mobile data services. This is the most prominent conclusion of the Action Engine Worldwide Mobile Usability Study, a first annual worldwide study on the usability of mobile data services and application delivery, as reported upon by Ann Light in…
In his blog Total Experience, designer Bob Jacobson just wrote about the “canons” for experience design. Canons are rules that define a profession’s ethics and by extension, the practice of the profession itself. In his post, he proposes two canons for experience designers, motivations more…
A few months ago I wrote about the Gel and euroGel conferences in 2006. Mark Hurst just posted a partial line-up of speakers. The euroGel 2006 conference which will take place on 1 September 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark, features: Han Bennink, drummer and multi-instrumentalist, the…
From wireless rat-catchers to search engines, from gambling specialists to e-mail developers, British companies are leading European innovation in the mobile phone industry, taking over the center of gravity in cellular entrepreneurship from the Nordic countries, many in the industry say and a new…
MIT has established seven so-called Fabrication Labs in places as distant as Norway and Ghana. Each lab has tool sets that, costing about $25,000, would be out of the reach of most fledgling inventors. Advocates of such “Fab Labs” think they have the potential to…
We just finished the Italian version of the website of Experientia, the new experience design company that I am a partner of. Any comments from our Italian readers are more than welcome.
John Robb has been applying the analytic paradigm of shared, open source networking tools to urban warfare in his blog Global Guerrillas and has come to some highly original and thought provoking insights. His latest comments on what is happening in the French urban banlieue…
Jim Murphy, parliamentary secretary at the UK Cabinet Office, recently gave a speech entitled “Towards Customer Centric Government: Strategies for Service Transformation“. Reporting on this, Ann Light in Usability News is particularly struck by the section on relevancy: ‘We live in a world where…
The first ever Italian Information Architecture Summit will take place on 24 February 2006 in Rome and registration is free. The main force behind this endeavour is the highly dynamic Emanuele Quintarelli, who has already confirmed me in an email that Peter Van Dijck,…
Luke Wroblewski writes in his blog Functioning Form about his experiences at the recent Designing for User Experience Conference (DUX 05) in San Francisco November 4-5th. He concludes that “user experience design, its methodologies, and terminology are now well established within many companies”. There was,…
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. On Monday 12 December the Information Architecture Institute organises a workshop entitled “User Interfaces for…
Fast Company and Richard Florida’s team just published a small report on up-and-coming hubs for creative workers–places that draw people who are talented, tech savvy and tolerant. Ten of them are in the United States, another five elsewhere in the world. Read also how…
Newly published research shows little interest among consumers for watching television on their mobile phones. Fewer than one in five of the 1,500 UK consumers questioned in a recent poll said that they wanted to watch TV on their mobile phone, and 70 per cent…
How do you launch a luxury airline that simply has to stand out from the pack? As the recent demise of Delta’s Song indicates, finding profitable ways to improve the air-travel experience isn’t easy, even at premium prices. How does Eos Airlines aim to do…
Usability is an approach to product development that incorporates direct user feedback throughout the development cycle in order to reduce costs and create products and tools that meet user needs. India may have achieved global recognition as an IT powerhouse, but still needs to…
Service in British shops is among the worst in Europe. But, says Clare Coulson in the Daily Telegraph, we shouldn’t have to put up with it. […] Paul Bennett, head of consumer experience at IDEO – a design consultancy – says that good customer service…
Under new policies and initiatives from its Ministry of Communications, Italy is turning to Wi-Fi and WiMAX to make broadband Internet access more universally available throughout the country. On October 4th, the Minister for Communications, Mario Landolfi, issued a new decree which extended the availability…
Bruce Nussbaum, who writes a column on innovation and design for Business Week, reflects today on the IDSA/HP Design About on BOP–the bottom of the pyramid. “Gary Elliot, the vice president of brand marketing for HP, talked about “Me-ism” in the US, the idea that…
The managing innovative thinking + design blog contains a huge list of design and innovation links, grouped under such headings as ethnographic research, emotional intelligence, design research, user empathy, etc. The value of the blog is entirely in the sheer volume of links it…
Samsung just posted the second edition of its lifestyle and innovation magazine DigitAll. While the first issue had a more open attitude than similar initiatives of competitors (e.g. Nokia, Motorola), by reflecting on the strategies of other companies, including Adidas and Netflix, and reposting from…
UXmatters, a new experience design web magazine, was launched yesterday (World Usability Day). I just finished reading all the articles of the first issue and it turns out to be a truly valuable industry resource that I plan to refer to regularly in this experience…
The six-story Calit2 laboratory, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, is designed for 900 faculty and student researchers. Two separate wings extend from the main building. On one side is an ultrasterile set of nanotechnology clean rooms designed for making devices like sensors for detecting pollutants,…
Today’s tech toys throw in goodies we scarcely used to imagine, from cellphones with tiny TV screens to computers that stream video wirelessly through your house. But lots of those features you probably don’t want, can’t use or don’t know exist. […] Now, an army…
As Hewlett-Packard’s director of design and brand experience, Sam Lucente’s job is to use insights from the design, technology, and marketing fields to enhance the consumer’s interaction with HP products. In an interview with Business Week, he talks about the challenges of “orchestrating this complex…
Consumers forever grumble about products and services making their life difficult, but there are some shining examples leading the way. As World Usability Day approaches, what are the best doing right? Read full story
Ms. Ito says older generations have a lot to learn from how the rising generation is taking up these new technologies — sometimes adults don’t recognize that young people are developing innovative uses for technologies. “I see my work as an anthropologist as identifying and…
Nike’s now (in)famous Nike ID Design Lab in New York doesn’t allow more than three customers in at a time, with visits limited to one hour max. Furthermore, customers need to make an appointment, by invitation only. The haute-design store has three booths, or pods,…
What you need to know before hiring a design firm Steve Portigal and Niti Bhan write about what you need to consider when bringing on strategic design services and hiring a design firm and focus on three key issues: The Problem (defining your needs), the…
Bill Lucas of Maya Design just pointed me to his recent post on Boxes and Arrows where he discusses the notion of experience design by drawing parallels to Friedrich Fröbel’s invention of the original Kindergarten. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a handful of…
Régine Debatty of we-make-money-not-art just posted about the A1 Lounge in Vienna, a new store concept EOOS created for mobile phone company Mobilkom Austria. “The most tangible thing in the mobile phone business is the signed contract – a sheet of paper. The services you…