Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
The Qualitative Report website contains a very hard to find but highly recommended page on smartphone ethnography apps (or, as they call it, “Mobile and Cloud Qualitative Research Apps”). Some highlights: myServiceFellow Mobile ethnography for (tourism-specific) service design via customer structured research based on perceived…
Most of the videos of this week’s EPIC Conference, hosted by the Savannah College of Art and Design [SCAD], are now online. EPIC, which stands for Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, promotes the use of ethnographic investigations and principles in the study of human behavior…
On Saturday 27 October, the Italian-speaking Swiss city of Lugano will host the 4th edition of the UXconference. The 2012 edition of the conference, which is organised by the Sketchin team, will focus on the relationship between digital services and people’s lives, with particular attention…
The latest issue of Interfaces, the quarterly magazine of the Interaction Specialist Group of the BCS, the British chartered institute for IT, is devoted to Slow HCI, or how to design to promote well-being for individuals, society and nature. Here are the key articles: Invisible…
Spacebrew is a new software – currently in beta release – for prototyping and producing interactive spaces. It was developed by the Interaction Lab at the Rockwell Group, led by the (very bearded) Co-Chiefs James Tichenor (who studied at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea) and Joshua…
Daniel Bor is a cognitive neuro-scientist at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, and author of The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. He disagrees with the thesis put forward in Malcolm Gladwell’s book…
The Club of Helsinki is a non-profit organization that offer possibilities to co-create urban development projects that prototype new integrated and sustainable business and management models. The organization is founded by designer Ilkka Suppanen and strategist Tanya Kim Grassley, in close collaboration with innovator Karina…
Transforming Bodies & Lifestyles: Insights into Inspiring Behavior Change Institute For The Future 2012 Inspiring people to change their behaviors in order to become healthier remains one of the most intractable challenges. But it also remains one of the most significant. Fifty-percent of all deaths…
Wearable technology is still in its infancy but as it increasingly taps into a desire to have the functionality of technology without the intrusiveness. A BBC article covers some of the recent products on the market: the GoPro camera, the Nike Fuel Band, Sony’s SmartWatch,…
Mind Design, the Design Research Webzine of the Danish Centre for Design Research, contains a wealth of information, all available in English. Here are some highlights: Article Companies: Design Research Works in Practice Design researchers are developing new, applicable knowledge together with organisations in the…
Innovating for People Handbook of Human-Centered Design Methods by LUMA Institute 2012, 86 pages Abstract Innovation is an economic imperative that calls for more people to be innovating, more often. This handbook equips people in various lines of work to become more innovative. It provides…
Our friends at human-centered design consultancy Namahn in Brussels have created a lovely “human drive” card set to be used as a source of inspiration for ideation and co-design sessions. The 48 cards, that have the exact size and feel of playing cards, are organised…
Martin C. Pedersen reports in a long article for Metropolis Magazine on the 2014 BMW i3, the company’s first fully electric vehicle aimed at city driving. The article focuses on how BMW’s new business strategy is all based on the core importance of the product…
Metropolis Magazine asked seven visionary design teams, both established and up-and-coming, what they predict a fully accessible city might look like (and better yet, how it would function). “We broke the city into its component parts and then, like casting directors, asked, “Who would we…
Rajeev Suri posted a short interview with Gustav Praekelt of Praekelt Consulting and the Praekelt Foundation, who focuses on creating behaviour change in people – particularly in emerging markets – using mobile technology. In the interview he explains the notions of Computational Social Science, Influence…
The growth of the User Experience Design field is breathtaking, but well deserved. Thanks to UX Designers all over the world, the quality of products has increased dramatically. Design really does matter now. It’s a user centric world in which there’s not only Apple on…
Designers, as makers of products and services, are key stewards of our planet because the products and services we design influence the ways in which people live, argues Kem Kramer in an article for Johnny Holland. “What we design, how we design, the materials with…
Discussions at recent news industry conferences have often referred to the importance of good user experience, particularly during discussions about how news outlets are reaching and interacting with their users on digital platforms. References to user experience could cover a range of aspects, including the…
Here’s the view of Ray McCune, managing partner at Flow, on some of the peaks we still have to climb if experience design is to become a mainstream business discipline. It’s quite excellent. 1. Targets and incentives within businesses must be aligned with long-term value…
Tips on Prototyping for Usability Testing By Jim Ross, Principal of Design Research at Electronic Ink, Philadelphia, PA, USA Because user research studies peoples’ behavior, the most effective research techniques involve observing participants doing things and talking about what they’re doing. Research that focuses on…
The Web and Beyond is a bi-annual conference organized by Chi Nederland, focused on the practice and business of user experience. On September 26, our 425 attendees saw a full-day, 3-track conference with keynotes and parallel sessions on user experience research, design, evaluation and management.…
In this BBC article, David Edelstein, a leader in the mobile for development space, argues that human networks are the essential ingredient for mobile phones to improve the lives of the poorest. “Focusing on the technology betrays a truth that must be understood if we…
Consultant Roger Dennis, who identifies himself as “serendipity architect”, has been writing a series of posts on meetings he had related to the sensing city. Together they give a good overview of some of the most recent initiatives and thinking on smart cities. Singapore meetings…
Article by Francesca Salvadori, Scuolalvento blog Translation from the Italian Technology is probably the last thing that comes to mind when you think about poetry and how it can be captured and transmitted. But this emotional and colourful voyage with Ulysses would not be the…
In August, Cooper directors Chris Noessel and Stefan Klocek discussed implicit interactions at Device Design Day 2012, organised by Kicker Studio in San Francisco. They also presented a new metaphor or mental model for thinking about emerging technology. Check out the video of their talk.
