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China Design Readings Trend Watching

[EVENT] IxDA Shanghai presents “Metaphor Brainstorming” Workshop with Chauncey Wilson: JANUARY 21ST, 2010, 6:30PM

Metaphor brainstorming is most useful during the early stages of design for developing conceptual models, generating requirements, and early user interface design where you are specifying the relationship between features and specific user interface metaphors. In this workshop, Chauncey Wilson will:

1. Describe the metaphor brainstorming process;
2. Explain how take the output and convert that into requirements and design concepts;

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Design Innovation

Interaction Design Association (IxDA) 2010 Global Student Competition: THE FINALISTS

I recently took part on the jury of the first IxDA Global Student Design competition, which had over 40 entries, representing university programs in Australia, China, Columbia, Denmark, India, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Of those many entries, five have earned a full scholarship to Interaction10 conference […]

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China Consumer Behavior Economics Information Technology Trend Watching

e-Commerce in China: online sales boomed in 2009

Online sales in China almost doubled in the first nine months of last year, official data showed recently, as China becomes more switched on and the younger generation of shoppers bare more confident in Internet shopping […]

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Design Innovation Inspiration

Listen to Ed Catmull’s “Pixar’s Collective Genius” talk, for Harvard Business Review

Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull exemplifies the greatest form of leadership: empowering others to achieve the extraordinary. People tend to think of creativity as a mysterious solo act, and they typically reduce products to a single idea: This is a movie about toys, or dinosaurs, or love, they’ll say. However, in filmmaking and many other kinds of complex product development, creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems. Ed Catmul is an unpretentious man. He doesn’t like to talk about how he performs his job as president of Pixar and (since a 2006 merger) Disney Animation Studios. But the article and accompanying podcast shed light on his exceptional leadership qualities […]

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Design Trend Watching

Watch Steven Pinker’s “Language and Thought” talk at TED

In an exclusive preview of his book The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker looks at language and how it expresses what goes on in our minds — and how the words we choose communicate much more than we realize […]

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Design Information Technology Innovation Software Trend Watching

Watch Ted Selker’s “Context Aware Computing” Seminar on People, Computers, and Design at Stanford University

Humans work to understand and react to each others intentions. The context aware computing group at the MIT Media lab has demonstrated that across most aspects of our life, computers can do this too. The groups demonstrations range from car to office kitchen to and even bed. The goal is to show that human intentions can be recognized considered and responded to appropriately by computer systems. This talk demonstrates that Artificial intelligence can competently Improve human-computer interaction with systems and even each other in a myriad of natural scenarios […]

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Design Innovation Software Trend Watching

Watch Ben Shneiderman’s “Science 2.0: The Design Science of Collaboration” Seminar on People, Computers, and Design at Stanford University

Advancing Science 2.0 will require a shift in priorities to promote intense collaboration, integrative thinking, teamwork-based education/training, and case study ethnographic research methods. Science 2.0 will reduce the gulf between basic and applied research, while bringing theory and practice closer together. This talk lays out an ambitious vision that will impact research funding, educational practices, and democratic principles […]

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China Consumer Behavior Economics Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: Beijing tops the Chinese Nouveau Riche list

Recently the Hurun Research Institute published the 2009 Chinese Nouveau Riche Consumption Standard Report on the new rich in six cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Shenyang; and the winner is: […]

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Design Innovation

Watch Marc Rettig’s “How to Change Complicated Stuff” talk at IxDA | Interaction ’09 Conference

In this talk Marc Rettig offers insights into the question “what is it like to actually achieve a meaningful, sustainable, positive difference in life?”, drawing lessons from a number of serious, heartfelt attempts to affect change. The work we have all done in recent decades has prepared us to take on much bigger challenges. The foundations of design remain powerfully effective. That said, there are ways in which “designing for change” requires additions to our inventory of methods, and transformations in the way we plan and conduct our work […]

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Design Information Technology Innovation Software Trend Watching

Watch Jonathan Harris’ “the Web’s secret stories” talk at TED

Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the emotional world of the Web. With deep compassion for the human condition, his projects troll the Internet to find out what we’re all feeling and looking for […]