Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
“We’ve been looking at privacy and publicity as a black-or-white attribute for content, when really it’s defined by context and the implications of what we’ve chosen to share.” This is the essence of Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd‘s keynote speech at SXSW Interactive. And here is…
The Italian city of Torino just launched “The Colors of Torino“, helping tourists through Microsoft’s Color Tags at monuments and tourist attractions. If you want to know more about a certain attraction (currently only 10 key destinations are tagged), you just download a free mobile…
The Guardian, one of the leading UK newspapers, has publish an eight-page supplement on service design (pdf) – subtitled “Design innovation in the public and private sector – in association with the Service Design Network (that Experientia is a member of). “Service design is a…
Experientia has uploaded all its publicly available videos on specially created Vimeo and YouTube channels. In addition to high-def project videos, you can also find videos of a few lectures and presentations. vimeo.com/channels/experientia youtube.com/experientiasrl
A new report published jointly today by the British, Danish and Dutch governments challenges the way European institutions make decisions and argues that smart EU regulation must mean that businesses and citizens are put at the heart of all European policy-making. “The report, “Smart Regulation:…
The Socio-Digital Systems (SDS) group of Microsoft Research aims to use an understanding of human values to help to change the technological landscape in the 21st century. “Beyond making us all more productive and efficient, we ask how we can build technology to help us…
Twenty years after the emergence of the world wide web, Rory Cellan-Jones of the BBC World Service’s Discovery series looks at the science driving its third decade. Web 3.0 promises a world where people and objects are seamlessly connected through an all pervasive network, no…
Among cell-phone users in developed countries, IBM is betting the market with the biggest growth potential is…people over the age of 65. Fast Company reports. IBM’s two-year research program, which also involves the National Institute of Design of India and Tokyo University, will explicitly focus…
New insights from science and behaviour change could lead to significantly improved outcomes, and at a lower cost, than the way many conventional policy tools are used, argues the UK Government. MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy was a joint commission by the UK Cabinet…
Izwan Ismail, a journalist at Malaysia’s New Strait Times newspaper, talked to Nokia’s top three designers — Nikki Barton, Younghee Jung and Robert Williams — to find out what it takes to come up with a winning mobile phone. Nikki Barton, head of digital design…
Introducing new digital services in cities promises the change the way citzens live in cities around the world. “Only a few years ago, digital services were about bandwidth, wireless protocols, and emerging standards for mobile television. To the keen observer, however, there has recently been…
Indrani Medhi, an Associate Researcher at Microsoft Research India where she works in the Technology for Emerging Markets team, designed a text free user interface for illiterate populations. “A student of design, Medhi has developed text-free user interfaces (UIs) to allow any illiterate or semi-literate…
Behavioral economics is used to examine how consumers make decisions about everything from their life savings to which brands of jam they select in a supermarket. Hunt Allcott, a behavioral economist with a two-year appointment as the Energy and Society Fellow in MIT’s Department of…
Steve Portigal, Julie Norvaisas and Dan Soltzberg of Portigal Consulting were invited by Core77 to discuss what makes their clocks tick: the analogue human and the digital machine. Steve Portigal: “I feel like there’s this tension that goes on in business and especially in marketing,…
The Economist questions whether it is really helpful to talk about a new generation of “digital natives†who have grown up with the internet. “Writing in the British Journal of Education Technology in 2008, a group of academics led by Sue Bennett of the University…
One of the key figures in redefining the Windows experience on smartphones is Albert Shum, who’s been with Microsoft for barely two-and-a-half two years. His previous employer for 12 years: sneaker manufacturer Nike, where he worked in design. Shum was offered the job of director…
Over the last five years experience design consultancy Experientia has grown from new beginnings to a vibrant company with a large portfolio. To showcase our latest projects, ideas and methodologies, we have redesigned our website – www.experientia.com – giving it a fresh look, and creating…
Brook Lyndhurst, an independent research and strategy consultancy, based in London, UK, works on projects that are concerned with understanding, promoting and delivering sustainable development. A couple of their research reports are highly recommended reading: The diffusion of environmental behaviours: The role of influential individuals…
UK Government innovation policy should be refocused to reflect the crucial role played by customers in stimulating and funding the development of new hi-tech companies, claims a major new report on the Cambridge hi-tech cluster. For many years, the “Cambridge Phenomenon” has been associated in…
(From a Darden press release) On March 19 the Darden School of Business [Charlottesville, VA, USA] and the Batten Institute [an academic research center of the business school] will launch Darden’s new innovation laboratory, or i.Lab, a state-of-the-art learning environment that inspires a new approach…
