Having gotten dangerously obsessed with chairs during our recent studio build, we're loving what we've seen so far of this unique office chair, designed by Steelcase. The Gesture Chair has been designed to support our present day interactions with the various technologies - be that tablets, smartphones, ereaders, laptops or pcs.
Continue reading "The Gesture Chair: Designed to support users' tech interactions" »
Our new studio - The Insight Lab - is up and running and ready to welcome you! We wanted to share some pictures, and also our thinking behind this new space.
Continue reading "Welcome to our new research studio - The Insight Lab!" »
Was interested to see this on FastCoDesign: Infographic: The Intricate Anatomy Of UX Design.
Like the author, I was at first preoccupied with the 'missing' disciplines, but after that I got thinking about how important it is to get the right mix in a user experience team - in background, formal education and experience.
Continue reading "Why you need variety to build the best User Experience team" »
A few of the ExperienceLab team spent an enjoyable afternoon at the Healthbox Europe Innovation Day yesterday. Founded in Chicago in early 2012, Healthbox is an incubator designed to empower healthcare entrepreneurs, and yesterdays event marked the end of 3 months hard work for the 7 shortlisted startups:
Continue reading " Healthbox Innovation Day: empowering entrepreneurs in healthcare" »
We're very excited to announce that the walls of ExperienceLab's new studio space have gone up, and we are on course to open the doors later on this year!
The new studio will be a flexible, energising and creative space which will complement our exisiting studios and offer an exciting new space for research sessions, workshops, team building and more!
As you can see we're all rolling up our sleeves to help with the decorating, so watch this space!
Simon Herd, one of our Research Directors, has headed off to Johannesburg, South Africa this week to take part in the UXMasterclass and biannual UXalliance partners meeting. I caught up with him before he left to find out more about what's happening…
Like many avid gamers, the ExperienceLab team are counting their pennies and heading down to the shops this morning for the launch of the PlayStation® Vita (we couldn't manage the midnight run to the Oxford Street Game store).
We were lucky enough to have a sneak peek of the Facebook app when we supported Sony's user testing recently and can't wait to get our hands on the real thing.
We'll be posting our initial impressions over the next few days, so watch this space….
Image credit: GameZone
Yesterday London Travelwatch, the watchdog for transport users, published '10 policies to keep Londoners moving', a set of guidelines urging mayoral candidates to put the customer at the centre of public transport policies.
Amongst the suggestions - such as providing longer trains more often, improved information, a fair deal for customers - what caught my eye and that of other bloggers such as Going Underground were recommendations to make transport more accessible and joined up for elderly, disabled and less able users.
Having experienced London Transport as a mother to be, and latterly as a mother with buggy and toddler I have some limited experience of travelling encumbered. For me lack of lifts/escalators, overcrowding on buses and tubes, inaccessible bus stops, and lack of any available staff to lend a helping hand make journeys around the capitial a drag. And even with tools such as Get ahead of the Games the idea of travelling during the Olympic Games this year brings me out in a cold sweat...I can therefore only imagine the issues facing customers with disabilities.
So it's really pleasing to see this customer-focussed thinking being published. We can but hope that these guidelines are taken to heart by prospective mayoral candidates.
A couple of weeks ago we were very privileged to host senior officers from local authorities and Serco at ExperienceLab's offices in Holborn. The discussion, hosted by LGC editor Emma Maier, focussed on the issue of innovation in service design and delivery.
A number of exciting ideas for future exploration were discussed such as the importance of moving from data to insight, of uncovering the unspoken needs and desires of users, and the possibilities of playful design in service delivery.
Read the full article "Ten Steps to Transformation" at the LGC website.
As part of our activities to celebrate World Usability Day 2011 ExperienceLab and the UXalliance have published a report looking at cultural aspects of usability testing in UXalliance countries.
Drawing on expertise from over 20 partner countries, the report covers planning and running sessions, how to interpret the results and pitfalls to avoid when testing in a country other than your own.
View the report here! Download Cultural-differences-in-usability-testing
Special thanks to our partners at Optimal Experience and Optimal Usability for putting this together, and all the UXalliance partners for their input!
For more articles and publications on global user research, visit www.globaluserresearch.com.
