Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Context-based Research Group was established in 1999, the goal was simple – to help marketers and product designers do better work through the power of ethnography. Margaret’s Walking Stick is Context’s perpetual anthropology / ethnography education project. Each month contains a cultural insight from around…
Sun leads way in telework — working not just from home but anywhere. Sun is on the leading edge when it comes to “telework” — a coinage that nowadays replaces the term “telecommuting” because it encompasses not just working from home but working from anywhere:…
At a time when audiences for all performing arts are declining, Cirque du Soleil has taken a particularly moribund segment of the market — the circus — and created an entertainment juggernaut, with a burgeoning record label, a retail operation, and a deal with Carnival…
As China races toward a more market-driven economy, it is building new theatres, concert halls and museums nearly as fast as it is erecting Western-style shopping malls, hotels and business complexes. But the government is also decentralising control of the arts industry, cutting the full…
Information overload infects the enterprise as much as the individual, but companies are more likely to pay for a cure. Read full story
As most of us know by now, customer personas and scenarios are vehicles for helping an organisation continuously keep their customers in their line of sight. This report discusses how the Arc Worldwide’s Experience Planning group (a division of the Publicis group) uses storytelling and…
The BBC News website reporters attending the TEDGlobal (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Oxford sum up their impressions as the gathering ends. Read full story
Science and technology have powered huge leaps in understanding and a fantastic future of novel life forms and advances in biotech beckons. But it isn’t without dangers. Our biggest challenges lie ahead. The science of complexity is perhaps the greatest challenge of all, Astronomer Royal…
Rambling in the countryside has never been so popular, but a conference this weekend, hosted by the Living Streets charity, will examine how taking a daily stroll down the High Street can breathe new life into towns. Read full story
Digital technology is providing people with the tools to produce and share content like never before, and it is set to throw the relationship between them and institutions into turmoil, say experts. “I am predicting 50 years of chaos,” said leading digital thinker Clay Shirky…
A society of virtual “agents†— each with a remarkably realistic personality and the ability to learn and communicate in their own language — is being crafted by scientists from five European research institutes who hope to gain insights into the way human societies evolve.…
As with all previous leaps in technology, cell phones are used to empower organising efforts (just like early campaigns using printed materials, TV, radio, fax, email, web, etc.). The time has come to recognise the power of the cell phone as an organising and campaign…
Journalist Carl Honoré told attendees of the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford they should unplug and slow down in a world that was stuck in fast- forward. And author Barry Schwartz told the conference that it was better when we had only a few choices of…
Internationally renowned designer, sustainability architect and author of Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough, argued at the TEDGlobal (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Oxford, UK, that we can only think of our future cities if we think about what our intention is as a species.…
Website lets Americans see what the world’s non-English publications say about US policy. The headline reads, “Columbus’ Discovery of America: History’s ‘Biggest Mistake.’ ” That might sound harsh to an American audience, but it’s less likely to ruffle Iraqis reading it in Arabic. Another zinger,…
There is a perverse hypocrisy about the whole jobs debate, especially in Europe. The colonial powers invaded countries like India and China, pillaged them of their treasures and commodities and made sure their industries weren’t allowed to develop, so they would stay impoverished and…
The best way to help developing nations is to recognise that development is “of the people, by the people and for the people”, says a Bangladeshi entrepreneur. Iqbal Quadir, Grameen Phone founder in Bangladesh, told experts gathered for TEDGlobal in Oxford that aid strategies for…
China’s biggest IT brand wants to go global. So it bought the PC division – and the world-class management – of an American icon. Who says being “oceans apart” is a bad thing? Read full story
You’ve seen “The Bachelor” and “The Apprentice” … now, “The Consumer.” Or maybe “The Urban Ethnographer.” Chances are these private episodes won’t be screened for you; Carl Marziali reports. Listen to this feature
[…] The latest [technological] tools are both digital, rooted in the world of electrons and bits, and fundamentally social, built to enable new kinds of interactions among people. Blogging, text messaging, photo sharing, and Web surfing from a smart phone are just the earliest examples.…
