Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Mac Funamizu explores on Johnny Holland what digital devices with physically changing displays might look like and how their interface language might be conceived: “We all know how great a touch screen is… But have you ever thought that it’s a nightmare for the blind?…
Robert Fabricant wrote about the role of the designer in behavioural change and describes three new design strategies: persuasion design, catalyst design and performance design. “Instead of aspiring to influence user behavior from a distance, we increasingly want the products we design to have more…
The Economist this week comes with a new edition of its 24-page Technology Quarterly supplement, which contains four articles that are related to the theme of this blog: Taken your medicine? Health care: Mobile phones provide a cheap and simple way to ensure that patients…
The site of Participle, a UK social design consultancy, contains some good materials on the design of the next generation of public services. Only the Lonely: Public Service Reform, the Individual and the State Article to be published in the forthcoming issue of Soundings. In…
The field of mobile gestures is a fascinating one that Nokia is keenly exploring and researching, with explorative designers Younghee Jung and Dan Macleod on the frontline. Last week the people of Nokia Conversations had the opportunity to chat to them at The Inside Story…
The upcoming PICNIC ’09 conference (Amsterdam, 23-25 September) just announced is key themes: Exploding Media: Exploding Story This is the story of the extraordinary transformation of Media from all the creative and technological aspects… From traditional storytelling to the impact of gaming on education; from…
A Windows-enabled and Web-connected coffee maker like the prototype in this photo could check online for the proper grinding size of the beans you’ve just bought. Although it seems like an ironic example of design gone wrong, Microsoft thinks this is exactly what we need…
World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants to put the web under the microscope to investigate how it changes our behaviour. Paul Marks asked in The New Scientist him what he hopes to achieve. “Web science is already happening. People are studying the effect of…
After Patrick Meier, a doctoral research fellow at Harvard University, a PhD candidate at The Fletcher School, and an active contributor at Ushahidi, participated in a high-level mobile banking (mBanking) conference in Nairobi, he reflected on the issue of trust in mobile banking in emerging…
Clay Shirky is this week’s guest on Nokia’s IdeasProject site. He talks about social media and the emotional dimension of news. “Clay Shirky says that the lightning-quick dissemination of news events via social media has heightened the role of emotion. The instantaneous manner with which…
The Financial Times has published a special report on connectivity, analysing the implications of a connected planet. My preferred pieces: Skills: Business must learn from the new tribe So-called ‘digital natives’ are bringing down the barriers to collaborative working, finds Jessica Twentyman (If you read…
The Wall Street Journal reports on the use of the internet by homeless people in San Francisco. “A few years ago, some people were worrying that a “digital divide” would separate technology haves and have-nots. The poorest lack the means to buy computers and Web…
The Nokia Siemens Networks has created an extremely well produced website and video series, entitled “Round. The World. Connected.” that sets out to understand what connectivity means to different people and cultures across Europe, Asia and the Americas. The project focuses specifically on how the…
“The main activity of designers will be as social innovators,” said Ezio Manzini during an intimate conversation with o2NYC on May 6. Ezio’s talk outlined an exit strategy for conscious designers, a shift from making things to designing tools for a better society. For those…
How a little lab called MAYA is giving firms such as Emerson and General Dynamics an innovation boost. Fast Company reports. “MAYA Design is juicing innovation by teaching techies design basics. The 50-member team of computer scientists, psychologists, designers, engineers, and anthropologists dedicates 30% of…
Researchers Daniela Sangiorgi (Lancaster University), Stefano Maffei (Politecnico di Milano) and Nicola Morelli (Aalborg University) launched this month a new site on service design research: “It aims to collectively build an understanding and foster a dialogue on where ideas and concepts of Service Design have…
Alice Rawsthorn, design critic of the International Herald Tribune, reflects on the fact that the appearance of most digital products bears no relation to what they do, and what that might mean for future design. “The dislocation of form and function has set a new…
Ken Banks, creator of FrontlineSMS, writes in PC World on the future of mobile phones and believes that many future mobile innovations will be borne out of the realities of the developing world. “In order to understand what users need and want from their next…
The number of people using mobile devices to purchase goods and services is expected to more than double by the end of 2012 globally, research firm Gartner Inc. reported. The impact is to be felt most in developing world where access to banking is…
In Asia, Africa, Europe and elsewhere, cell phone technology has always been way ahead of what’s available in the states. Around the world, people use their phones in innovative, creative ways. For example, mobile phones help rural farmers gather information about crop prices, and bargain…
