Time magazine published a photo essay on what the world eats, with images of the weekly shop of families from around the world.

Tagged: Interesting articles

Adobe’s ‘Design Centre / Think Tank’ has published Dori Tunstall’s article ‘Design anthropology: What can it add to your design practice?’ a ‘must read’ for people interested in learning about how design anthropology can bring benefits to the design process.

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The June issue of the Harvard Business Review has a good article (Design Thinking) by Tim Brown of IDEO.  It’s encouraging to see an emphasis placed on ‘human-centred’ thinking within the design process.  Some of the key characteristics of design thinkers include: empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism and collaboration.

The article can be downloaded from IDEO’s site.

Tagged: Design thinking

A short article (Real Times, Real Lives) I wrote which was published in Finnish design journal Arttu.

Tagged: Ethnography, Research Method and user research

Several interesting articles/papers on transformation design:

Kevin McCullagh, founder of Plan: ‘Transformation Design,’ Blueprint.

Red, Design Council: Red Paper 02 Tranformation Design.

Tagged: Transformation design

Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge has a short publication written by Professor Lynda M. Applegate on how ‘disruptive’ forces of change in the business environment can be used as a platform to help ‘jump start innovation’. Some of the forces of change noted in the article include:

• Technology
• Business models
• Industry dynamics
• Globalisation
• Outsourcing and off-shoring
• Regulatory, macroeconomic, political and societal

Read more on the Working Knowledge website.

Tagged: Innovation

Anthropologists Go Native in the Corporate Village. Fast Company looks at anthropologists working in the commercial world, including anthropologists at Intel and General Motors.

Nokia’s Design Research for Everyone. Jan Chipchase who works for Nokia is interviewed in Business Week about how behavourial research helps to shape Nokia’s design strategies. Jan Chipchase also has his own website, Future Perfect, with a number of interesting presentations.

Mobile Communication Transforms Rural India: Nokia. The EFY Times reports on the role which ethnographic research played in helping Nokia to identify business opportunities for mobile communication tools in rural

Tagged: Reading

Some interesting articles:

Every Move You Make. Fast Company briefly examines the work undertaken by Emma Gilding at Ogilvy & Mather. Ethnography is one of the approaches which the team at Ogilvy & Mather have adopted to understand the everyday life experiences of people.

How To Build A Better Product—Study People. Anthropology Moves From The Classroom To The Corporation. PC Magazine looks at the role anthropology plays at Intel and Microsoft in terms of developing new products.

Ethnography and Health Care. The British Medical Journal argues for the greater use of ethnography in the field of health care.

Tagged: Ethnography, Reading and user research