Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
The New York Times reports on how a number of big and small companies — including eBay’s PayPal unit, Intuit, VeriFone and Square — are creating innovative ways for individuals to avoid cash and checks and settle all debts, public and private, using their cellphones.…
Tim Macer of Research reviews Revelation, an online qualitative research environment for depth interviewing, discussions and ethnographic studies. “Online qualitative research does not need to be a pale imitation of conventional face-to-face groups and depths, and it is better not to try. Revelation is a…
Harnessing the rich detail, creativity, and individual relevance of personal narratives, Shareable.net and Latitude Research co-sponsored an innovation study to explore food information needs, information accessibility in decision-making contexts (e.g. while food shopping), and technology solutions for the future of food and offline purchasing in…
The bilingual (Fr/En) research journal CADI of the highly respected design school L’École de design Nantes/Atlantique in the French city of Nantes is a worthwhile treat, as each issue contains four in-depth interviews with professional authorities who worked with their graduating students. A dedicated blog…
To address global warming there must be a shift in thinking and behavior that motivates people and organizations to engage in emissions reductions and climate preparedness activities and support new policies. Mounting evidence shows that this shift is not only possible, but an important part…
The disciplines of interaction design and architecture share a number of common traits—such as a focus on solving problems for people and encouraging people to interact with products and environments in new and exciting ways—and each discipline can learn much from the other. These eight…
The latest issue of Interactions Magazine is about the spread of design into new areas, write editor Jon Kolko: “The process of design is spreading into new areas of society and business, and as it does, our work gets more complicated and more rewarding. From…
In his presentation at this weekend’s Internional Symposium on Online Journalism, Nuno Vargas of the University of Barcelona (Spain) talked about how news and information is graphically presented online. His paper discusses whether the design of online newspapers shows they are embracing the web fully…
Tom H. C. Anderson, founder and managing partner of Anderson Analytics, discuss the book “Predictably Irrational” and the field of market research with behavioural economist Dan Ariely. Dan is also professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University Fuqua School of Business and visiting professor MIT…
Over the past few decades, researchers have codified many of the patterns that describe why people behave irrationally. As researchers, how can we be on the lookout for these patterns of behavior when we go into the field? As designers, how can we use our…
What might we gain, asks Adam Greenfield, if we begin to conceive of cities, for some limited purposes anyway, as software under active development? What if we imagined that the citizen-responsiveness system we’ve designed lives in a dense mesh of active, communicating public objects? Then…
Innovation is overrated, writes Drake Bennett in the Boston Globe. It’s time to appreciate the power of the copycat. “Invaluable though innovation may be, our relentless focus on it may be obscuring the value of its much-maligned relative, imitation. Imitation has always had a faintly…
Alexander Schellong, a senior consultant with CSC’s public sector management practice, and Philipp Mueller, director of the Center for Public Management and Governance at the Salzburg University Business School, write in the Harvard International Review on the fundamentals of network society. “In the sixteenth-century, Machiavelli,…
According to the Repubblica newspaper, the head of the Catholic Church has been arguing today for the centrality of the person on the web. We agree, but are surprised that this man who is in charge of an institution with some serious difficulties, now calls…
Alexa Spence and Nick Pidgeon of Cardiff University write in Environment Magazine that meeting existing and future climate change targets will require rapid social transformations that economics and technology alone cannot induce. We must, they say, also face up to the thorny question of human…
Stepan Doubrava and Jakub Franc of ExperienceU (Czech Republic), argues on the Global User Research blog for the proper use of user-centred design principles in eGovernment projects. “eGovernment, or the transfer of government activities to the Internet […] brings with it a number of clear…
Anand Giridharadas is one of my favourite writers at the New York Times and this time his reflection on the merits of open societies is particularly thought provoking. “A stunning idea has entered respectable American discourse of late: that China is not just an economic…
The Mobile Behavior blog interviewed Robert Suarez, a senior portfolio lead in the Consumer Experience design (CXd) group at IDEO. With a background in User experience design and human factors research, he has experience working on generative, evaluative, and experiential research programs to better understand…
The BBC UX&D team has published a global experience language for the BBC’s digital service: The GVL 3.0 guidelines are a reference point for all designers creating BBC websites (future iterations will also incorporate mobile and IPTV recommendations). The design philosophy underpins everything we do…
