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DAILY INSIGHTS ON USER EXPERIENCE, EXPERIENCE DESIGN AND PEOPLE-CENTRED INNOVATION

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9 February 2010
New Philips phone for the elderly
Lifeline Philips reports that its new Lifeline Cordless Phone System has been designed “to enable the frail and elderly to maintain independence, despite their changing physical needs.”

“The Philips Lifeline Cordless Phone System is a cordless home phone with a medical alert communicator. It provides a Personal Emergency Response Service (PERS) for frail, elderly seniors allowing them to maintain their independence and continue living independantly. The Lifeline service solution consists of a wearable personal help button and a PERS telephone base station. It provides subscribers with a direct connection to a national call center, which offers immediate assistance and coordination of local support networks and emergency services should it be needed.”

Read full story

9 February 2010
Designing financial services for the poor
Money wallet The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at the University of California, Irvine, headed by Bill Maurer, Professor of Anthropology, aims to foster a community of inquiry and practice on new forms of money and financial technology among the world’s poorest people: those who live on less than $1 per day. IMTFI awards fellowships to researchers in the developing world to conduct 12-month projects, many with a strongly qualitative component.

“We seek to create a community of practice and inquiry into the everyday uses and meanings of money, as well as examining the technological infrastructures being developed as carriers of mainstream and alternative currencies worldwide.

Money costs money for people who are extremely poor and who have limited or no access to banks or credit. For many of the world’s poor, fees for financial services and transactions seriously limit their ability to use or share what little money they have. People have long taken whatever is ready-to-hand to serve the functions of money, from livestock to jewelry, and have used different relationships and objects to help them save, store, and transfer wealth. Today, new communications technologies are being added to this complex ecology of money. This ranges from sharing airtime minutes as an alternative currency, to using mobile phones and point-of-sale terminals for accessing banking institutions, or even as independent systems for saving, storing and transferring wealth.”

The 2010 Annual Report discusses IMTFI’s research in 2008-09 and presents 11 design principles on the creation and implementation of saving services for the poor.

8 February 2010
Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium 2010
Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium For the past four years, Microsoft Research (MSR) has sponsored a symposium on social computing that “brings together academic and industry researchers, developers, writers, and influential commentators in order to open new lines of communication among previously disconnected groups.”

The theme of the 2010 symposium, held at ITP at NYU, was “The city as platform”, which revolved around various sub-topic such as urban informatics, the city as a social technology, pervasive games and government infrastructure/data.

Participants included Genevieve Bell, Julian Bleecker, Ben Cerveny, Tom Coates, Anil Dash, Russell Davies, Alexandra Deschamps-SonsinoAdam Greenfield, Liz Goodman, Usman Haque, Tom IgoeNatalie Jeremijenko, Steven Johnson, Matt Jones, Jennifer Magnolfi, Mike Migurski, Nicolas Nova, Ray Ozzie, Clay Shirky, Kevin Slavin, Molly Steenson, Linda Stone, Alice Taylor, Anthony Townsend, Duncan Wilson and many more.

You can read elaborate and well-written symposium reports by Nicolas Nova (LIFT Lab) and Dan Hill (City of Sound / ARUP).

By the way, do also check Dan Hill’s urbanistic take on the iPad.

7 February 2010
Live at Interaction’10: day 2
Interaction10 Niklas Wolkert & Brad Nunnally provide their second report on Johnnyy Holland on the Interaction10 conference in Savannah, Georgia – this time focused on the second day.

“After a night of some great parties, and even better conversation, the second day of Interaction 10 began with a preview of the new IxDA.org website redesign. The team doing the redesign covered all the great new features that are coming, and went into detail on how local groups will be able to leverage the new site for their own networks and events. The excitement from yesterday was easily carried over, and people were pumped to see what the presenters had in store for us today.”

This time they review presentations by Ezio Manzini, Shelly Evenson, Timo Arnall, Ben Fullerton, Kevin Cheng, Steve Baty, Chris Fahey, and Paola Antonelli.

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6 February 2010
Live at Interaction’10: day 1
Interaction10 Niklas Wolkert & Brad Nunnally report on Johnnyy Holland on the first day of the Interaction10 conference in Savannah, Georgia.

“If one thing had to describe the overall theme of the first day it would be the importance of providing meaning in the work that we do. Below are recaps of the opening and closing keynotes, as well as some of the sessions from the day.”

