Posts in Inspirations
Experience before products
Experience before products

For many in business, designing the experience before the product seems a weird thing to ask for. In the end, it is all about computers, mobile phones, game consoles, or washing machines – concrete products addressing concrete tasks. Yes, they should look and feel good, but, hey, working, talking, playing, washing is what people do and we provide products to do so. It is all about the product. This is at best "self-absorbed" as David Grzelak pointed out in his a brief opinion on Advertising Age. I would call it ignorant.

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Inspirations, OpinionsMarc Hassenzahlmarketing, user experience
Drumming for the better co-experience
Drumming for the better co-experience

In their semester abroad at the Helsinki University of Art and Design, Kai Eckoldt and Benjamin Schulz (supervised by Ilpo Koskinen) set out to create social experiences in a car. In one of their projects, they hacked a little drum computer, put the touch sensors at various places, such as floor mats, the steering wheel, seats, and hooked up the sound chip to the car's stereo. Have a look at the video, and watch what can happen:

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InspirationsMarc Hassenzahlcar interior, experience design, human-computer interaction, interaction design, user experience
Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology

User Experience is about happiness and well-being. As I wrote elsewhere: "Usability wants us to die rich, UX wants us to die happy." In that sense, Experience Design is about designing interventions, which make people feel better - or happier? - or make their lives more meaningful? - or less miserable? You get it ... this is where the trouble starts.

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InspirationsMarc Hassenzahlexperience design, human-computer interaction, interaction design, positive psychology, user experience
Billow’s Feeding Machine (Figure 5.1, page 60)
Billow’s Feeding Machine (Figure 5.1, page 60)

The intellectual roots of HCI are work science, work psychology, and ergonomics. All those disciplines were basically triggered by a more or less economically-driven demand for an improved workplace (Karwowski,W., 2006). One strategy was to select and train people to increase work performance, the other to adapt workplace design, machines and so forth to the skills and capabilities of workers. In this context, efficiency and effectiveness was clearly an institutional and not a personal goal. Better performance equaled more money. The human was viewed as a necessary, but yet improvable part of the system.

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InspirationsMarc Hassenzahlautomation, experience design, human-computer interaction, interaction design, user experience