Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Jamais Cascio argues on Fast Company that, as our various electronic devices gain more and more sensory awareness, we open up the potential for entirely new forms of interaction. “The real shift comes when we move away from direct interaction and input, towards a world…
“To navigate the landscape of organizational culture interaction designers need a set of practical tools, language & knowledge drawn from the world of cultural anthropology.” That is the core of the argument of Sam Ladner on the Johnny Holland blog. “Interaction designers are accustomed to…
From pyramids to pancakes The era of elitism, top-down management and deterministic ideals is over. We are now living in an age of social innovation and sustainability that opens up the future to the many, not just the few. Mass consumerism has given way to…
A recent article by Nita Rollins on DMI’s Digital Management Review: “As the Web has matured, brand relationships have become ever more dynamic. Nita Rollins outlines and illustrates the kinds of digital brand experiences consumers have come to expect–on-demand efficiency and ease-of-use; personalization, including dialogue,…
Abhijit Kadle explains how the mobile phone can easily be used as a learning tool: “Like all communication and computing devices, mobile phones can be used to learn. The content delivered would depend on the capabilities (features) of the device accessing it. There are…
Oliver Reichenstein, a Tokyo-based information architect, explores the value of information: “While producing information costs money, information as such doesn’t necessarily carry monetary value; it mostly carries intellectual, social, artistic, practical value. And that’s why, historically, news has been commercially, publicly, politically and privately subsidized.…
Eva Hornecker explains on interaction-design.org the evolving concept of Tangible Interaction. “Broadly, Tangible Interaction encompasses user interfaces and interaction approaches that emphasize – tangibility and materiality of the interface – physical embodiment of data – whole-body interaction – the embedding of the interface and…
Jonathan Donner, a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India, has submitted a paper — together with Shikoh Gitau and Gary Marsden — on first-time mobile internet use in South Africa to the upcoming (3rd) conference of the International Development…
Donald Norman’s latest column for Interactions Magazine explores systems thinking and service design. “A product is actually a service. Although the designer, manufacturer, distributer, and seller may think it is a product, to the buyer, it offers a valuable service. The easiest example is the…
One of our staff members, senior designer Luca Troisi, worked previously in the yachting industry and has not forgotten those roots when he joined Experientia. Luca’s extensive and excellently written article explores what experience design could mean for the yachting industry: “In design terms there…
Paula Wallace, president of the Savannah College of Art and Design, interviews Peter Fossick, who is the coordinator of a new program in service design at the college. “Everything is moving toward service design. Design is becoming more intangible, less about product and more about…
What happens when a large % of your target market wants your brand cachet but is happy with a decent-enough quality fake? Nokia’s user anthropologist Jan Chipchase has published an essay on the current state of the fake mobile phone market in China, and what…
Via Dina Mehta, founder and managing director of Mosoci India, I found out about Progress, a highly interesting new website set up by Nokia and Lonely Planet: “The Progress Project is the initiative set up by Nokia and Lonely Planet that is focused on capturing…
Helsinki, Finland – Yesterday, Turin-based company Experientia was announced as part of the winning team for a project in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki, which aims to construct an urban zone with low or no carbon emissions. Sitra, the Finnish innovation agency, revealed that the winning team of…
For years, the experience design community has been using the term ‘good enough prototyping’. Wired UK argues quite convincingly that this approach is now moving into product design: “Cheap, fast, simple tools are suddenly everywhere. We get our breaking news from blogs, we make spotty…
Dina Mehta, founder and managing director of Mosoci India, reports on how Nokia Life Tools actually gets used in India, and more in particular, how the how the Learn English program, a part of Nokia Life Tools, really works on the ground. “On the long…
Yesterday, Nokia launched Nokia Money, a new mobile financial service enables financial management and payments from a mobile phone – aimed specifically at emerging markets. From the Nokia press release: “Nokia Money has been designed to be as simple and convenient as making a voice…
David L. Ulin, book editor of the Los Angeles Times, argues that the relentless cacophony that is life in the 21st century can make settling in with a book difficult even for lifelong readers and those who are paid to do it. “Reading is an…
The New Media Consortium is hosting a Symposium for the Future October 27-29 that will explore actual and potential applications of technology that could impact issues of global importance over the next five years and beyond. To generate dialog and discussion around the topic, and…
Although it is more of a technical discussion, this article by The Economist is a worthwhile read as it describes quite well how a new way to deliver information to mobile phones is spreading around the world. “In America and Europe, three types of bar…
