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God In My Pocket
Writing from Mumbai | June 30, 2007 | Permalink
Literal
Writing from Mumbai | | Permalink
I Follow You, Following Me
How is your milk packaged? What is the environmental impact of that packaging? To what extent does the packaging, whether a Tetra pak carton, plastic container, pewter jug, or bag (from Chai house in Dharavi) affect the enjoyment and perceived value of the milk?
Related article about the (re-)introduction of milk bags in the UK, and the psychology of milk from the bottle in Japan.
For products where the packaging has negative connotations, to what extent can re-packaging a product once it is enters the domestic space overcome these negativities?
Interaction nerds will have no-doubt noticed the almost empty packaging ‘clipped’ under the ladle to ensure the entire contents drip into the pot. New forms of interaction, use enabled by new forms of packaging.
Writing from Mumbai | June 29, 2007 | Permalink
Cooler, Tastier, Happier
A slither of scaldingly hot chai swiftly placed and then slurped from the palm of its chef. The gentle chai-tanning of his palm.
The food and drink cultural interaction norms whether drinking water from a bottle (without allowing the bottle head to touch one’s lips) to the range of foods that it's acceptable to eat by hand. In what ways might these norms affect device and infrastructure interaction?
A busy, hit-the-ground-running start to our Dharavi research.
Writing from Mumbai | | Permalink
Something to Download
The slides from last week's Nokia Connection presentation titled Insight & Innovation: Design Research can now be downloaded from here [PowerPoint, 4MB]. The material overlaps with previously published presentations but draws on examples from around South and South East Asia.
Newcomers to Future Perfect may want to check out the following background reading material on Where's the Phone Studies [PowerPoint, PDF 2MB]; Shared Phone Use [PowerPoint, PDF, 7MB]; Mobile TV [PowerPoint, 4MB]; illiteracy and mobile phone design [PowerPoint, 6MB] and more on research methods here [PowerPoint, 3MB]
As usual related research here and sign up to receive notification of new presentations and downloads by emailing info (at) janchipchase dot com with the word subscribe in the subject line.
And the front cover photo of the gent making a call under a flag? From a pro-secular rally in Istanbul here and here. Yes, not quite South East Asia. Very observant.
Writing from Sakura Shinmachi | June 25, 2007 | Permalink
The Art of Failure
It's been two weeks since returning from a consistently foggy Chongqing. Two weeks to figure out whether our methods have enabled us to collect data that is both sufficiently relevant and of a high enough quality. Mounds of data to sift through, discussion to be had, more discussions to be had.
Every field study is an opportunity to evolve our craft, challenge our assumptions, and somewhere along the line learn something new. We've been bringing new equipment into the mix (hello decent audio), tweaking tried and tested methods and experimenting with a few wholly new ideas - some of which despite our best efforts and significant preparation we expect to fail. I'm pleasantly reminded of the first few minutes of Rhy's talk last week about the importance and implications of failure, and casting my mind further back to my old boss chiding me for not failing enough. Must try harder. Must buy more rope.
The scale of what we are trying has been stepped up a notch - what would you do with two weeks in Mumbai and a team of 20? Would you sink or swim in the monsoon? (five minutes ago received a text message from our advanced team - the rains have just kicked it up a notch).
With so much interesting research to conduct has left little time to publish (and so little motivation to publish through academic channels). It's probably time to work on something more well, meaty, but every day spent in here is one day less spent out there. What would you do? What would I do?
A belated thanks to our Chongqing ground crew: Liu Yi, Zai Yi, Ye Ning, Wang Ging, Luo Ging, Chen Li yang, Chen Ye chao, Gan Yi hong, Giang Zuo Mu and Huang Lin. You helped bring the city to life.
Writing from Tokyo | June 24, 2007 | Permalink
When 'Experiences' Collide
What happens when everything is transformed into 'experience' shopping? And the experience shops are clustered in close proximity? Is it possible to experience, well, 'experience fatigue'?
Siam Square - experience spaces for all major handset manufacturers clustered in close proximity.