The interplay between efficiency and quality in a service experience is often what separates a merely transactional interaction from a valuable and pleasurable one, writes Patrick Quattlebaum of Adaptive Path. “The former gets the job done; the latter does so while creating a more human…
Paul Taylor of the Financial Times thinks wearable technology lives up to its promise at last. “For years, engineers have envisaged technology so personal that “body area networks†would have wide applications in clothing and other worn items such as earrings. So far, the reality…
A four step guide from the Milan Expo 2015: Step 1 Ask your main sponsors (in this case Cisco, Enel and Telecom Italia) to indicate the relevant “Smart City” technologies that they already have, are currently working on, or are generally trendy. In the Milan…
What is the emotional relationship people truly have with the mobile space and how they make meaning there? To answer this, Google conducted an anthropological study to gain a better understanding of how people feel about, relate to and find meaning in the mobile space,…
Experientia will be at EPIC Conference, on October 14-17 2012, hosted by the Savannah College of Art and Design [SCAD], Savannah, USA. This year, Experientia president Michele Visciòla will be chairing the first (of two) Pecha Kucha session Renewals of Place. EPIC, which stands for…
Why are we so nasty to each other online, asks Elizabeth Bernstein in the Wall Street Journal. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, message boards or websites, we say things to each other that we would never say face to face. Shouldn’t we know better by now?…
The European House-Ambrosetti, an Italian economic think tank/management consultancy and organisers of the very prestigious annual international economic conference in the Italian town of Cernobbio, has – in partnership with ABB Italy – published a report on Smart Cities in Italy. Entitled “Smart Cities in…
In the pantheon of Next Big Thing trends, the concept of “smart cities” is one of the trendiest, writes Ben Rooney in the Wall Street Journal. The idea is that by harvesting the incredible amount of data “exhaust” that every one of us generates as…
Leanne Byrom, a freelance UX practitioner and UX lead for Phosphor Digital, writes about the importance of mental models in UX design: Designing something right requires that you completely understand what a person wants to get done. You need to understand how a person uses…
Nir Eyal writes how marketers are increasingly personalizing their products and services to meet their customers’ changing needs, and how customization used in conjunction with powerful persuasion techniques provides new weaponry to boost customer engagement and drive profits. “Mass customization, of the kind used by…
Doing Design Ethnography By Andrew Crabtree, Mark Rouncefield, Peter Tolmie Springer Publishers – Human-Computer Interaction Series March 2012, 212 pages (Amazon link) Ethnographic approaches associated with social and cultural anthropology are common currency in systems design. They are employed in academic and industrial research labs,…
CNN reports on mobile phone culture and how use differs starkly across cultures. Whereas the article is rather superficial, the “open mic” videos from New York and Nairobi and the photo gallery are recommended.
The Past 100 Years of the Future: Sci-Fi and HCI in Movies and Television by Aaron Marcus 2012 – 197 pages On 24 August 2012, AM+A published its first ebook, The Past 100 Years of the Future: HCI in Science-Fiction Movies and Television. The book,…
The IxDA Board of Directors just announced that Alok Nandi will be Chair of Interaction14, to be held February, 2014 in Amsterdam in conjunction with Utrecht School of the Arts and Delft University of Technology. Alok, an independent media writer/director and designer exploring narrative spaces…
Mobile devices come with a whole host of new constraints (and opportunities) for our designs. In this – the first part of her series on mobile design – Elaine McVicar explores a handfull of the most popular architectures for mobile websites and applications.