|
FUTURELAB |
Home - Services - About us - Team - Business and Games Blog - Publications |
To find out more about Futurelab: Click here
For our other blog on Business and Games, Click here
by: Karl Long
It's funny, I would suggest that Apple and Google probably have very different design processes and certainly a very different culture so what is the common denominator?
Continue reading "Apple, Google and Everyone Else - Who Owns the Customer Experience?" »
Continue reading "Baby Pictures Really Do Grab Our Attention" »
by: Idris Mootee
Companies that are squeezed by low cost competitors and channel proliferations are looking to ways to add value to their brands and products. Fancy packaging will not do the job as it adds cost and creates more waste. The best way out is to look to "design" to create a higher level of aesthetic sophistication and emotive elements for the brand.
Continue reading "Are You Ready for the Coming "Feminitization of Everyday Objects"?" »
Something tells me that this visual shouldn't require additional explanation. :-)by: Idris Mootee
There is so much hype around innovation, (including customer inspired innovation) and ethnography these days almost every research firm is telling you that they do ethnography and every design firm is an innovation firm.
Continue reading "Since When Has Everyone Become an Ethnographic Expert!" »
Continue reading "Russian Gmail Ad: Killer Paper Prototyping" »
by: Idris Mootee
I was often asked the question of what "design thinking" has to do with business strategy. When talked about "design thinking" people refer to aesthetics (mainly high stlye design or usability) and generally they cannot relate to strategy (strategy means spreadsheet).
Continue reading "10 Design Thinking Principles for Strategic Business Innovation" »
by: David Polinchock
While readers of this blog will know that the ideas in this article are at the core of why the Brand Experience Lab exists, but it's always good to see other people thinking the same way. Especially when the author is with the Boston Consulting Group and yo know that this is coming from a business POV. I have excerpts here, but click on the link for the full article.
Here's a counter-intuitive thought: Shoppers with less information about a product are happier than those with more information. Researchers at the Tippie College of Business came to this conclusion after conducting a study in which people were asked their opinions of chocolate and hand lotion.
Continue reading "If You Want Customers to Be Happy, Give Them Less Product Information" »
by: David Armano
As a self-proclaimed synthesizer, I'm always on the lookout for patterns. There were lots of them at Interaction 08 which just wrapped up over the weekend. The first pattern was the obvious--everyone there seemed to experience a type of "euphoria" which came from the realization of what they are.
by: Idris Mootee
We're playing with the new MacBook Air in the office today and we all appreciate what Apple put into this machine. Apple is no question a company that focuses not on its product, but on innovation.
Continue reading "Productivity and the Design + Usability Culture" »
by: David Armano
While I still have great appreciation and admiration for the field of graphic design--the simple fact is that I have a tough time relating to many aspects of it. I haven't looked at an an issue of Communication Arts in years and AIGA becomes less relevant to me as digital media continues to evolve.
Continue reading "Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World" »
by: Idris Mootee
It is not easy to break through the clutter of the hundreds of competing products out there and some wonder if differentiation is even possible. That's the reason why some of the greatest brands of the world are coming to us for innovation. Innovation is the only way to break out of the commodity cycle.
Continue reading "Three Simple Concepts for DIY Innovation" »
by: Guy Kawasaki
All hail Garr Reynolds! He has written the definitive book about making great presentations: Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)
. To give you a taste of his book (and increase my link count), here are ten questions (really thirteen) with Garr.
by: Yann Gourvennec
Very often, I hear people say that you have to make your end-user’s lives easier to generate a marketing success. However paved with good intentions this statement may be, I did ask myself the question whether making users’ live easier is a sustainable marketing argument for the development of a business.
Continue reading "Is User-friendliness a Sure Marketing Bet?" »
by: David Armano
Meet David Lee King. David's a librarian. David's interested in transforming the library experience. He's also interested in Experience Design—specifically, Digital Experience Design.
Continue reading "Digital Experience Design + A New Book From David Lee King" »
by: Scott Goodson
A friend of mine Anne from Helsinki wrote a wonderful description about the spectacular styling and profiling found in the nordic capital of Helsinki. There is something incredible happening up there that I've never seen before. It's not London or Paris or even Tokyo, it's something far more interesting and distinctive.
Have a peak...
I
had just finished giving a talk about youth culture to a room full of
professionals who worked in the retail industry when a woman raised her
hand to tell me a story. It was homecoming season and her daughter Mary
was going to go to homecoming for the first time. What fascinated this
mother was that her daughter's approach to shopping was completely
different than her own.Continue reading "Technology and the World of Consumption" »
by: C. Sven Johnson
Here’s a quick note to call attention to something that might be of interest: Another avatar fabbing outfit has set up shop. Most of you are probably already aware of Fabjectory, the service that’s been “3D printing” Second Life avatars and objects for the last year or so. Well now there’s a service available for fabbing World of Warcraft game characters.
Rio
de Janeiro is the most spectacular city in the world against any
criteria. Mine include "views" (Rio scores 100%), "Music" (again Rio
gets the highest marks), “Beaches” (Impenema and Copacabana!). And
“Beautiful women” (ok, ok it's a little chauvinistic but true
none-the-less!), again Rio gets full marks. But something else is
incredible about Rio, and it’s something you may least expect –
graffiti.Continue reading "Street Graffitti - Another Reason to Visit Rio de Janeiro" »
Continue reading "Cosmetic Neurology: Brain-Boosting Drugs" »
Continue reading "remix culture and fair use: a new study" »
Continue reading "The Cooling of Russian Design, Web and Advertising" »
{Update: It’s great to see an entry like the one I came across on Kim Pallister’s blog yesterday (Link). I’d learned about Build-A-Bear Workshop sometime last Summer iirc [Note: as I thought… on Raph Koster’s blog - Link], and my thoughts then were very much the same as what he details in his post, and pretty much follow the kinds of things I’ve been discussing here in other entries.
Continue reading "A Few 2008 Predictions (Not Exhaustive) and Happy New Year to You All!" »
Update:
I'm having a real-time Twitter conversation with Adweek's Brian Morrissey who, as an avid runner is not a fan of the site and offers this opinion:
"the content is one-size-fits-all lame, the redirect to forums sucks out loud and it's still nike talking at me."
Continue reading "All I Want for X-MAS is a Better X-perience" »