Writing from Bangkok | June 22, 2007 | Permalink
Need to Pee? Sure You Do
The extent to which these signs trigger you to want to go to the toilet.
And the reverse: what colours, textures and sounds inhibit the need/desire to go to the toilet? Same question for other activities?
It's 2012, you've just bought a 3rd generation pair of augmented reality glasses. To what extent are you able re-manipulate the advertising and information architecture messages you see around you? What will they be re-manipulated to? (Aside from inevitable Future Perfect) whose view of the world are you willing to buy into? To what extent will mainstream consumers be persuaded to forgo re-manipulation/blocking features for so-called loyalty programmes? And to take it one step further - just how much is your real-time, eye-tracked gaze worth?
How much will you/whom be willing to pay for an ad-busters view of the world?
Writing from Bangkok | June 21, 2007 | Permalink
Body Language Norms
Three photos from Bangkok showing the use of fingers to communicate which floor the staircase leads to; and one photo from Chongqing showing a literal depiction of the Kanji number ten.
The universal (?) use of addictive rather than subtractive numbering.
A few more hours in Bangkok, then home.
Writing from Bangkok | | Permalink
Back, Strength
Writing from Bangkok | | Permalink
McDonalds of the Reverse-Side of the Lamp Post
Katoey has a possie.
Another open source franchisee of this.
Writing from Bangkok | | Permalink
Bang-Graf: Mickey & 'Nades
Writing from Bangkok | | Permalink
Motivations for...
Liberal use of gaffer tape by one yesterday's photographers.
Motivations for keeping objects covered e.g. protection from damage, reduce risk of theft, maintain resale value. To what extent can digital services be 'damaged'? To what extent do users perceive that its possible to damage or wear out a digital service? What level of 'literacy' is required to bridge the gap between the actual and perception? And how, whether and when to communicate this to the user?
Related: phone cover use in the Where's the Phone studies, here.
Writing from Singapore | June 19, 2007 | Permalink
Enabling Modalities
What it takes to support different modalities of carrying? Motivations and cost of supporting different modalities of carrying, interaction?
Spotted in the Mediacorp canteen, widely seen across Singapore.
Writing from Singapore | | Permalink
IT Infrastructure
Restaurant order tracking system. You invested in the electronic equivilent? How sweet.
Writing from Singapore | | Permalink
What Banks Have Become, I
In a city where close-to-the-station real estate is at a premium and hundreds of bikes are carted to the 'pound every day for illegal parking, many people consider it OK to dump bikes outside the bank. The logic being that during the day you could be a customer and at night they're shut so their forecourt space is fair game. And anyway this facility doesn't even have permanent staff - simply being a space to house four ATMs - so whose going to argue?
Except that drunken revellers return to the 'burbs and forget to pick up the bike.
Banks have evolved into many things, including parking spaces, and as below, anti-parking spaces.
Writing from Sakura Shinmachi | June 17, 2007 | Permalink
Legacy Transactions in Cashless Society
The contract sits in front of me, its dense kanji taunting me from the printed page. I stare blankly back and try hard to focus on what is being said. Which is difficult because the solicitor, sitting at the head of the table is speed-reading a 24 page document pausing only to draw breath and respond to the very occasional question from K. With his rapid-fire patter he could be a caller for the daily tuna auction at Tsukiji, but instead here we sit in the estate agent’s office in Sangenjaya. Everything above the table is calm and collected, but with my seat pushed back I have a view of his feet, that, for the hour-long duration of his recital gently rock to and fro like a golfer trying to get comfortable to make the putt. Eventually the vibra on his phone hums, he apologies to the assembled whips out a Guantanamo-orange clamshell from his suit pocket, cups his hand over his mouth and whispers to the interrupter. Everyone in the room listens intently. Five minutes later the sellers walk in.