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, researcher director at the Institute for the Future, is working on a book on the end of cyberspace – which he thinks will come as the internet moves off desktops and screens and becomes embedded in things, spaces and minds. So what…
In a long article in The Register, Andrew Orlowski looks at the many problems Nokia faced the other day with the launch of its Ovi Store, and criticises the company for a lack of focus on people’s needs: “Firstly, Nokia should focus on people’s needs…
Natasha Schull, assistant professor in the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society, says Vegas gambling machines designed to get people to ‘play to extinction’. “After more than a decade of research that included lengthy observations and interviews focused on gambling machines, Schull is publishing…
New York Magazine has published a long article by Sam Anderson on “Twitter, Adderall, lifehacking, mindful jogging, power browsing, Obama’s BlackBerry, and the benefits of overstimulation.” “Free-associative wandering is essential to the creative process; one moment of judicious unmindfulness can inspire thousands of hours of…
Leading up to the 2009 Mobile Money Summit CGAP, an independent policy and research centre dedicated to advancing financial access for the world’s poor, is running a podcast series with some of the key people involved in the CGAP/DFID Branchless Banking in 2020 scenarios work.…
Global Post reports on how millions in Ghana are entering the banking system through mobile phone system. “Nobody stands to benefit quite like Africa’s increasingly powerful telecom companies, the conglomerates who built this continent’s cellular towers and enable its calls. “These guys are going to…
Stephen Wolak, the brain behind Vodafone’s Betavine community, has launched a new social change community “where we look at how mobile technology and mobile services can bring about positive social change, particularly in developing countries.” The concept, he says, “is to bring together problem owners,…
Nokia Conversations is reporting on a rare behind-closed-doors Nokia design event dubbed The Inside Story. According to a first post, Alastair Curtis, Head of Design at Nokia, shared the design insight that your mobile is becoming more of a “sixth senseâ€, equipping you with “super-human 
Consumer Electronics 3.0 is the name Intel has chosen for a new concept of seamless integration of internet and television. The CE 3.0 website is rich in content, but more than that, it exemplifies the relevance of a user-centred approach in the design of new…
Daniel Szuc is a principal consultant at a Apogee Usability Asia Ltd, based in Hong Kong, and previously worked on a usability team for Telstra Australia. When he moved to Hong Kong in 1998, he went about looking for jobs in usability, but there weren’t…
The latest issue of Ubiquity, a web-based publication of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), contains a fascinating account by Phillip Tobias on the emerging design principles that will generate a positive user experience, and satisfied and loyal users. “Think of one of your favorite…
Dr Paul Twomey, president of the internet admin body Icann, talks about the net’s potential for change. “The mobile global internet is growing quickly to connect billions of people, devices and things. It offers much greater productivity and lower barriers to entry for users and…
BBC technology correspondent Mark Ward reports on a research project that uses Facebook, mobile phones, and energy meters to nudge people into living healthier lives. “The three-year project will see how people react when data is fed back to them about their energy use and…
Steve Calde, a principal design consultant at Cooper, writes in Cooper Journal on the implications of designing for first time use. “A person is a first-time user exactly once (and in the case of the infusion pump, because of training and observation, nurses were actually…
Joe Lamantia, experience architect and strategist at MediaCatalyst, has recently been writing a column for UXmatters. Entitled “Everyware – designing for the ubiquitous experience,†the series aims to explore user experience and design in the era of ubiquitous computing. First fictions and the parable of…
Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow and Under Pressure and a self-proclaimed proponent of the Slow Movement, is the writer of the latest contribution to Vodafone’s Receiver magazine. In his piece, Honoré argues that in a world of limitless information and constant access…
Alice Rawsthorn of The New York Times has published an article on social design and service innovation: “When Ritt Bjerregaard became lord mayor of the city of Copenhagen in 2006, she was astonished to discover how many working days were lost when civic employees fell…
On Fora.TV you can find a video of RISD president John Maeda’s talk at O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 expo, where he discusses people participation processes at RISD. Watch video
Design Innovation Scotland has published a white paper by John Thackara, entitled Clean Growth: From Mindless Development to Design Mindfulness. It’s the first in a series whose aim is “to stimulate thought and debate about…radical solutions to real-world challenges”. The intended readers are regional economic…
Erik Hersman reports on his blog White African from the e Fletcher mBanking conference in Nairobi. Talking Mobile Banking in Kenya Notes from the panel “Perspectives on Mobile and Branchless Financial Service” Volume vs Value in Mobile Payment Systems Talk by Stephen Mwaura Nduati, who…