Tag: PDD
Technology in Sport: competitive edge or unfair advantage?
Technology Doping is a relatively new term, but it’s of paramount importance in the world of sport. It refers to the unfair advantages an athlete or team may gain from technology. With London2012 finally upon us we ask the question – where does competitive edge stop and unfair advantage begin?
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The Potential (Burden) of Knowledge
Will the future of personalised healthcare depend on genome sequencing? Probably, but there are strings attached.
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Medical Device Usability
Last week Polly Shelton, one of PDD’s Human Sciences consultants, spoke at theLEG (London Ergonomics Group) and UKUPA (Usability Professionals’ Association) event at UCL’s Interaction Centre.
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Digitisation has made it OK for us to talk to our (future) selves.
Of course, with a new year comes a new hope, a hope that we’re going to be a better, more organised and fulfilled version of our self in the future. It was with these thoughts earlier in January I started to think about the instantaneousness of our modern lives.
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The Importance of Being Purple
Our Studio Manager Jamie-Lee talks about the often irrational desires that drive product choices and asks that she as a purple-loving consumer be remembered during the design process.
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Sounds and sights of the Samba: Top 10 observations of Sao Paulo – Things you might or might not know.
Following a recent business trip to the wonderful city of Sao Paulo, my colleague (Alex Crook – Human Sciences Consultant) and I decided that we wanted to pull together our top 10 most interesting facts, observations and insights. The following article gives you a flavour of some of our favourite things. Enjoy!
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Part 3 in PDD’s cultural observations in Japan series: (pink) cuties
PDD Designer, Researcher and unofficial in-house Visual Ethnographer, James Steiner, recently went to Japan working on a project for one of our Asian clients. In what will be a three piece blog series, we will look a bit closer at some of the cultural distinctions that are manifested in the everyday design of Japan.
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The opposing sciences of packaging
Living in the midst of the financial crisis we have become more discerning consumers and are continually looking for new ways to be excited through packaging and innovation whilst simultaneously being led by product claims , ‘the science bit’ has a lot to answer for. We look into the two sides of the story.
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Midcentury Modern: A different kind of furniture fair
The foggy morn of 20th November saw me scraping the ice from my windscreen and hobbling over to Dulwich College to take a look at design wonders of the past at the extensive Midcentury Modern show.
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PDD Director of Medical Alun Wilcox speaks up for the consumer at the Financial Times Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference
As the coalition government announces an alliance between the NHS and life sciences companies, it is important now more than ever to consider the end user. Our Director of Medical Alun Wilcox was invited to sit on the Consumer Healthcare panel at the Financial Times’ Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference last week.
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Part 2 in PDD’s cultural observations in Japan series: Cleanliness
PDD Designer, Researcher and unofficial in-house Visual Ethnographer, James Steiner, recently went to Japan working on a project for one of our Asian clients. In what will be a three piece blog series, we will look a bit closer at some of the cultural distinctions that are manifested in the everyday design of Japan.
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Brands are pulling your heart-strings
Brands are purposefully pulling on our heart strings by giving consumers a fast-forwarded take on history. Advertising in particular is using the ability to reminisce as a powerful marketing tool. For example, the 3rd washing machine in the John Lewis advert above conjures up memories of a particularly sticky drawer that was really hard to open thanks to the congealed washing powder residue left in the roller fittings.
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PDD’s 12 gifts of Christmas
Here at PDD we’re a pretty diverse lot and of course we’ve got quite particular tastes. So naturally, to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas we’ve put together a list of our dream gifts and why they would mean so much to us…pretty please Santa!
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Consumer electronics and the future of engaging the senses: an ergonomist’s perspective.
After reading Bret Victor’s provocative post on the future of interaction designI’ve been mulling it over. Bret discusses the current trend for ‘pictures under glass’ interaction, giving a disproportionate focus on visual stimulation while ignoring the wonderful capabilities of the human hand to feel and manipulate things.
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The medical consumer
I recently watched a TED talk by Joseph Pine entitled ‘What Consumers Want’ (2004), where he talks about an “important change to the very fabric of a modern economy” and takes us through the evolution of ‘economic value’. The journey begins with a commodity-based economy, advances to a goods-based economy, and then progresses to a service-orientated economy. He points out that as a population we are moving past pairing economic value with services delivery, to regarding experiences as the “predominant economic offering”.
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The way we live now: Looking back at the career of game-changing British designer Sir Terence Conran
Today sees the opening of the Design Museums dedication to Sir Terence Conran, a retrospective exhibition entitled The Way We Live Now – PDD took a first look at the preview…
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Rapid ethnography, brain food and Human-Centred Design from LUMA Institute and PDD
This past July, the LUMA Institute and PDD conducted a 2-day Human-Centred Design (HCD) Workshop in London. The workshop was not only a great opportunity for the thirteen participants to learn hands-on HCD methods that they could use immediately in their companies, but also a chance for me to focus on two recent obsessions: finding ways to provide meaningful rapid-ethnography experiences, and experimenting with brains.
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People Made: Looking back at the influence of Nokia
On approach to the Design Museum I didn’t really know what to expect from the Nokia ‘People Made’ exhibition that was shown a very short run over last weekend.
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