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" »
I recently read a really interesting article in The Economist titled “The driverless road ahead” by Schumpeter.
It talks of the future of the car (and other vehicles) as being automatic with no need for human control. Although Schumpeter mentions that Google, who are developing technology for driverless cars, predicts this revolution will take a decade to happen, it got me thinking about what this would mean for the user experience.
Image credit: Alan Cleaver
Drivers would now take on the role of passengers, with their minds free to be entertained. The inside of the car could become a multi-media centre for passengers to kill time during their journey. This would have to be more entertaining than the in-car DVD players that are currently use to distract kids in the back seat. I envisage this as similar to the internet TV that has recently come on to the market, allowing users to play games, watch films, browse the internet, but also send emails and make phone calls for the more business minded passenger. With this in mind, how users interact with this in-car media hub will need some thought. Perhaps a new remote control will have to be designed for users to control the TV from the comfort of their seats, but also, the whole interior of the car could be redesigned to be more like the passenger area of a plane (first class!).
In addition, to thinking about the ‘in-drive’ user experience, passengers will also have to have some way of programming the car to take them to location they’d like to go to. It’s likely that this system would be used numerous times a day and potentially by different members of the family, something more intuitive and easier to use than the SatNav systems we have today would have to be designed.
If it will take at least a decade to get to the point of the using driverless cars, we have time to design the systems and consider the user experience, but the future of a phenomenon that hasn't changed a great deal for a century is definitely something to think about.
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!
Hands off!I took the kids to an exhibition at the weekend, which was full of screens playing animated videos (see below). At first I panicked when my kids touched almost every screen (ok, and sometimes hit), worried that they might break them, but then I noticed they weren’t alone, lots of people were doing it, adults and kids.
On a recent business trip to Brussels the absence of litter in the train stations and public spaces was quite evident.
After arriving on the Eurostar and then taking a separate local train a potential reason became clear. The design of the bins makes it really simple for the public to dispose of rubbish and readily organise it in different bins to make recycling paper, glass, plastics etc easier.
I was shopping for shirts recently and came across an interesting decision making aid in the form of three hooks neatly arranged in the male dressing room.
Continue reading "Thoughtful design can help shoppers make decisions" »
Gelupo describe themselves as ‘the finest artisan gelato experience this side of the alps’ and I definitely agree. I love Gelupo! Since it open last June I’ve been through at least 9 loyalty cards and I go there so often that my friends describe it as my local pub.
The ice cream is delicious and the sorbets are so good that you can just count them as part of the normal ice cream selection (rather than the boring low calorie relatives) but it’s not just the ice cream that is good. The whole experience of eating at Gelupo is great.
I visited my local Argos at the weekend, when collecting my product there was a customer feedback terminal positioned on the collection counter (see image). There were five questions on the terminal, each were quite wordy questions, with 5 ratings per question. I was only at the counter for 6 secs just to pick my product up; I didn't even have time to read the first question before I was on my way out the door (although I did have time to take a quick snap!). I was curious to see if other customers would have the time and interest to use the customer feedback terminal, so I waited and watched 8 customers go to the counter and collect their products. Not one person even took a second glance at the terminal.
Continue reading "'The customer is always right' - but are they bothered?" »
Patient journeys - the importance of the door handle complaint...When you walk in to my doctor’s office in Tooting, you are greeted with an overwhelming number of signs – what not to touch, when and where and how to exercise, what to eat, what not to drink – but the one that irks me is in CAPITALS:
“PLEASE SEE YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT ONE ISSUE ONLY.”
This sign harms the ability of the doctor to treat the “door handle complaint.”
Continue reading "Patient journeys - the importance of the door handle complaint..." »
For me a hospital environment isn't usually a happy place. I imagine dreary walls, a quiet, dull, sterile environment, strange smells, boredom of waiting, and more waiting, pain... or is that just me?
However, I recently visited the nicest hospital I've ever been to and for someone like me, who's often waiting whilst another person has treatment, I found enough to do to keep me occupied and remove my worries!
