Interaction design for Africa: Lessons from the Vrroom closet

Yesterday I met Gary Marsden, from the University of Capetown’s Computer Science department. Gary is one of the conference organisers for DIS 2008, which will be taking place in Cape Town just before Design Indaba, next February. The whole thing promises to be a really interesting chance to think about design in the context of …

Delta airlines – now serving lemons?

In a recent post I said that I would buy into Delta Airlines’ hyped new customer experience improvements for one trial run. If they delivered a superior experience, as promised, then great. If not then I’d know it was all branding hype. Well Bruce Nussbaum has done the legwork for me. He went on a …

Why a Nokia is easier to use than a Sony Ericsson

So. Regular readers will remember that I just got myself a Sony Ericsson K800i after a lifetime of Nokia devotion. My wife just got a new Nokia 6300 and is ecstatic about it. I like my Sony Ericsson K800i very much because it looks good and feels good. But the interaction is a bit bonkers. …

Delta airlines – now serving cheese?

If you never had the experience of travelling Delta, count yourself lucky. It was austere and souless as only an old american corporation can be. They’ve rebranded with a natty, new, all red, 3D logo. And their new site welcomes suggestions and tips from travellers in an effort to collect ‘easy-win’ ideas such as onboard …

Comparing the blogosphere to the stock market

I was thinking the other day about the similarities between the blogosphere and the stock market. Back in the 17th century, people were pretty excited about the radical new concept of stockmarkets – and rightly so. They are fascinating things and present all sorts of opportunity to everyone. (Read Niel Stephenson’s Quicksilver, if you’ve got …

Innovation – a long term approach that saves time

From the Nussbaum on Design blog at Business Week… “…thinking about it in terms of “one-off” innovation (get me another iPod> quick!) doesn’t make your company innovative. But thinking about The Discipline of Innovation–and what that implies in terms of building a culture and organization–does.” Absolutely! Brilliant innovations don’t just appear from nowhere. They can …

Ubuntu: Is Linux is crossing the chasm?

BBC News says that Dell are going to start shipping consumer desktops with Ubuntu linux on them. For ordinary people to use. I think this is cool because the geek in my loves unix and the dad in me has no time to actually configure unix boxes to do useful things. But it made me …