A few years ago, a wireless “digital pen” developed by the Swedish start-up Anoto Group was poised for a splash. Leveraging scanning technology and assisted by “smart” paper, the trumped-up ball-point pen technology was designed to capture handwriting and convert it for use on digital…
Veteran Israeli companies along with startups are developing new products in the fight against terror worldwide. Read full story
We are entering a new age in economic history, and it will elevate those who are nimble and creative. When we moved from industrial economy to the information economy, jobs became more interesting; coal miners were unemployed, tech support centres hired like mad, and secretaries…
Luminaries from the worlds of technology, entertainment and design are gathering in Oxford to share their thinking about our future. The big thinkers include leading authors, musicians, playwrights, and pioneers in technology and science. Sir Bob Geldof, top political author Charles Leadbeater and biologist Richard…
“The mobile communication society: A cross-cultural analysis of available evidence on the social uses of wireless communication technology” is the title of a research report that offers an analytical overview of existing research on the social uses of wireless communication technology. It seeks to…
CNN asked leading thinkers for their thoughts and ideas about the challenges facing the world. Norman Forster: Building a sustainable future Two trends will affect global practice over the next two decades: the need to pursue sustainable patterns of development; and the opportunities presented by…
Don Norman has changed the way a generation of designers in understanding people and technologies. His philosophy of usability and emotion has been widely used in designing products for people’s everyday life in the west and is now also starting to have an impact upon…
Many people still do not appreciate how fast science and technology (S&T) will change over the next 25 years, and given this rapid development along several different fronts, the possibility of technology growing beyond human control must now be taken seriously, according to a new…
WOMMA is the official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry. WOMMA’s mission is to promote and improve word of mouth marketing by protecting consumers and the industry with strong ethical guidelines, promoting WOM as an effective marketing tool, and setting standards to…
Today, successful companies are adopting a more holistic and customer-centric relationship model built upon dialogue and interaction between brands and consumers. In doing so, they are considering and designing the ‘total’ experience of their brands. For customers, all these moments of corporate experience combine to…
One night in Barcelona last year, a young Dutchman named Antoine Hazelaar received a strange proposition from the owner of a local nightspot, the Baja Beach Club. The club had just started a new programme called “VipChipâ€, he was told, and for E125, a qualified…
Boao has been, for the past four years, the site of the Forum for Asia, China’s attempt to create a Davos-style World Economic Forum for Asia. Its air-conditioned, artificial reality is designed to show that China has made it: that it can reproduce the nowhere-everywhere…
A new research centre has been established at Oxford University in the UK with the aim of tackling the greatest problems facing the world today. The James Martin 21st Century School aims to achieve this goal in an ‘innovative and imaginative way’, by giving Oxford…
Jyri Engeström posted a long and interesting blog entry about cities, technology and creativity. “[…] During the course of the last decade, computers have become the most important platform for remixing culture. It is likely that computer-based creativity will flourish in places where the ability…
Retailing, the High-Tech Way From in-store cameras to data-mining loyalty-card use and beyond, retailers are depending more and more on technology to boost sales E-Tailing: It’s All About Service Turning surfers into shoppers requires new levels of help online. The trick is providing it without…
Cheap computing, infinite bandwidth, and open standards are powering an epic technological transformation that will churn up huge new opportunities — and perils for those who can’t adapt. Read full story
Steven Blyth, a master’s student at the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy, has devised a system that allows people to see a visual representation of the health of their social relationships. Read full story
Philips makes experience design the heart of all its design efforts: “Experience Design is about creating and specifying the quality of a person’s experience throughout the entire period of engagement with a value proposition such as a product. Experience Design can be seen as the…
New value by One Design is Philips Design’s quarterly magazine. It aims to illustrate how design can create value for all types of business, focusing on the creation of innovative design that leads to meaningful experiences. Some recent articles: – Research for relevance (April 2005)…
E-mail, video, and all sorts of stuff now rendered in bits and bytes never really disappear and can be easily copied. Privacy? Hah! Read full story