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Speed of Change, Discovery, Love
The Disney theme-park inspired love hotel close to my office looks like it’s about to close. Although the only people I’ve seen walking in and out are elderly salarimen and their spritely nieces it adds colour to the neighbourhood. I'm left wondering what kind of building will go up in its place.
Buildings in Japan are often constructed to last 20 or so years - before being rapidly torn down to be re-incarnated as something else. Local neighbourhood skylines that might take decades to evolve in cities like Frankfurt or Bristol change with rapid progression and I'm intrigued to what extent the speed of change - both in terms of form and function affects our perception of locality, history. How does it affect wayfinding - our ability to find or give directions? In a world where it is increasingly easy to (geo) tag places with memories how does the speed and velocity of change affect how this information is discovered, used? When, like in this love hotel, there's a emotional backdrop behind each and every encounter, room, and night of the duration of this building's existence some of these stories will make it into the ethersphere. So that when half a year later an office complex goes up on the same plot of land Tanaka san cross references his new desk location with the presence of who has been here, in this exact spot over time, and may well smile (especially if a photo was also carefully/throughtlessly uploaded).
And if you'll excuse the tangent - for individuals and cultures with a belief in ghosts and other-worldly presences to what extent will the digital blend with the ethereal and the physical? The one thing I know for sure - the exorcist will need to include data cache flushing skiills in his or her repertoire.
Hmm, ast call for boarding. Destination? West coast US to catch up with our Calabasas design studio, a couple of presentations to share ideas on design research (new material will eventually be posted here, plus a conference that hopefully challenges assumptions about, well, everything.
Would you turn down a weekend in the rockies? No, neither would I.
See you on the other side.
Writing from Tokyo | February 28, 2007 | Permalink
The Selfish Toothbrush
The electric toothbrush is a selfish object. Not in terms of the power it consumes - a viable enough argument, but in the level of engagement it requires during use.
For many people mornings are about completing a number of time-pressured tasks before walking out the door - ablutions, sustenance, getting dressed, and caring for appearance to present ourselves in public. In between all of this we somehow find time to catch up on the latest news, make packed lunches, and look after dependents whether kids, pets, plants or (occassionally) spouses. And at some point most people brush their teeth.
With so many things to do its not surprising that we multi-task - newspapers browsed whilst downing coffee, listening to the radio whilst getting dressed, interrupting tooth brushing to complete two handed tasks like opening the sock drawer or place objects into bags. Which is why the electric toothbrush is a selfish object - it demands to be held the whole time it is used and the alternative that works with regular tooth brushes - to be clasped in the mouth for those moments when you need both hands is not an option. Why? The device is too heavy, and more importantly it continues to vibrate making the mouth-clasp a thoroughly unpleasant experience. (Yes it can be temporarily placed on flat surfaces but it leaves nasty hard to remove toothpaste marks). At what point does the electric toothbrush becomes light enough to be clasped in the mouth polite enough to turn off the vibrator for that moment? At what point does it really fit into the flow of the morning? And in our sunny, shiny future perfect at what point does the act of brushing teeth become redundant? Replaced, for example by super efficient armies of Colgate branded bacteria scrubbing your teeth on your behalf? Pop a pill when you walk out the door, arrive at work feeling minty fresh.
A convoluted link, but a link never the less - I've been using the N800 for the past week - and it seems destined to fill a small but friendly role the the home. But as with the toothbrush its a selfish device that requires two handed engagement to be able to appreciate what it has to offer, which is fine in a number of contexts just not during the morning multi-task.
There’s another much talked-about selfish object on the horizon - the iPhone. How well will it fare as a two- handed device in what is more many people a one-handed multi-tasking world?
Writing from Tokyo | February 26, 2007 | Permalink
Context & Macro-Break Tasks
Tokyo is criss-crossed with railway lines so one cultural anomaly is the amount of time people spending waiting at crossings for trains to pass. Unlike other waiting contexts there’s not a huge amout of people watching going on - everyone on one side of the crossing is facing the same direction, and the people on the opposite side of the tracks are too far away to be able to pick up subtle (flirting) behaviours. For people standing alone mobile devices feature heavily in how they occupy their time.
Thought for today - the cultural differences in the causes of waiting. And how these differences affect technology/service adoption.
Writing from Tokyo | February 25, 2007 | Permalink
Jahwe
Mobile phone appliations advertised on the side of an advertising truck.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Expiry Dates Affecting the Perception of Validity
During a routine credit card transaction recently in the UK the sales person took the card, checked the expiry date and tutted “It’s just about still valid” - it is due to be replaced in 03/07. A gentle example of how people treat things with expiry dates and times, whether credit cards, parking meters, foodstuff, differently the closer it comes to being due. Another common example, particularly amongst the male bachelor of the species is sniffing milk before pouring - trusting the sense of smell over the date on the side of the packet.
