The user experience of smart phones

Several articles on the smart phone user experience: Getting emotional about mobile phones A nationwide study of over 3000 people has found that there is a direct correlation between the way people use their phones, and the way they feel for the day. Available all…

Herkko Hietanen: The social future of television

Herkko Hietanen of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology tells his audience at the Berkman Center that “television is really broken,” reports Ethan Zuckerman. The medium isn’t rising to its full potential, isn’t providing consumers with programs when and where they want them. To set…

Changing Behaviour

Changing Behaviour is a project that aims to support change in energy use and energy services. They do so by applying social research on technological change to practical use. Their focus is on the interaction between energy experts and energy users: How can these different…

Communication and human development: the freedom connection?

Canada’s International Development Research Center and Harvard’s Berkman Center convened a conversation at Harvard yesterday on the future of information and communication technology and development (ICT4D). Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Michael Spence joined Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts Yochai Benkler and Clotilde Fonseca…

Enhancing user interaction with first person user interface

Luke Wroblewski, an internationally recognized Web thought leader and Senior Director of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc., provides a comprehensive overview of augmentation as a user interface, complete with real-world examples. “Though many computer applications and operating systems make use of real-world metaphors…

Using design thinking at Coca-Cola

Fast Company profiles David Butler, the man who is “responsible for how they think and what they do with design at The Coca-Cola Company.” “Butler oversees a team of 50 designers within Coke and works with some 300 agencies worldwide. In a company as colossal…

Peer pressure and other pitches

Michael Sanserino reports in the Wall Street Journal on the latest applications of insights in behavioural economics: “More businesses are using behavioral economics to appeal to customers, seeking to capitalize on the notion that people don’t always act in their economic self-interest. Behavioral economics is…

Mayo Clinic’s Transform symposium on innovations in health care experience

This week the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation hosted Transform, a collaborative symposium on innovations in health care experience and delivery. The symposium, which featured over twenty presenters, was structured in six sessions — Redefining Roles, Policy Perspectives, Enabling Technologies, Alternative Models and How We…

This happened…

This happened is a series of London-based events focusing on the stories behind interaction design. “Having ideas is easier than making them happen. We delve into projects that exist today, how their concepts and production process can help inform future work. Interaction design companies are…

Wayfinding through technology

Cennydd Bowles, a user experience designer for Clearleft, discusses how people form mental models of urban environments, and how technology can augment and even replace our wayfinding skills. The article was published on Johnny Holland and is an extract from his upcoming talk at EuroIA…

Case study: NPR.org

On July 27, 2009, National Public Radio (NPR) relaunched the website www.npr.org through the efforts of its in-house design team and interactive agency Schematic. Senior interaction designer Neylan describes the massive task in a case study written for AIGA. “NPR embarked on a major redesign…