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Research in Motion

Those of you who have followed our published research in places like India and Uganda might want to check out this recent launch of new products that include features specifically addressing the needs of consumers in these cultures. (I'm not normally that keen to point to press releases but I'll make an exception because of its relevance to our research).

In a number of countries a phone kiosk is often little more than a local entrepreneur armed with a mobile phone. In fact in Cairo the venerable Nokia 5100 is currently the phone kiosk operators mobile of choice, and in Uganda initiatives like the Village Phone [PowerPoint, PDF 2MB] extends kiosk coverage to rural areas. In these contexts it is common for customers to agree the price of a call with the kiosk operator in advance - so that they are not liable if the call time goes over to the next unit. In fact in Uganda its common to see signs declaring 'one unit/minute = 57 seconds' - since many phone kiosk operators cut the call at 57 seconds. Obviously the easiest way to avoid going over the agreed time is to build in a pre-set time and/or cost cap which is not offered as standard on the Nokia 1200 and 1208 [product spec, 0.2MB, PDFs] models. Better visualisation of the current call time also makes it easier for phone owner's to track their personal use.

These products also recognise that highly price sensitive consumers are more likely to share their mobile phone - a significant use-issue given that, by and large they are designed as personal communication devices. Yes, more mature readers may also remember that the very first mobile phones were so expensive that they also supported shared use - after all how many people could afford to own a phone by themselves? So yes, we have indeed come full circle. Anyhow, both models support the use of 5 phone books - enabling family members and/or colleagues to maintain a higher degree of privacy and organisation.

If you one of those lucky people with uninterrupted access to electricity you probably consider a torch-on-a-phone to be a nice but trivial feature (both model's include easy to access torch functionality). Thoughts on digital fire flies can be found here.

And these photos? From last year's field study on shared phone use in Uganda [essay, PowerPoint, PDF, 7MB].

Writing from Tokyo | May 7, 2007 | Permalink