As we continue to learn how to control what happens at the nano + bacterial level there is greater scope to communicate current expiry status: ID cards that visibly or olfactorily depreciate closer to that time; money that feels different when you’re down to your last ten Euro note - prompting a visit to the nearest ATM; containers that tell you much more about the condition of what is held inside.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Changes of Carrying and Wearing Positions Over Time
Whilst we've had the opportunity to research where people carry their mobile phones so far - having studied the residents of 11 cities across 4 continents, we've not managed to do any follow-up studies to see how carrying behaviours change over time (our studies were not designed for longitudinal comparison). Despite the rear area often being considered, in the words of a female clothing designer we interviewed, a 'problem zone', in Tokyo mobile phones and music players like the iPod (pictured above) are increasingly making their way into the back pockets of women. Monoblocks are carried 'all in', and clam-shells half-in and half-out - understandable there are still quite a few chunky clamshells in the market. In both cases decorative straps, that by our reckoning are found on 60%+ of women's phones, hang out of the pocket - both making it easier to retrieve phone from said pocket and drawing attention to the surrounding female form. Which gives all sorts of clues as to who wears/carries their phone in this way.
Of course this 'trend' could merely be a result of me seeing what my male brain is hard-wired to see.
Incidentally, the half-in the pocket half-out style is sometimes seen amongst younger males except that the phone more likely to be carried in the front right pocket - remaining within easy reach of the dominant (right) hand - useful for processing incoming information, maintaining a visual awareness (unlike Ms. Backpocket, above), whilst simultainiously supporting the projection of personal identity.
Deadlines permitting, I'll be co-publishing research on carrying behavious with my colleagues Fumiko Ichikawa and Cui Yanqing later this year. I live in hope.
Writing from Tokyo | February 22, 2007 | Permalink
Reduced to Pantone
When purchase choices are guided/reduced to one of colour.
Not all colours are created and perceived equally. And not all colour schema's are created and perceived equally. From the new Softbank store, Harajuku.
Writing from Tokyo | February 21, 2007 | Permalink
Understanding Alternative Scenarios for the Future
Delivered a presentation to the S.E.T. studio in Tokyo - in a funky, and funkily-wired building just off Harajuku's Takeshita Dori - a working environment that also functions as a test-space for 'living' new ideas.
Presentation material on research methods can be found here [4MB] and informal repair cultures here [3MB]. Ta Henry and Oba san for the invite
And the model above? Barcelona's own.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
EPFL Presentation Downloads
The slides from last-last week's presentation at the Ecole Polytechnique Fedarale de Lausanne were culled from previously published research on Cultures of Repair and Innovation in India and China [4MB] and Communication, Literacy & Design [6MB]. Thanks Nicholas for hosting and students for sharing thoughts.
A question was asked about whether rural consumers were offered classes to how to use their mobile phones. They aren't (though I think at some point Orange in the UK offered its customers lessons to make the most of features on their phone). What does the lack of structured mobile phone classes say about how people learn to use their phone? Whilst designers strive for simple and intuitive designs offering formal classes isn't inherently a bad thing: it can help align the user's mental model with that of the system; introduce local users to one another to build up a support network if things go wrong; and ultimately put people at more at ease with the technology. How does this apply to you? - we are all only one generation away from being mystified by the next ubitquitous, useful, but ultimately sub-optimal for humans technology.
And the photos? From ad-hoc street research in South Delhi last year - in an effort to figure out what kinds of and what levels of literacy were required to run a paper recycling station.
Writing from Tokyo | February 19, 2007 | Permalink
The Art of Never Unpacking
To arrive back in Tokyo is to confront the rituals of physically and mentally unpacking.
Today there isn't a field research kit but in its place the tangible result of too much time spent in swiss and french delicatessens. Hotel laundry beats washing at home, unopened mail on the desk, grocery shopping. The absolute pleasure that comes from properly-properly cleaning the dust from another country from the camera lense.
Bodily time-zone adjustments that either just work, or that take days to figure out. And the the solitude that comes when, like today, the day starts at midnight and 'lunch' is preceeded by a 5am ride through the city. It takes a hard hour's riding to follow the expressway though central Tokyo before curving around the Imperial Palace and heading for home. After 8 hours in 54H the sounds and smells of the city are inviting. The mental clarity that comes from the wee-hours is only tempered by the effect that jetlag has on loved ones later on. Everything has a cost, you just need to figure out what it is.
In many respects home-life stands still for the traveller for the duration of these travels - that list of things that really should be done can take months to be crossed out simply because you're not here; food stuffs that would normally be eaten in a fortnight last half a year; projects that require a physical presense take an age to get off the ground and everyday relationships are put on hold.