Check their review on presentations by Nathan Shedroff, Dave Gray, Nate Bolt, Matt Cottam, Kendra Shimmell, Nicolas Nova and Jon Kolko.

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2 February 2010
5 ways techno-gadgetry is bringing out the worst in humanity
Texting while driving Scott Hill of Alternet looks at how technology facilitates “the human sentient understanding of how to take cruel advantage of human weakness”.

“Indeed, humans are exceptional when it comes to using technology to prey upon weaknesses, in themselves, their cultures and their markets. But even when technological solutions arise for navigating problems as mundane as they are obstructive, there tends to be some variation of consequence. Let’s just call it “techno-blowback.” As developmental biologist and cyborg theorist Donna Haraway once famously explained, “We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism.” We can’t take technology out of our humanity any more than we can take humanity, and its dangerous games, out of our technology. So we walk the tightrope between both, trying not to fall as we steadily transform a cyborg future in which we may no longer be able to distinguish them anymore.”

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2 February 2010
Digital Nation, in-depth documentary, online in full
Digital Nation In Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, FRONTLINE presents an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world.

Continuing a line of investigation she began with the 2008 FRONTLINE report Growing Up Online, award-winning producer Rachel Dretzin embarks on a journey to understand the implications of living in a world consumed by technology and the impact that this constant connectivity may have on future generations.

Joining Dretzin on this journey is commentator Douglas Rushkoff, a leading thinker and writer on the digital revolution — and one-time evangelist for technology’s positive impact.

Watch documentary (90 mins.)

See also this article on Salon.com and this thoughtful reflection by Henry Jenkins.

1 February 2010
The Internet of things: Networked objects and smart devices
Networked objects Constantine Valhouli, principal of the Massachusetts based Hammersmith Group, which consults to developers on the marketing and branding of luxury properties, and to city leaders on reviving historical downtowns, just published an overview of the potential for connected devices entitled “The Internet of things: Networked objects and smart devices.”

It quotes Rob Faludi, Julian Bleecker, Bruce Sterling, Adam Greenfield and covers devices from the WineM to Botanicalls to the Ambient Orb along with the original online coffee pot.

A variety of other research papers by the same author can be found on this site.

Download report

(via Mike Kuniavsky)

1 February 2010
Europeans’ Privacy will be big challenge in next decade, says EU Commissioner
Europa On the 4th annual Data Protection day (28th January 2010) the European Commission announced the intention to reform the 1995 European Union (EU) Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.

“Our privacy faces new challenges: behavioural advertising can use your internet history to better market products; social networking sites used by 41.7 million Europeans allow personal information like photos to be seen by others; and the 6 billion smart chips used today can trace your movements.

The European Commission today – Data Protection Day – warned that data protection rules must be updated to keep abreast of technological change to ensure the right to privacy, legal certainty for industry, and the take-up of new technologies. EU rules say that a person’s information can only be used on legitimate grounds, with their prior consent.

With the Lisbon Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights now in force, the Commission today said it wants to create a clear, modern set of rules for the whole EU guaranteeing a high level of personal data protection and privacy, starting with a reform of the 1995 EU Data Protection Directive.”

Read full story

(via eGov monitor)

1 February 2010
Stowe Boyd: outdated UX metaphors are holding us back
Stowe Boyd Stowe Boyd arguest that the metaphors of computing user experience are holding us back from new ways of structuring our interaction through computers.

“the thing that is blocking us from moving forward, to a better user experience centered on social interaction and not physical data, are the existing metaphors of OS’s. Since we are living in a world of general purpose computers running Unix, Mac OS, and Windows — and we need to have them interoperate — we seem stuck in the 90’s.
To have a break with the past, and to make the past a platform, we have to push it under and not pretend that its constructs are desirable. We need to push files, folders and the notion of a desktop under the surface of a better user experience, and keep it under. Let a new generation of user experience shield us from that drudgery and detail.

The only way forward is to build a new user experience on top of the physical hardware and software that form a platform for it, and conceal it’s nasty details from us.

This is one aspect of the genius of the iPhone and iPad generation of devices: we don’t need to know about the files and folders. We don’t need a desktop with data bundles lying in piles.”

But, he says, “This break with the past is made faster and less difficult if the new system is closed.”

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29 January 2010
Nokia’s introduction to user experience
Introduction to UX User experience is one of the most important success factors of a mobile application, according to Nokia.

Therefore the company created a web section that describes the benefits of a good user experience, which also provides links and resources with more detailed material.

