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Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
The tyranny of story
In this BBC Radio 4 series, British journalist John Harris examines the potency of narrative, both in the stories that define us as individuals and in those that shape our understanding of the public domain. Story is ubiquitous – and not simply in the realm…
Intel anthropologist Dawn Nafus interview on the use of data and technology in medical contexts
In an age where we can collect and store (forEVER) every second of every day, how much do we truly need to learn? To react? To do good deeds that benefit society? Assuming we champion that, what does it mean for privacy and security and…
Nielsen Norman Group on the user experience of chatbots
Far from being “intelligent”, today’s chatbots guide users through simple linear flows, and our user research shows that they have a hard time whenever users deviate from such flows, writes Raluca Budiu of the Nielsen Norman Group [NNGroup]. To understand the usability of chatbots, NNGroup…
[Report] Hiding in Plain Sight: Impact Investing in the Creative Economy
In October 2018, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors published Hiding in Plain Sight: Impact Investing in the Creative Economy, a new report from RPA sponsored project Upstart Co-Lab. The report is the first analysis of the tremendous potential that the creative economy offers to impact investors. It…
Journal of Business Anthropology devoted to design anthropology
The Journal of Business Anthropology is an Open Access journal which publishes the results of anthropological research in business organizations and business situations of all kinds. The theme of the latest issue – Vol 7, No 2 (2018) – is design anthropology: Design Anthropology: An…
[Book] Who can you trust?
Who can you trust? How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart by Rachel Botsman Public Affairs November 2017, 336 pages If you can’t trust those in charge, who can you trust? From government to business, banks to media, trust in…
What are Europe’s rules for democratic artificial intelligence?
Vincenzo Tiani has written an excellent summary in Wired Italia of the recently published “Ethical Framework for a Good AI Society: Opportunities, Risks, Principles, and Recommendations“, by AI4People, a task force of European experts. With the help of DeepL (also AI), you can find the…
Consumer behaviour and the circular economy
Report: Behavioural Study on Consumers’ Engagement in the Circular Economy London Economics for the European Commission – Consumers Health and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) 23 October 2018, 202 pages The objective of this study was to provide policy-relevant insights on consumers’ engagement in the circular…
[Book] Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting The Rules Of Work
Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting The Rules Of Work by Alex Rosenblat University of California Press October 2018, 296 pages Silicon Valley technology is transforming the way we work, and Uber is leading the charge. An American startup that promised to deliver entrepreneurship for the…
HSBC study on trust in technology
HSBC bank commissioned Populus and Ipsos MORI to conduct an independent study of more than 12,000 people in 11 countries into global technology perceptions and habits. Our Trust in Technology research (pdf report) explores public opinion about the new technology banks and consumer facing businesses…
Design education’s big gap: understanding the role of power
George Aye, co-founder and director of innovation at Greater Good Studio and adjunct full professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, argues that for all the talk about being human-centered, one very human factor often gets overlooked – a basic understanding of…
Experiential Futures: A brief outline
Stuart Candy (@futuryst), an award-winning foresight practitioner, Director of CMU Situation Lab and Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon School of Design, recently wrote a short intro to Experiential Futures (XF) for designers interested in transition-oriented practice. He adds: “XF is a big topic, so other…
[Book] Ethnographic study of a Swiss bank’s financial analysts
Stories of Capitalism: Inside the role of financial analysts Stefan Leins University of Chicago Press 2018, 224 pages The financial crisis and the recession that followed caught many people off guard, including experts in the financial sector whose jobs involve predicting market fluctuations. Financial analysis…
Nissan digging deep into human behavior for autonomy
Just about every automaker in the world is enlisting experts from a variety of fields outside engineering and design to help them develop autonomous vehicles. One of the best known is Nissan’s Melissa Cefkin. Her official title is principal researcher-Human Centered Systems, Nissan Research Center.…
How do we make smart cities civic?