When we arrived the highest honour was afforded to us, the buyers, and I’m given the seat furthest away from the door with a view of anyone that enters. Two large red ink pads sit in the middle of the table, and over the course of the meeting our hankos are used more than 20 times to stamp various official documents. You don’t need to conduct a time and motion study to know that when two hankos are required it easier for one person to do both, so I watch as K sign’s my signature, and later on as her wrist tires, she does likewise. Mental note on the leeway is possible to legally represent someone else’s identity. The sellers both use the same hanko, interchangable identities.
Glasses of iced tea sit on the table – and over the course of the hour the condensation gently recedes like a 21st century glacier. The wet outer from a glass and paperwork don’t normally mix so it's a surprising inclusion here in this space, but for all my concern there is never enough condensed to drip onto the table.
Buying the Tokyo apartment has (thus far, touch wood) been a painless experience in direct contrast to the last – which felt like a hundred and one forms to create an identity of sufficient value to be considered worthy to be lent money to. The wolf-pack intensity of some our prior estate agent were lead use cases for disposable identities – phone numbers and email addresses to be trashed when they become too persistent (they became too persistent).
With ten minutes to go K uses both hands to offer the brown envelope to the seller. It contains enough cash to make a capo smile, and a SOX compliance officer weep. But this is Japan and cash is the norm regardless of whether its a deposit for the house, the commission for the solicitor or the estate agent’s fees, in this case its all three. Our agent looks glum but he’s simply a good actor (and according to his blog which K found online he’s also a surfer), so inside he’s probably already spending his commission on a tasty new watch, a trip to the big shore.
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | | Permalink
Do You Rio? Oh You Do!
Live in Rio?
Our research team will be heading to Rio in July intent on running various design research activities and are looking for a couple of talented locals to assist our ground crew. What skills? Well, you're bi-lingual, live and breathe Rio, are socially outgoing, feel comfortable wandering around pretty much any part of the city, like talking with strangers and maybe also have a background or are studying design or cognitive psychology. Oh, and you like to work long hours.
When? Currently scheduled at between 16th July to the 5th August or there abouts. Email info (at) janchipchase.com for more info.
And the photos? Taking in a Brazilian footy match in the outskirts of Florianopolis during our last field study. Brazil archives in all their Cachaça fuelled glory, here.
Writing from Tokyo | June 16, 2007 | Comments (4) | Permalink
I ((Shred)) U
My local Sangenjaya post office now offers a shredder - for munging transaction receipts. Its front facade includes a small window to watch the shreds fall, which combined with the motion and noise of the activity brings a certain closure valuable-personal-data destroying process. A shredder situated here is intriguing because it suggests there is sufficient demand from customers for tangible proof of their transaction, but that tangible proof is destroyed shortly after being received. Or alternatively that people make errors during the transaction process and don't want to carry the tangible result of those errors.
Is there a point we start to see physical shredders such as this move further into the public mainstream? And if that occurs will some service providers up the ante by including more sensitive data on the physical receipts, assuming that it can destroyed? But is your personal data really destroyed? How to hack the device to intercept receipts and give the impression that your personal data is being shredded?
Two separate tacks: what is the digital equivalent of a public-use shredder?; are there lessons from this that apply to electronic voting machines?
And the reason for hitting the 24 hour post office? NF - package angekommen, ta!
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | June 15, 2007 | Permalink
Equatorial Delights
Those of you who value the intimacy afforded by a live presentation may wish to head over to Raffles next week where I'll be sharing the stage with design studio colleagues Rhys Newman and Silas Grant. The slot will amongst other things, present thoughts about the impact of exploratory research on the design process, introduce some more of the recently published research on where people carry phones (and why it should interest anyone who is thinking of designing pocketable or wearable devices) and a fair bit more. As always I'll post presentation material here after the event.
My last decent trip to the city state was over 10 years ago on a bike, having ridden and railed down from Bangkok on a convoluted route to northern Vietnam via Indonesia for a spot of mountain biking. A story for another time perhaps. Or not. And the photos? In direct contrast to the heat and humidity of Singapore a chance to take mental refuge in this Ulan Bataar shrine in the middle of a bitterly, bitterly cold Mongolian winter. Winter, like the rainy season is all in the mind.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Infect to Avoid Infection
In a week or so the team swaps the Tokyo rainy season for the Mumbai monsoon. A healthy research team is a happy research team and trip prep includes updating the comprehensive med-kit and getting jabs for stuff you didn't know existed, aren't able to spell, and would end up quarantined should you ever become infected. Ah, so much to look forward to.
