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Device Customisation
Customised iPod Nano encrusted in rhinestones - photo taken during a night out with friends in Shibuya.
Extreme customisation of devices such as mobile phones, iPods and tamagotchi is taking off amongst women (and occasionally men) in their 20's and early 30's here in Tokyo. Mobile phone and nail shops are offering extreme customisation as an extension of their existing services, nail shops being a particularly good fit given the skill set required to carry out the procedure. 7,000 yen (56 Euro) will buy you a glittery off-the-shelf design, whilst 60,000 yen (430 Euro) will buy you front, back, top and bottom fully customised design of your choice. Downside of the process? Losing use of the device whilst it is being customised, and the customisation process can invalidate the warrantee.
For the customer: what drivers for customising?
For the service provider: is it possible to scale up, to offer mass-customisation?
One of my recent side-projects was to document the extreme mobile phone and nail customisation process for two Japanese teenagers, from preparing their phones - removing existing print club stickers and other adornments, sketching desired designs, interactions with the crafts-woman, and then following the customisation process in the shop up until delivery. The research material is not suitable for an academic paper but may put some material together here at a later date.
Working from the UK for the next couple of weeks. What new things to learn?
Writing from Shibuya | January 30, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
I wonder if the users are accustomed to re-selling their goods, and if so, do they perceive that this customization adds or detracts from the future resale value?
Posted by: Josh J at January 30, 2006 2:22 PM
Enjoy the UK, Jan! Can't give you much by way of serious observation (and my only reference point is London, so you'll notice things I wouldn't). But there's an increasing trend in young people playing mp3s over their phone's loudspeaker on buses. The phones aren't loud enough to cause a big disturbance, but the quality of output is very tinny - and annoying. Dunno whether you've seen this elsewhere (or whether a new generation of phones with bigger speakers will boost the bass/seriously bug other bus passengers)... I guess on the upside, at least these kids aren't damaging their eardrums with ear-bud 'phones...
Posted by: Richard at February 2, 2006 5:40 PM