Engagement Lab, an applied research and design lab associated with Emerson College that investigates and creates media and technology to reduce disparities in civic participation, announced via a twitter thread the launch of Making a Smart City Civic, an open toolkit to ensure smart cities…
[Book] Challenging the City Scale
Challenging The City Scale: Journeys in People-Centred Design Ed. by Cité du Design (Saint-Etienne) and Clear Village (London) Birkhäuser, 2018, 176 pages (free ebook) This 176 pages book is released by the famous international publisher Birkhäuser, and co-edited by Cité du design Saint-Etienne and Clear…
[Book] Changing Things: The Future of Objects in a Digital World
Changing Things: The Future of Objects in a Digital World by Johan Redström and Heather Wiltse Bloomsbury Publishing September 2018, 192 pages In their new book, “Changing Things: The Future of Objects in a Digital World”, assistant professor Heather Wiltse and professor Johan Redström explore…
[Book] Ethnography for a data-saturated world
Ethnography for a data-saturated world Edited by Hannah Knox and Dawn Nafus Manchester University Press October 2018, 296 pages This edited collection aims to reimagine and extend ethnography for a data-saturated world. The book brings together leading scholars in the social sciences who have been…
We need to save (willful) ignorance from AI
Recently the psychologist Ralph Hertwig and legal scholar Christoph Engel have published an extensive taxonomy of motives for deliberate ignorance. They identified two sets of motives, in particular, that have a particular relevance to the need for ignorance in the face of AI. The first…
Sidewalk Toronto has only one beneficiary, and it is not Toronto
Jim Balsillie, former chairman and co-CEO of Research In Motion, doesn’t mince his words in discussing the new Google-affiliated waterfront development Sidewalk Toronto: What happens with Toronto’s waterfront infrastructure will have profound and permanent impacts on the digital rights and prosperity of all Canadians because…
How SAP’s SuccessFactors used anthropology to understand its customers
As part of a new approach to user interfaces, Amy Wilson, Head of Product at SAP SuccessFactors, pulled designers together with behavioral scientists with backgrounds in cultural anthropology. The goal was to help the designers better understand the way most individuals intuitively work. This way,…
Designing for positive impact and human flourishing
A few days ago Experientia attended the Service Design Days in Barcelona. One of the surprise presentations was by Anna Pohlmeyer, who co-directs the Delft Institute for Positive Design. Although the title seemed a bit airy and ephemeral, the talk was anything but. Anna’s approach…
IKEA’s fifth Life at Home report
Last week IKEA launched its fifth Life at Home global research report. Every year, the company sets out to understand more about what makes a better life at home by connecting with thousands of people where they live. Ever since the 2016 report, IKEA has…
Bringing patients into focus at the Roche Innovation Summit
Experientia is proud to have been a key participant at the Roche Innovation Summit, held at Roche headquarters in Basel Switzerland on 19 June 2018. Themed Transforming the Healthcare Experience Together, the summit aimed to galvanize the Roche community around the future transformation of healthcare…
[Book] Left to Our Own Devices
Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus By Margaret E. Morris MIT Press, November 2018, 192 pages Unexpected ways that individuals adapt technology to reclaim what matters to them, from working through conflict with smart lights to…
[Book] Smarter Homes
Smarter Homes: How Technology Will Change Your Home Life by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino Apress, 2018, 168 pages Examine the history of smart homes, how technology shapes our lives, and ways you can think about the home when developing new products. This book presents the opportunities in…
[Book] Artificial unintelligence
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World by Meredith Broussard MIT Press, 248 pages April 17, 2018 A guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology and why we should never assume that computers always get it right. In Artificial Unintelligence, Meredith…
Videos from the MyData 2018 conference
The MyData 2018 conference took place in Helsinki on August 29-31. The core idea behind the MyData movement is that we, you and I, should have an easy way to see where data about us goes, specify who can use it, and alter these decisions…
Uninformed consent
Leslie K. John, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, is specialized in the psychology of privacy decisions. In this excellent cover story for the Harvard Business Review, she analyzes why people are so bad at making decisions about their private data (“They misunderstand both…
What is going on with the weather? Reflections on gaps between data and experience
Moments when the experience of a blistering day turns public attention to the expertise of climate scientists brings Hannah Knox, associate professor of anthropology at University College London, to explore some of the thorniest of questions we face in the global, modelled, connected world in…
[Book] Made by Humans – The AI Condition
Made by Humans – The AI Condition by Ellen Broad Melbourne University Publishing July 2018, 277 pages [eBook link] An Australian data expert challenges the idea of AI being better than humans Who is designing AI? A select, narrow group. How is their world view…
Tech companies use “persuasive design” to get us hooked. Psychologists say it’s unethical.
Behind the screens of the games we play and digital communities we interact with are psychologists and other behavioral science experts, who are hired to create products that we want to use more and more. Big tech now employs mental health experts to use persuasive…
[Report] Reclaiming the Smart City
Reclaiming the Smart City: Personal Data, Trust and the New Commons Why and how city governments are taking a more responsible approach to the collection and use of personal data By Theo Bass, Emma Sutherland, and Tom Symons Monday, 23 July 2018 Nesta UK [pdf…
Datafication and data fiction: Narrating data and narrating with data
Datafication and data fiction: Narrating data and narrating with data Paul Dourish, Edgar Gòmez Cruz Big Data & Society Journal Sage Publications, July 4, 2018 Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial 4.0 License Data do not speak for themselves. Data must be narrated 0 put…
The emerging world of healthcare communities
We are witnessing the emergence of a new phenomenon in health care: self-organizing, online communities of patients, caregivers, clinicians, researchers, academics, and industry, all focused on a particular disease. Patient-led sites that offer support and information are the most well-known. They typically offer a moderated…
Why bad technology dominates our lives, according to Don Norman
We have unwittingly accepted the paradigm that technology comes first, with people relegated to doing the actions that the machines cannot do, writes Don Norman. This requires people to act like machines, ever ready to take over when things go wrong. As a result, we…
Sometimes patients simply need other patients
In an ideal world, when we are faced with a new health problem, a clinician is available to sit down and address all our questions and anxieties about the condition and its treatment. This ideal is rarely met in the United States health system. More…
Problem solving desperately needs systems thinking
“If we want to overcome the systemic issues behind today’s problems, then we need to change the thinking that led to them to begin with, writes Dr. Leyla Acaroglu, award winning designer, UNEP Champion of the Earth, social scientist and entrepreneur. The status quo of…
People are your data
New York based writer Carrie Neill interviews tech ethnographer Tricia Wang on why the digital age means everyone (even non-researchers) should understand “thick data”. Any modern person who calls themselves an ethnographer or a qualitative researcher needs to be both a people nerd and a…