Putting people first

New Philips phone for the elderly

Experientia — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:40:38 +0000

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.”

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Designing financial services for the poor

Experientia — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:21:45 +0000

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.

Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium 2010

Experientia — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:23:42 +0000

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-Sonsino, Adam Greenfield, Liz Goodman, Usman Haque, Tom Igoe, Natalie 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.

Live at Interaction’10: day 2

Experientia — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:21:09 +0000

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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Live at Interaction’10: day 1

Experientia — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:46:12 +0000

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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5 ways techno-gadgetry is bringing out the worst in humanity

Experientia — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:34:25 +0000

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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Digital Nation, in-depth documentary, online in full

Experientia — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:04:04 +0000

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.)

The Internet of things: Networked objects and smart devices

Experientia — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:20:24 +0000

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)

Europeans’ Privacy will be big challenge in next decade, says EU Commissioner

Experientia — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:52:38 +0000

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.”

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(via eGov monitor)

Stowe Boyd: outdated UX metaphors are holding us back

Experientia — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:35:02 +0000

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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Nokia’s introduction to user experience

Experientia — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:22:41 +0000

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.

Ethnographic research could make Google more relevant in China

Experientia — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:35:45 +0000

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:

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.

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.

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.

Google is primarily used by highly educated netizens. And even these users prefer Google.COM over Google.CN.

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)

Front book vs back book pricing: a service design challenge

Experientia — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:32:55 +0000

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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Upcoming service design conference in Sweden

Experientia — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:10:29 +0000

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.

Urban sensing via mobile phones, an ARUP project

Experientia — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:59:23 +0000

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.

Approach – Hardware – Sensing