23 January 2010
Ethnographic research could make Google more relevant in China
Tricia Wang Ethnographer Tricia Wang wrote an excellent and long comment on why Google is having troubles in China:

While unfortunate that Google.CN may be shutting down, my ethnographic work in China revealed five things that aren’t being told in the current story:

  1. Many Chinese internet users don’t find Google to be very useful. Therefore, a Google withdrawal would not have any immediate impact on the daily Chinese internet user because most people search with Baidu, the reigning search engine in China.
  2. Many Chinese internet users prefer Baidu over Google because using Baidu makes them feel more “Chinese.” Baidu does an excellent job at tapping into nationalistic fervor to promote itself as being the most superior search engine for Chinese users.
  3. Chinese internet users don’t know how to get to the Google site. While they may “know” of Google, it’s a whole other matter when it comes to typing or saying Google’s name.
  4. Google is primarily used by highly educated netizens. And even these users prefer Google.COM over Google.CN.
  5. Google is not successful at reaching the mobile internet market.

[...]

It’s one thing if Google’s difficulties could just simply be attributed to government interference, and bad marketing and publicity. But that’s not the case. Their services just simply are not useful for most Chinese users. I suggest that Google dedicate itself to understanding the Chinese market in a socio-anthropological way. They should be hiring teams of Chinese and non-Chinese ethnographers, sociologists, and anthropologists to work intimately in all phases with human-computer interaction designers, programmers, and R&D managers. Google should invest in long-term fieldwork for teams to immerse themselves in a diversity of environments. While usability tests and focus groups are useful for specific phases of app development, they aren’t as useful for understanding cultural frameworks and practices because by the time an app is being tested, it already has accumulated so many cultural assumptions along the way in the design process that users are asked to test something that functions in the programmer’s world, not the user’s world.

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(via danah boyd)

21 January 2010
Front book vs back book pricing: a service design challenge
Milkman online Nick Marsh of EMC Conchango reflects on the conundrum of ‘front book’ vs ‘back book’ pricing, and the implications for service design.

“This is a great example for illustrating the differences between designing for service-centric organisations as compared to designing for product-centric organisations, and it fits nicely with the insight that service design is really an organisational challenge, not an aesthetic one.”

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21 January 2010
Upcoming service design conference in Sweden
Service design conference One of the projects funded by the Danish programme for user-driven innovation (English summary) is DESINOVA (see also this earlier post).

DESINOVA’s purpose is to enhance innovation among service and trading companies using the methods of user-driven innovation and service design. DESINOVA develops competences for user-driven innovation in trade and service companies and in design companies. More than 25 companies and organisations are participating in DESINOVA.

DESINOVA kicked off in December 2007 and is now moving into its final activities, including the completion of the nine innovation projects, concept and product development, documentation and recommendations, and the establishment of a resource center and network activities.

Some interesting case studies (Spejder Sport and DSB) can be found in the latest English newsletter.

Now Robert Jacobson, guest professor at Malmö University’s MEDEA Program and also involved in DESINOVA, is running an innovation and service design conference (Swedish announcement) next Friday 29 January in Malmö, Sweden, as a first step toward an innovation/services design industry hub in the region.

The conference, during which reports on DESINOVA and on innovation and service design in Sweden will be presented, is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. You can register here.

The conference will be webcast (more info here tomorrow) and we hope to post the presentations on this blog soon afterwards.

21 January 2010
Urban sensing via mobile phones, an ARUP project
CityRail Arup Australasia has published a three-part technical overview on its research blog of its ‘urban sensing via mobile phones’ project.

The research project, in collaboration with the UTS Centre for Real-Time Information Networks, explores technical approaches to sensing the presence of mobile phones in transit environments (bus, train, ferry etc.) as well as pedestrians, in order to provide real-time data on such activity, potentially informing urban planning and transport planning decisions. Such approaches might reveal how the city is being used, in real-time.

Disclosure: Experientia is working with Arup on the Low2No project in Helsinki, Finland.

ApproachHardwareSensing

21 January 2010
FT on cultural differences in Chinese internet use
Chinese mouse Western companies are struggling to bridge the growing gap created by the evolution of a cyberspace with Chinese characteristics. Kathrin Hille explains some of the cultural (and political) differences in today’s Financial Times.

