Tag: PDD
Reimagining Education
Last month I had the pleasure of going to see Salman Khan, Founder of the Khan Academy, talk at London School of Economics. In this article I take a look at the principles of this new teaching phenomenon and what it might mean for the future of the classroom.
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English is Pink
I’ve never been very good at languages: At school, I preferred the absolute nature of the physical sciences to remembering irregular verbs and sometimes-illogical pronunciations that the linguists thrived on. Later on I went to evening classes to learn German and found to my dismay this language has an apparently-random assignment of masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. English, in comparison seems simple – for those of us who were brought up with it as their mother tongue!
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Planes to Pains: Human factors taking off in healthcare
When I graduated with a BSc in Ergonomics (Human Factors Design) in 2011, it was clear that the subject is neither widely known nor greatly recognised, in fact I am constantly corrected that I did Economics at University. However, it was also apparent that certain industries placed great value in the area I had studied for three years; these were mainly energy, rail, aviation and defence – all big industries with a lot to lose if something were to go catastrophically wrong. It is therefore baffling to think the same attention to human factors isn’t apparent in healthcare.
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Is safety regulation stopping us from designing easy-to-use medical devices?
Whilst perusing the web to stay abreast of current affairs in the medical device usability world, I came across an interesting topic with regards to the regulated and unregulated components of usability work in the sector. We have on the one hand the regulatory requirement to develop devices that are safe and effective, free from potentially harmful use errors. Whilst on the other hand, we have the desire to create great user and patient experiences through devices that are appealing and easy-to-use. However, the tension between the two components can mean that we, as usability practitioners, get so distracted with regulatory issues that other characteristics of usability become neglected within the device user interface.
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Survival of the fittest: The future of retail spaces
According to a survey by Mintel, 92% of internet users in the UK have shopped online. This has increased by 16% in the last year and since the recession in 2008 high street retailers have had a tough time competing with cheaper and more convenient online shopping. As a result, 1 in 7 shops on the UK high-street are now empty. In this blog post I will be talking about how online shopping could become more dominant and what will replace these retail spaces.
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Avoid epic customer-engagement failures by applying Human-Centred Design
In all the excitement surrounding new technologies and the rush to ‘be the first’ to use them, it’s easy to forget the people who will be interacting with them. To avoid epic failures, it pays to employ a few HCD tools.
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Designing the fashion retail space for store employees
We often hear and talk about the need for retail spaces to be designed to create the best shopping experience for consumers, but what about designing retail spaces for the store employees? Having briefly had a taste of what it is like to work in a high street fashion retailer, I have to admit I was struck by the poor back-store layout and how it affects the employees’ work.
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A tale of 3 cities: Fashion & retail
After a busy month of trotting around the globe, Design Insight Consultant Rosie Brodhurst-Hooper has put together a series of posts examining the key cultural differences in public hygiene, art& culture, public transportation and her favourite, fashion& retail.
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Reflections: A Lighting Trend
Having recently been to see the Light show at the Hayward Gallery, London, I am reminded of a trend I am seeing more and more of these days – reflected light. Like the artists in the show, lighting designers have recently been playing with light as the critical source material and focus of an object.
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What fracking energy crisis?
Energy is one of the major topics for this century. In this post, Matt talks through the energy potential of hydrocarbons and how our reliance on maintaining existing infrastructures is stopping progression in newer, renewable resources.
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Is a patent a must-have for protecting your product idea?
The numbers are telling; patent applications filed in the United States have risen every year since 1978 – and rising quickly. Submissions have doubled since 1998 to over a staggering half a million applications. In this blog, I’ll discuss this and other valuable insights into what inventors and designers need to know about the world of patents.
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Is Art the new Business?
At PDD we were all wowed by the artistry of the Olympics opening ceremony, and marvel at the Manet exhibition currently running at the Royal Academy of Arts – as well as admiring good product design. Hands up those of us who have chosen to buy something, not through necessity or on the basis of cold logic, but because the item exuded style and connected with us emotionally (perhaps in product terms the likes of Apple and Bang & Olufsen exploit this to best advantage)!
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Rapid empathy
“You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.
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Medical Device Usability Engineering, a first-hand perspective
I’ve only been at PDD a matter of months as a Human Factors and Usability consultant, but to say that my feet have barely touched the ground, would be an understatement. I’ve travelled to four different countries, and observed 100 participants. In this article, I take a look at why going into the field is so important in identifying device development opportunities…
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Using immersion in the hospital environment to identify innovation opportunities
A global medical device company recently approached PDD with a request to identify product innovation opportunities*. Our human-centred approach for such projects typically involves full immersion in the environment of the user and this project was no different. In this post, I will share some of my experiences of working in the hospital environment, the techniques used, and just generally what I enjoyed from my time in the field.
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The homophonous obsession in Chinese New Year ‘Foodition’
As Chinese New Year is approaching; we decided to talk about the obsession of homophonous (all things related to good fortune and auspicious) during Chinese New Year.
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CMF Trend: Transparent Colour
As we long for sunny spring days the injection of colour in our interiors is increasingly prevalent; an antidote to the grey and white of winter weather. In this post we take a look at an emerging trend in the world of furniture design – colour transparency.
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Good enough to eat
There is a phrase “it looks so good you could eat it”, but are there times where this idea goes a step too far? Or are there lessons to be learnt when it comes to product design? In this post I take a look at the force that is food.
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