Abdul Bayes, professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, has written a nice article in the Daily Star newspaper where he condenses some recent research on mobile phones, farmers and the rural poor. “Coming back to the Bangladesh context, out of 150 million…
Author and journalist Michael Erard has published a short manifesto on the future of attention: “Now we have a wide-ranging discussion about what is and what can’t be free, which is basically about the future of profit. Maybe we should be considering a dilemma of…
Business Week explores how artists and designers are turning to data visualization to interpret the deluge of information around us. “For artists and designers, data visualization is a new frontier of self-expression, powered by the proliferation of information and the evolution of available tools. For…
The UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering recently published a discussion document (pdf) on the social, legal and ethical issues surrounding the development and use of autonomous systems. The document is the report of a roundtable discussion from a wide range of experts, looking at the…
John Barratt, president and CEO of Teague, reflects in a guest post on Fast Company on the fact that critical thinking in design is largely absent. “For reasons that are difficult for me to identify, it seems that the design industry lacks any real form…
BBC News reports on the inaugural meeting of the London Futurist and Transhumanist Group. “While futurism involves trying to predict how technology will evolve over time, transhumanism is concerned with how that technology will change the fundamental nature human beings and the way we live.”…
Alice Rawsthorn, the design critic of the International Herald Tribune/New York Times, approached the topic of co-design last week: “We can now “co-design†real objects thanks to digital technology, which enables us to communicate directly with manufacturers to personalize aspects of their products. Fancy customizing…
Montparnasse, a UX boutique firm, tries to imagine what empowering the user experience of the customer really means: “When people consider buying anything, whether it be clothes, a gadget, or home, they often spend a lot of time comparison shopping and trying to gather information…
Johannah Cornblatt argues on Newsweek that despite our inter-connectedness, we’re now more alone than ever. “Between 1985 and 2004, the number of people who said there was no one with whom they discussed important matters tripled, to 25 percent, according to Duke University researchers.…
The European Commission warned last week that Europeans young and old could miss out on the benefits of today’s high-tech information society unless more is done to make them ‘media literate’ enough to access, analyse and evaluate images, sounds and texts and use traditional…
Fred Beecher argues on Johnny Holland that “the iPhone is surprisingly difficult to use, but it sure is fun! And that is why it’s a game-changer.” “As a user experience designer, I thought my job was to make things not suck. Until recently. As technology…
The last few weeks we have witnessed an avalanche of posts about augmented reality. To begin with there is Bruce – Bruce Sterling that is. He has been following the trend for months now, all culminating at his excellent keynote speech during the Layar event…
Andrew Hsu, technology strategist at Synaptics, reflects on the recent revolution in the user interface for the mobile phone to enable cloud computing. “Newer touchscreen features such as proximity and force sensing, in addition to other sensing modalities like grip sensing, will continue to enable…
Today, Microsoft is launching OneApp, an app for people running Windows Mobile phones with slow processors and not a lot of memory. Basically, it’s a lightweight app that lets you run more intensive apps by grabbing just the basics of that app that you need.…
Fast Company explores what neighbourhood currency would look like: “Hyper-localized currencies have been popping ever since the economy went sour–not surprising, since local currencies also gained popularity during the Great Depression. Five local Massachusetts banks have developed Berkshares–there are 185,000 paper notes are already in…
Steve McCallion, the executive creative director at Ziba Design, is a bright man whom I had the pleasure of meeting during a service design event in Brussels in December 2007 — we got along immediately. As part of his introduction as guest blogger on Fast…
Rob Tannen, chair of the Human Factors Professional Interest Section of the Industrial Designers Society of America, has published two thoughtful posts – i.e. recommended reading – on physical interaction: Physical interaction & the future of user interface design We are on the cusp of…
This MIT Technology Review special report on the future of telephony contains more articles than you can possibly read: A smart phone built on web tools Palm’s new smart phone targets Web developers as well as a loyal fan base. What to expect from the…
Designing Services with Innovative Methods Miettinen, Koivisto (eds.) 272 pages, colour illustration, soft cover, 2009 This book presents the emerging and increasingly important field of service design. Birgit Mager, Köln International School of Design and Service Design Network, Ezio Manzini, Politecnico di Milano, and Stefan…
According to CNN, mobile phones in the United States will be able – within five (5!) years – to make electronic payments, open doors, access subways, clip coupons and possibly act as another form of identification. But there is work to be done: according to…