“[Chinese people] tend to roam the web like a huge playground, whereas Europeans and Americans are more likely to use it as a gigantic library. Recent research by the McKinsey consultancy suggests Chinese users spend most of their time online on entertainment while their European peers are much more focused on work. [...]

Foreign companies have taken a long time to figure out – then adapt to – one of the key features of Chinese consumers: they do not like to type. “Typing is a pain in Chinese,” explains Zhang Honglin, demonstrating how he has to enter a search word in Latin transcription, then pick the right character scrolling through sometimes dozens of different choices in a pop-up window. This is because Mandarin has many thousands of characters. So when 35-year-old Mr Zhang sneaks away from his family’s tobacco and liquor shop in Beijing to an upstairs internet café for hours on end, he navigates almost entirely using the mouse.

Most portals have reacted by filling their pages with hundreds of colourful links competing for attention – creating a cluttered and disorderly view to the western eye but making life easier for Chinese users.

Beyond aesthetics, Chinese web users are much more lively than their western peers – a characteristic that forms consumption preferences.”

The articles also contains a thoughtful reflection on the cultural importance of user-generated content in China.

Read full story

21 January 2010
Report: Booting up mobile health
mHealth Mobile health is emerging at the intersection of dynamic changes in mobility patterns, health care delivery, and new mobile technologies and networks. New technologies and the services they enable will be just one piece of a larger strategy for engaging consumers anywhere, anytime. Ultimately, mobile health will create more distributed health care systems that will move from an episodic to a continuous-care model, supported by decentralized, integrated care interwoven seamlessly into our daily lives, and driven by even more advanced smart systems that help us sense and understand our actions and environments.

Over the next decade, a bottom-up transformation of mobility will create a growing number of opportunities and dilemmas for the health care industry.

Booting Up Mobile Health: From Medical Mainframe to Distributed Intelligence, a new report by Institute for the Future, identifies the drivers shaping mobile health in the future, and forecasts new business and consumer practices that reorganize the health care system as we know it.

21 January 2010
Articles on Danish design research
DCDR The Danish Centre for Design Research (DCDR) is an umbrella organisation under the Danish Ministry of Culture for the design research that takes place at the Aarhus School of Architecture, The Danish Design School, Designskolen Kolding, and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.

The centre helps establish and promote Danish design research, disseminate knowledge, and build Danish and international networks among research institutions, enterprises and the general public.

The latest DCDR Webzine (nr. 25) contains three interesting articles:

Design research – a catalyst for innovation (editorial)
In the first issue of Mind Design in 2010, Director Dorthe Mejlhede takes stock of the activities in the Danish Centre for Design Research in 2009 and of the platform that the centre has created for current and future design research. Design research can act as a catalyst for innovation and as a source of value creation for companies and for society at large. That is why it is so important to continue to expand and support the design research environment, Dorthe Mejlhede points out.

Is design philosophical?
At first glance, design and philosophy inhabit different worlds. Design is often aimed at physical and concrete action, while philosophy is abstract and reflective. However, there are certain fundamental philosophical questions to be asked about the essential nature of design and the design process, as explained by Per Galle, an associate professor of design theory at The Danish Design School, the director of CEPHAD, Centre for Philosophy and Design as well as the main organiser of CEPHAD’s conference in January at The Danish Design School.

Using creativity to enhance consumer awareness
An Industrial Ph.D. project involving the Danish savings bank Middelfart Sparekasse and Kolding School of Design aims to design tools that draw on the creativity in our thinking and reflections. Specifically, Ph.D. scholar Kirsten Bonde Sørensen seeks to develop a new service for current and prospective customers to help them uncover their unrecognised knowledge and emotions and make them more aware of their own needs and values. The project also aims to illustrate a new type of consumer communication that is not about persuasion but rather about making consumers aware of their own values and dreams.

20 January 2010
Real-time video in 2020
The future of real-time video Skype commissioned the Institute for the Future to research and start a conversation about the future of real-time video communication and what will it feel like to live and work in a world where real-time video is ubiquitous.

The newly-released report was designed as a conversation starter about the likely changes in how we communicate as individuals, businesses, governments, and societies. It examines the current trends affecting the future of real-time video communication, as well as the foundational trends necessary for this future to occur.

Included are four scenarios that present plausible futures that integrate real-time video communication into the lives of every day people—an average employee, a sports fan, a newly engaged couple, and a fully-connected small business.

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20 January 2010
If your kids are awake, they’re probably online
Generation M2 The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours five years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.

And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.

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