By the time we return the rainy season should be over and Tokyo's open air pools, well, opened. After a few weeks on the road, quality of life is a full sized pool next to the office and a decent Nakame sushi.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Formats Adapted To Different Contexts
Wooden label typically used for labelling the price of commodities like fish used to communicate ownership of this Komagata Dojou restaurant delivery motorbike.
The extent to which (digital) naming conventions transfer to different (physical) domains.
Writing from Shibuya, back of | June 13, 2007 | Permalink
Locally, We Appreciate This...
Closed flower bulbs sold and packaged separately as decoration accessories - as worn by a resident strolling a street market in Chongqing, above. The extent to which sub-trends are localised to particular neighbourhoods (status brace, Bangkok, urban abseiling in Sao Paolo playing off the local architecture) or transcend cultures (S&M club advertising, muscle cars also in Sao Paulo). If I ever get around to staying put in Tokyo for more than a few weeks will put together a study of Tokyo bike courier accessories - summer's here and the bikers are out in wonderful (retro attired, fixed wheel, oh-so-kustom) force.
Considering concepts such as mass-customisation, what are the micro-level local conditions and values that will lead to or hinder adoption for individuals or small groups? And the same logic applied to bacterial level adoption of (bio) technologies in and around the body. Barbara Kruger is right, your body is a battleground (for highly localised trend adoption).
The model below? That would be Younghee. A video from her presentation at the 2007 New Yorker conference entitled Mobile Technology 2012, here.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Thursday & Friday, Date & Colour
Naturally related.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Perceived Value, Projected
Phone numbers for sale on a Chonginq street (above) and apartments for sale in the suburbs of the same city (below) - in both cases numbers are formatted to communicate more than the simple act of communication with the number itself.
Certainly, some sequences of numbers are easier to remember than others - and will consequently have a measurably greater value. Some numbers are considered auspicious. In a world where anything can be segmented to what extent is it possible manufacture demand for certain numbers over others?
Related: the projection of status through mobile phone numbers in Tehran and Ulan Bataar.
Writing from Tokyo | June 12, 2007 | Permalink
Behaviours, Encouraged
How do you know that the taxi you are about to step into is clean? In a culture where grolling onto the floor of restaurants is par for the course it is for many locals a non-trivial question.
Chongqing taxi's include seat covers printed with the day of the week - writ large. In ten days of hopping around the city I only once came across a taxi that displayed the wrong day - suggesting that by and large covers are consistently replaced. Fresh covers imply they are washed, which implies cleanliness which becomes one of the differentiators that separates this taxi from local alternatives - buses, motorbikes and mini-bus taxis.
Does a desire for clean over dirty also extend into the digital domain? And if so, how to communicate the two states? Movie files that give off a putrid odor once they are past their 'use by' date, and naturally the hacked versions that do the reverse. And (mostly) thinking beyond China, in what contexts is dirty desireable, imply authenticity?
Kinda related: mobile phone cleaning services in Seoul, cleaning swab's in Seattle hotel rooms, the separation of clean and dirty spaces in Japan and kerb-side shoe cleaning services in Kampala.
Writing from Tokyo | June 11, 2007 | Permalink
Designed, Made, Assembled, Manufactured, Regenerated
Advertising plastered around Shibuya for a Chinese/Vietnamese brand that is making a push into the sk8 footwear market.
How does our perception of a brand change when any consumer has instant access to trace a product back to the source of its manufacture? Going back to the person who hand-stitched the custom uppers to the vanilla lowers? How do the semantics of product creation change In a world of supply-chain transparency?
Are we there already? iPod's designed in Cupertino but assembled in China? What does it mean to be made somewhere? And for products with self healing properties will we start to see regenerated in? Or evolved from?
