User-Centered Design Stories The December issue of the International Journal of Design has recently been published and is strongly focused on the experiential and sensorial qualities of digital products and services.

It is the third issue of this peer-reviewed journal issued by the Taiwan-based Chinese Institute of Design (read more here).

Jonas Löwgren wrote an article on fluency to illustrate the experiential qualities of digital products and services. Fluency “refers to the degree of gracefulness with which the user deals with multiple demands for her attention and action, particularly in augmented spaces where the user moves through shifting ecologies of people, physical objects, and digital media.”

There are also articles on sound as part of the overall experience of a product’s expression, tools for including user-interaction in materials selection, lead-user innovation in the design-based outdoor clothing and equipment sector in the northwest of the United Kingdom, and on artistic inquiry as a means to inform interdisciplinary research.