iFixit launched today today a “global repair community†with the aim being user-level repairs of any device. CrunchGear comments: “Such a project is well-timed; the relationship between user and manufacturer is becoming more one-sided. It doesn’t trouble you that the devices we use every day…
The social networking phenomenon has ushered in a shift in mindset that, in turn, has driven people to become actively engaged in generating their own content and sharing it with an international audience on the Web, in contrast to the earlier trend of passively viewing…
The April issue of Boxes and Arrows is recommended reading: Designing for social interaction – strong, weak and temporary ties by Paul Adams, senior UX researcher, Google Our social web tools must start to understand the strength of ties, that we have stronger relationships with…
The latest issue of Design and Culture contains an article by Louise Crewe, Nicky Gregson and Alan Metcalfe on “homemakingâ€. Entitled The Screen and the Drum: on Form, Function, Fit and Failure in Contemporary Home Consumption, it describes the complex relationships people have with their…
Interesting, this point of view from the Samsung Economic Research Institute: “As demand for CRT display devices winds down and the penetration rates of TVs and PCs in advanced markets rises, the rise in demand for display devices is forecast to slow. Also, slowing production…
Researchers at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Spain have studied how older people interact and use email in their daily life. The study, conducted by Sergio Sayago, was carried out in social centres in Barcelona and will be used to design new email systems…
The Economist explores the topic of consumer research in emerging markets: “Emerging markets are far more varied and volatile than mature ones. There is little money around: the average income per person in China is around $3,500 and in India $1,000. Cultural complexities are confounding…
Peter Morville (pictured) and Jeffery Callender, who recently released the book “Search Patterns: Design for Discovery“, are at it again, now reflecting on how the Internet of Things is impacting the future of information architecture: “The vision of an Internet of Things is nothing new,…
The book “Innovating with people – The business of Inclusive Design†provides an introduction as to how Inclusive Design can be used as a strategy for better business and as an opportunity for profitable innovation – and aims to inspire and motivate readers to use…
Tales of Things is a new tool that allows people to attach memories to their objects in the form of video, text or audio, thus “exploring the implications of The Internet of Things (network of objects that are traceable at anytime) on objects that already…
Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals in a February 2010 lecture at TED how our “experiencing selves” and our “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy —…
Putting People First has become a content partner of Appliance Design, the site of the US-based magazine of the same name that caters to designers and engineers in the global, commercial and medical appliance/durable goods industry. The partnership is not financial. Putting People First simply…
Mobile app developers are sprouting in Africa to help tackle that continent’s problems. Many create applications that can be used with phone text messages. The African technologists say local knowledge is key to their successes. CNN reports: “While developers in the United States rush to…
The latest issue of Interactions Magazine is about a new intellectualism of design, write co-editors Richard Anderson and Jon Kolko: one that embraces discourse, dialogue, systems thinking, and the larger role of designers in shaping culture. Here are the articles available for free online: interactions:…
Bill Albert, director of the Design and Usability Center at Bentley University, highlights five common myths related to online (unmoderated) usability testing, and explaining why he thinks these myths are not true. “The motivation for this article is to help UX researchers keep an open…
In a three-part article series, Dina Mehta, founder and managing director of Mosoci India, argues that durability is losing its power as a consumer driver in some product categories in India. Somehow this is sad news. “For the most part, my feeling is that while…
Forbes Magazine, in collaboration with Frog Design, has been looking at what the future in 2020 might look like in a range of areas: computer, choice, classroom, commute, home, job, diet, health and reputation. Some articles are clearly more inspired (and less technology and US-centered)…
How do people in developing communities give and take directions? The people from Raaya Design report. “During some research in these communities in India and Peru we gathered some interesting insights around how people give and take directions. Most people rely on word-of-mouth direction and…
UK researcher Dan Lockton announces that his new Design with Intent toolkit is ready: Officially titled Design with Intent: 101 Patterns for Influencing Behaviour Through Design, it’s in the form of 101 simple cards, each illustrating a particular ‘gambit‘ for influencing people’s interactions with products,…
What if, globally speaking, the iPad is not the next big thing? What if the next big thing is small, cheap and not American? A good reflection by Anand Giridharadas in the New York Times. “Forgotten in the American tumult is a global flowering of…
Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund and development partners, SRV and VVO today announce a 60m investment for a low carbon housing and commercial building complex in Helsinki. Work on the development will begin immediately, with completion scheduled for the end of 2012. Through the project,…