"Flow" and the User Experience

While reading the book "Interaction Design" by Sharp, Preece, Rogers, I found quoted the work of Prof. Csikszentmihalyi on the concept of "flow" as a driver for understanding the user experience in sites (or in specific kinds of sites).
Here's the original interview (back in 1996) of Prof. Csikszentmihalyi on wired.com
>>>> According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, great Web sites are not about navigating content, but staging experience ...read on >>>

Welcome to the Weekend Web

>>>>>> (from BusinessWeek) During the week, Americans run Google and Yahoo searches at work and compose blogs on MySpace and Facebook. The PC Web's fastest-growing site categories include pharmacies, food, cosmetics, and job search, according to comScore. During weekends, we fire up our smartphones for fun. The fastest-growing mobile-Web categories relate to weather, entertainment, games, and music, according to comScore. Read on >>>>>

No cash in sight for Web 2.0 (from Financial Times)

A year on, the much-talked of “widget economy” has failed to take off. >>>>>

The shortage of revenue among social networks, blogs and other “social media” sites that put user-generated content and communications at their core has persisted despite more than four years of experimentation aimed at turning such sites into money-makers. >>>>>

Top manager talks as "hologram" at employees conference

Telepresence via hologram is a reality --->>>>

Davide's Seminar at City University (London) on Usability and Bioinformatics

On May 2, 2008, I have been hosted by Prof. Neil Maiden at the Centre for HCI Design at City University, London, to give a talk on my current research on usability issues and redesigns for bioinformatics web applications.
Here you can enjoy the slides of the talk:

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Stanford class on exploring persuasive applications for Facebook

I recently received the newsletter from BJ Fogg from the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford, and I discovered they had an interesting class with students designing applications for Facebook, as a way to explore ans study the potential of persuasive technologies in social network environment... >>>>>

Further interesting collection of docs on Persuasive Technologies from the lab:
>>>>

Persuasive Technology Conference 2008

The Third International Conference on Persuasive Technology
PERSUASIVE 2008
June 4-6, 2008 -- Oulu, Finland
www.persuasive2008.org

Opening Wednesday June 4, 2008 at 8:30 AM at Hotel Lasaretti. Register at www.persuasive2008.org.

Persuasive Technology 2008 will gather people interested in how software and related technologies influence people's attitudes and behaviours.

This conference will also feature the best new insights into how web sites, video games, and mobile phones and other applications can be designed to motivate and persuade people.

The conference will highlight new knowledge in the understanding and designing of persuasive technology. The event will bring together researchers, practitioners, and industry professionals interested in this important new field.

Example topics:
– Well-being and health behaviour
– Motivational technology
– Smart environments
– Persuasive games
– Web2.0
– Social networks
– Mobile persuasion
– Ethics and methodology
– Self-persuasion and timing
– Knowledge and organization
– Theory for persuasive technology

Keynote Speakers
Prof. Ian Bogost
Dr. BJ Fogg
Prof. Kristina Höök

General Chair
Prof. Harri Oinas-Kukkonen
University of Oulu

Associate Chair
Prof. Per Hasle
University of Aalborg

General information
www.persuasive2008.org

WWW 2008 Conference Proceedings ONLINE!

>>> The full set of papers of the International ACM World Wide Web Conference 2008 is now available and freely accessibile online >>>>

I look forward to see the practice of open, free online proceedings more and more spread among the scientific communities. I think it is a very good strategy to disseminate easily and more broadly the knowledge shared within the academic community.

>>> OUR Paper on "Value-Driven Design for Infosuasive Web Applications" is also published in the proceedings and freely accessible >>>

Usability and Persuasion: Seducible Moments in the User Experience

Although a bit old, I sometimes go back and read through this fascinating article by Jared Spool, which introduces the notion "Seducible Moments" as those situation or design locations where designers have more chances to persuade the users about a change of behavior or attitude, with some salient examples... >>>>

How Little Do Users Read? (recent gem from Nielsen's alert box)

>>> Nielsen reports and enriches the findings of a recent ethnographic research which found how little users actually read text-based web pages....>>>

A giant leap into Web 3.0 (NY Financial Times)

New Perspectives on the evolution of the web. Digital Business’s online offering is about to leapfrog from a very static Web 1.0 format straight over Web 2.0 and land firmly in Web 3.0. >>>