When you travel a lot theres a part of you that never unpacks. Its not good or bad, but it is.
Writing from Tokyo | February 17, 2007 | Permalink
What You See, What You Are Expected To See
Those little design details that help you see what your brain is trained to see. Photo from Geneva.
Writing from Tokyo | February 15, 2007 | Permalink
When (Design) Rules Are Made to Be Broken
Do cultural attitudes towards obeying and breaking rules - not crossing a road except using pedestrian crossings also extend to the rules by which things are designed - say not creating a pedestrian crossing unless there is sufficient room for at least three stripes. Seems imbalanced to me. Also from Geneva.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
A City Pool & Sauna
Key ring board for Helsinki's Yrjonkatu swimming pool and sauna includes a minature clocks to mark the entry time for each pool goer - anyone staying longer than the one and half hours is charged extra. Or at least they were - the practice of limiting the customer time in the pool hasn't been used since the 90's. The board serves multiple purposes. The number of missing keyrings provides a visual snapshot of how many people are currently in the building. And because each key relates to a specific locker it is possible for the attendant to 'partner up' pool goers to have neighbouring lockers, increasing the likelyhood of social interaction or in the case of males on the prowl, something more. Unlikely? On men only night? Yeah right.
Last year we interviewed a Brighton cafe worker to understand the role of the cafe played in the community. In effect they used long tables with shared seating and strategic placement of incoming customers to encourage social interaction, though whether it worked or not is another matter. The extent to which customer default preferences and automation limit serendipity - chance or weighted-serendipity - the stuff that seems like chance, but ultimately is part of someone else's match-making plans (like making a bet on weighted dice). Seating on planes, trains classrooms and in shared taxis. One of the perks of the (bored) job.
Tangent of the day: contexts in which access to resources whether bandwidth, seating, expertise or a safe space to rest is is retro-actively limited, or when limited access is opened up. The role of technology in making more efficient use of previously allocated resources and the extent to which we adjust to that efficiency simply by consuming more.
And the pool & sauna? Four Euro twenty buys you entry, goggles recommended, use of swimming costume optional. As you leave, the brisk Helsinki winter air threatens the undried head.
Writing from Helsinki | February 14, 2007 | Permalink
Cost Optimisation
When the plane touches down theres usually one or two travellers who take off the battery cover, pop out the SIM card and replace it with a SIM from the local carrier. In wealthier markets to what extent will reductions in roaming charges reduce the practice of SIM card swapping? For more price sensitive consumers - whether students in Helsinki or increasingly the bulk of consumers in emerging markets what cost differential is sufficient to maintain multiple SIM cards?
Photo from a study in Brazil last year.
Writing from Tokyo | February 13, 2007 | Permalink
Transgression Transparency
Transgressions that become more obvious as the context changes - the parking equivilent of saying the punchline to a rude joke just as the room goes quiet.
Today's notion of car parking changes when the roads are full of automated vehicles - if yours can't find a parking space it simply cruises the neighbourhood until required by its owner (along of course with the rest of the driver-less vehicles - boy that will be a quality-of-life kind of neighbourhood to hang out in). When gridlock is merely an ad-hoc car park who has a vested interest and power to create then dissapate gridlock? Given the wide variety of vested interests to what extent will car parking become a centrally co-ordinated activity - the Central Traffic Authority relying on real-time schedule updates to micro-coordinate the delivery of your personal or personal-shared vehicle.
Assuming that a self-driving, self-parking car is programmed to park within legal boundaries, how much would you pay for the make-the-most-of-what's-out-there hack?
Writing from Geneva | February 11, 2007 | Permalink
Train Luggage Norms
Train heading up to Les Diablerets including fold-down snowboard and ski racks. The overlap of contextual and cultural norms.
Post-note: Feels ever-so-slightly wierd to be wandering back to the hotel in full boarding gear. Ces't la vie (if you live in Geneva). Ta Nicholas for the heads up. Shipping out to the Helsinki mothership tomorrow.
Writing from Les Diablerets | | Permalink
Linear Progression
If galleries were built to the same design rules would more people be exposed to more art?
Writing from Geneva | | Permalink
Message Complexity
Writing from Geneva | | Permalink
Keyholes as Entry Point to Nodes in the System
But what functionality does the key hole represent? And what is the cost of finding out?
The way in which an object is inserted into another object affecting the way that the data on that object is treated by the device it is inserted into. Simple example? Your home computer has 2 USB slots - attaching your digital camera cable to the 'secure' slot automatically carries out a sequence of tasks such as copying and encrypting the data before wiping the memory card. Yes, potentially it severely limits the host device functionality - in what contexts is this beneficial?
Need more options? The ways in which memory cards (yeah, gosh, keys) are inserted into their host affecting what happens next. Variables? Whether the memory card is squeezed, rammed, pinched, stroked, caressed, or even held during insertion and copying process. Beyond the obvious what effect for memory card coitus interruptus? Hmm, definitely time to head out.