Anne Kaikkonen, a UI product manager at Nokia, recently presented her doctoral dissertation on the usability and user experience of the mobile internet. Internet on Mobiles: Evolution of Usability and User Experience (pdf) Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy presented at Helsinki University…
Many videos of the Interaction10 conference are now online. Here are the one of the speakers mentioned in the recent review by Experientia partner Jan-Christoph Zoels. Paola Antonelli – Talk to Me Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us,…
Mimi Ito, cultural anthropologist and associate researcher at the University of California Humanities Research Institute, co-led a MacArthur Foundation-funded three year ethnographic study, the Digital Youth Project (DYP), which looked at how young people interact with new media at home, in after-school programs, and in…
An Italian ruling against Google highlights the clash between Europe’s love of privacy and America’s of free speech, writes Adam Liptak in the New York Times. “Last week’s ruling from an Italian court that Google executives had violated Italian privacy law by allowing users to…
Content strategy is more or less on the same trajectory as social media was three years ago, argues Kristina Halvorson (of Brain Traffic). “I think it’s because the reality of social media initiatives—that they’re internal commitments, not advertising campaigns—has derailed more than a few organizations…
Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft Research, wrote a long piece for UX Magazine on “what it means to be ‘in flow’ in an information landscape defined by networked media”, based on a talk she gave at O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Expo last November.…
Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity is a study on the mobile phone gender gap in low and middle-income countries. Mobile phone ownership in low and middle-income countries has skyrocketed in the past several years. But a woman is still 21% less likely to own…
Why not use the iPhone interface as the basis for a new round of Apple computers? What if Microsoft scrapped the front end of Windows 7 and the troubled Vista OS and moved to the new, elegant interface it is using for its Windows Phone…
If publications continue to rely on selling advertising to support their costs, how does that serve the audience’s needs? Fast Company provides three ideas for how newspapers can refocus on readers. “If it’s true that readers perceive traditional brands with less trust or care, and…
Focusing on improving and innovating services is a smart way to foster economic growth. Jeneanne Rae reports from the Netherlands. “Recognizing the need to steer the typical conversation about innovation away from technology and products toward services, Minister of Economic Affairs Maria Van Der Hoeven—a…
Jamais Cascio, who covers the intersection of emerging technologies and cultural transformation for Fast Company, is in the process of publishing an ‘occasional’ series of articles “about the tools and methods for thinking about the future in a structured, useful way”. Futures Thinking: The Basics…
Videos of the November 23, 2009 Diabetes Innovation Fair at the IIT Institute of Design are now on the web. Graduate students presented design innovation proposals from three courses: Platform Strategy, Persuasive Technology, and Wellness Experience. Each presentation was followed by open dialogue for taking…
This report on the values, attitudes, behaviors and demographic characteristics of the Millennial generation was prepared by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank†that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It represents the Pew Research Center’s…
Luca De Biase, the journalist I translated this morning, continues to add interesting commentary: Excerpts from this post (translated into English): “The Italian sentence on Google says fundamentally that the judges do not consider the [YouTube] platform to be an editor (Google was not sentenced…
This Italian reflection on the Italian Google sentence, written by journalist Luca De Biase (in charge of the Nòva24 insert of “Sole 24 Ore” business newspaper), is highly pertinent and therefore worth to be translated: Google Video: Italian law is complicating the world “So now…
A new report by NESTA, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, shows “how we can work better with communities to unlock ingenious solutions to complex social challenges. Abstract Policymakers increasingly recognise that many of the solutions to major social challenges –…
A new report on the future of the internet, based on interviews of nearly 900 internet stakeholders and critics, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University, created wide interest. “The web-based survey…
Barbara Pantuso, director of healthcare innovation at frog design, reports on health outcomes and financial implications of Evidence-Based Design (EBD). “It’s similar to how healthcare professionals make treatment decisions and how insurance companies determine coverage. They are heavily influenced by patient outcomes. If there is…
Cellphone-based money transfer is transforming the prospects of people who live without bank accounts or ATMs – and they don’t need a smartphone. The New Scientist reports. “It works like this: you pay cash to your local agent – often at the nearest corner shop,…
The Design Council and the Department of Health partner to combat the spread of infection in U.K. hospitals. David Sokol reports in Metropolis Magazine. “Patients go into hospitals to be cured of what ails them, but the ugly truth is that some get sick from…