Writing from Shibuya, back of | | Permalink
Tokyo Select
In a world where everything can be increasingly smaller, motivations for keeping it large and perhaps, ahem, largin' it. For wearables, what is worn under, integrated with, or over the other stuff that is worn?
Writing from Shibuya | | Permalink
Trend Spotters, Spotted
What do you do when you return home from time away? What makes you feel like you're home? Do you have an equivilent of urine marking behaviour?
Friday night and the trend spotters hit the streets of Shibuya. Who watches the watchmen?
Writing from Tokyo | June 10, 2007 | Permalink
Menu Options: Literacy, Understanding, Enjoyment
Standing in front of the restaurant vending machine you know what you're going to order, right? Of course, right.
Now, try navigating a (mobile phone) interface with the same level of comprehension of what is written. How does your lack of textual and technological literacy change your ability to use and enjoy using a product or service? Your sense of achivement once the basic functions are learned.
And your level of motivation to learn how to use new features (or order something different from the menu) once you've managed the basics.
An argument in this restaurant indeed for picture menus. And an argument for feature - simple devices.
Oh yeah related: essay and slideshow [6MB PowerPoint].
Writing from Sakura Shinmachi | June 9, 2007 | Permalink
Pantone Variety
Writing from Shibuya | | Permalink
Role of Colour in Shortening the Path
Use of colour in ZapCodes [images of overly happy technology adopters NSFW]. From Sunday's Straits Times.
The extent to which colour changes the perception of what can be interacted with?
Writing from Japan | June 8, 2007 | Permalink
Speed, Motivations For Change
The speed at which different types of infrastructure, at which the elements - such as light bulbs change.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Stackability of Objects Between Use States
Stack of chop-sticks waiting to be washed.
Compared to other eating implements.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Logos We Know & Have Learned to Love
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Street Tattoos
The street tattoo artist lays a stencil of a tiger on his arm and applies the ink. A crowd forms, in truth more for me then for the cut-&-paste-creative spectacle - we're in a suburb where white -skinned cultural tourists are rare if not unique. The temporary tattoo lasts “from a few days to a couple of years, washes off with good dose of sugar water and vinegar”, apparently. He follows up outlining the edges also with an, apparently, sterilised toothpick.
For any form of personalization: the perceived and actual costs of making the ‘wrong’ choice vs. the perceived and actual benefits; the perceived permanence of those choices; the extent to which the apparent mobility or 'fixedness' of the service provider has on the decision making process.
Writing from Chongqing, somewhere near | June 5, 2007 | Permalink
(b)ooer
Writing from Chongqing | | Permalink
Urban Sculpture
Restaurant seating carved out of the 'dead space' of a foot bridge.
How does the visual/physical comprehension of a 'restaurant' differ in a culture with a high proportion of (ergonomical) squatters?
Writing from Chongqing | | Permalink
Context Acknowledged
The extent to which people working in a particular profession become accustomed to a non-standard orientation of words and letters. For example? Chongqing taxi driver (above), or ambulance vehicle crews.
The extent to which the future tools through which we view the world are able to adjust a more 'normalised' view personalised for an individual.
Writing from Chongqing | | Permalink
Volume of Information, Physical Space
An airport small enough to be able to provide a meaningful map showing the location of departure gates, physical ticket size large enough to display said map. Future changes in size, scale and resolution of the stuff around us.
Writing from Chongqing | | Permalink
Street Service Norms
What does it say about you and your culture that toe nail clipping services are not part of your urban landscape?
Beyond prostitution, what services are you likely to find offered on the streets of your neighbourhood? Why?
And the white specs on the street? Calcium from a morning's worth of customers.
Writing from Chongqing | | Permalink
Auto-Opening
When the baby squats the slit in the rear of the romper suit automatically opens out to support instant bodily relief. The designer in me loves the inherent properties of the form/function though its not particularly suited to all cultures or climates.
Writing from Chongqing | June 4, 2007 | Permalink
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