Here’s the latest design and innovation related news swirling around in the ether this week …

Forbes.com interviewed Rebecca Sinclair – ‘The Designer Who changed Airbnb’s Entire Strategy‘.

Interesting insights into how Airbnb’s leadership enlisted Rebecca, their Head of User Experience Research and Design, to lead an extra-curricular initiative called ‘Snow White’ to help Airbnb keep its product-market fit and develop new business categories like the popular Airbnb Experiences.

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Want to understand experience design? Eat popcorn with chopsticks

According to a new research paper popcorn tastes better with chopsticks. While this might seem like a strange conclusion to arrive at, the explanation lies in the way people perceive new things–and it serves as even more evidence that experience design matters, a lot.

Robert Smith, coauthor of the study and assistant professor of marketing at Ohio State University, writes that “when you eat popcorn with chopsticks, you pay more attention and you are more immersed in the experience. It’s like eating popcorn for the first time.”

Some food for thought!

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DDB Germany produced a powerful advertisement campaign for Stabilo Boss, some are already calling it a classic

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Market Gravity launch Innovation Gateway at London City Airport

Market Gravity have launched a new concept this week – next time you fly out of London City Airport book a slot to meet with the MG team, talk to them about an idea you’ve got that you can’t quite put together yet (or the problem that’s keeping you up at night) then they’ll have developed concepts and solutions, tested them with customers, and prototyped by the time you land (or whenever it suits you).

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Kudos to the UX team at Centrica gathering new joiner feedback to improve their onboarding process via their onboarding experience map.

New joiner feedback is often one of those tasks that faces you in a sea of other paperwork when you join a new company. It’s generally a questionnaire (if it’s done at all!) and more often than not as a new hire you brush over the bumps in the road you might have faced in the hiring process as it doesn’t sit well to criticise your newly found peers! However, for most companies this represents a huge opportunity missed to learn about what is working and what may be broken in your hiring and onboarding processes. I was thrilled to see Conor Ward’s post this week featuring Centrica’s onboarding experience map. Does your company take the time to discuss this with new joiners? Have you considered introducing a candidate feedback form during the interview process? You really might be surprised what you can learn – candidate experience matters!

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WhyDesign tackles the gender imbalance in the Irish design sector

I’m really excited to be involved in the steering committee for the next phase of the WhyDesign initiative focused on tackling the gender imbalance in Irish design sector. Today the ratio is 25% Female to 75% Male (Policy Framework, 2016) and this has to change. Sadly, gender balance was the last item on the last page of the Policy framework for Design Enterprise in Ireland so WhyDesign is taking the lead in championing this issue. I look forward to sharing the output of our planning workshop with the team at Epsilon in the coming weeks.

To discuss anything recruitment related in the world of design and innovation consulting get in touch aiden@weloveaffinity.com or connect on linkedin.