Last thought for the day: to what extent do memory cards remain embedded in one device or 'migrate' between devices? Between owners?
Ta Ben for the loan of the finger.
Writing from Geneva | February 10, 2007 | Permalink
Our Heroes, Who Are They?
Heroes? Heroines more likely.
Writing from Geneva | | Permalink
LIFT Presentation Download
The slides to today's LIFT presentation on Literacy, Communication & Design can be found here [6MB PowerPoint] with a related essay here. The presentation was long on highlighting issued raised by the design research and short on showing solutions that have been proven to work beyond what is currently possible with well designed simple mobile phones. I can understand this probably disappointed a number of the audience, but ask yourself why. I'm not yet convinced that the obvious solutions - spoken menus and more comprehensive use of icons particularly work and the complexity and subtlety of the design solutions don't translate well to this presentation format in the time available.
A summary? Illiterate consumers are in many ways lead users for the rest of us.
The MotoFone mentioned in the question and answer session can be found here, and related Nokia products here and here. Related research can be downloaded from here.
And the photos? The first two were used in the presentation - field research in Delhi from 2006, snow falling on Helsinki from earlier this year and a presenter on the podium from an earlier session.
Writing from Geneva | February 9, 2007 | Permalink
Suggested Interaction
Shoe glove.
Writing from Geneva | | Permalink
Thought Delivery
Yesterday's LIFT Conference workshop on the City of the Future hosted by Bill Cockayne and Nicolas Nova. A chance to see how others figure out how the future will turn out, and reflect on how we can do it better ourselves.
And the thread about objects becoming less and less fixable? Hmm, depends where you look - try this essay + presentation [4MB PowerPoint] on informal repair cultures.
Writing from Geneva | February 8, 2007 | Permalink
How it is Communicated
Writing from Geneva | February 7, 2007 | Permalink
The Line Between L'Humor and
Writing from Geneva | | Permalink
Looking for What You Expect To Find
A fly poster plasters the only available flat surface on a car park wall, pausing to keep a keyhole uncovered.
It's Switzerland, and I expect to find order. So I find order (regardless of its merit).
Writing from Geneva | | Permalink
Task Flow: Who Does What?
Train ticket printed by the rail traveller rather than the train company. Similarly with the EasyJet flight from London to Geneva the ticket was likewise self-printed and also functioned as a boarding pass. A simple and now common example of the spread of technologies changing flow of the buying and using a ticket task: convenient for passengers and presumably cost savings for the train company - lower print costs and less staff time required to issue physical tickets.
Hmm, in a world of ubiquitous handheld devices how can the buying/referringto/presenting the ticket task be furthered shortened? Hmm indeed.
Writing from Geneva | February 6, 2007 | Permalink
Infrastructure, Discoverability & Speed of Adoption
At what point does infrastructure become, well, infrastructure - the stuff you can rely on being out there?
Would you buy an electric driven vehicle when there are only a few public recharging points scattered around your regular stomping ground? To what extent do technologies such as personal access to accurate location positioning and real-time status updates mitigate the need for blanket coverage of infrastructure such as this Elektrobay charging poing in London's Covent Garden? (This charging point is aimed at council workers not the general public so the argument is moot in this exact context).
Knowing a charging point's location, availability, quality and cost can go some way to support early adopters. Being able to reserve it ahead of time takes some risk out of the process - though it could introduce a hedge market for access to that particular power stand. Value added? Self driving vehicles that hook themselves up to the nearest power source will remove the end user hassle of having to remember (in the same way that in the domestic context keeping personal devices charged and otherwise maintained is something that can be delegated to autonamous machines).
And yes you could argue that to maintain a higher degree of consumer environmental awareness you don't want to make the re-charging process seamless. Will we see the fuel equivilent of warning signs on cigarette packets?
Writing from London | February 5, 2007 | Permalink
Perceived Ownership of Rentable Spaces
Digital equivalents?
Writing from London | February 3, 2007 | Permalink
Continuity
Writing from Farnborough | February 2, 2007 | Permalink
Granularlity, Accuracy, Timing of Delivery of Data
Complimentary hotel newspaper adorned with weather forecast sticker.
Writing from Egham | February 1, 2007 | Permalink
Backwards, Looking Forwards
Three days of workshops with people who specialise in topics I don't - always a rich opportunity for learning. The discussions? The world 20 years from now. The setting? A 16th century mansion in Egham.
To what extent can being surrounded by 'the past' provide direction to thoughts about the future? And given the richness of experiences we are able to capture now, to what extent will future-guessing workshops 400 years from now rely on immersed 'past experiences'?
Writing from Egham | | Permalink
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