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Dynamic Contextual Pricing
Digital price signs in a Tokyo supermarket. Which of the pricing models enabled and popularised by the internet - will make it to a (Tokyo) store near you?.
Why? The ability to dynamically change prices based on contexts such as time of day, customers in proximity, levels of stock, or the weather that you experienced five minutes ago creates so many opportunities. Small sign. Big implications.
Tokyo today, Bejing this evening.
Writing from Tokyo | October 31, 2007 | Permalink
Magnetic Attraction
Movie poster for non-Japanese film.
Of note: use of the first person in communicating I'm Sorry; the readers' literacy to understand that it is a warning sign - even if they don't have the english language skills to understand the full meaning of the text.
Magnetic attraction? The extent to which that format of warning sign is employed as a magnet for the people it is designed to warn.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Localisation Nuances
What gets translated. What doesn't.
Writing from Tokyo | October 30, 2007 | Permalink
Cinema Queuing Norms
Back alley cinema in Sangenjaya.
Of note? No barriers to segregate men and women during the queueing process. Compared to? This cinema in Gangtok, India.
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | | Permalink
Reflective Moments, Carbon Footprints
Thoughts for today from Tokyo via India, Brazil and China
Many of our Dharavi study participants had access to mains water for three hours out of the day - either piped directly in the home or from a tap on the street shared with neighbours. You know how much water your family consumes by the time and effort it takes to carry it into the home each day.
In Jacarezinho - where many residents of that favela hook into the electricity grid with a gato - cats claw to obtain 'free' electricity. With distorted financial costs residents there is little incentive to turn off air conditioning units, lights and TVs. Many also pay regular electricity bills, the reasons why when ‘free’ electricity is widely available is a topic for another day. Update: with a gentle nudge from a reader well experienced of working in Brazil, this paragraph gives the impression that favela residents have access to all mod-cons. The reality is that a whilst a few do, many don't and that the situation can change significantly depending not least on the favela itself. It points to another take-away from this research - the diversity of experiences that can be found in 'shanty' towns.
The more reflective Dopplr users reading this should check out Dopplr Offsetr an application developed by Will Carter. In one button click it pulls in your Dopplr travel data and (roughly) calculates the carbon footprint of you and your peer group. Whilst still at an early stage of development it has significant potential to become the carbon calculator (and ultimately conduit for payment) of choice.
It’s also an application that captures the zeitgeist: utilizing data from two other services (personal travel data via the Dopplr API, carbon footprint calculations from Terrapass) - something you oversized kids would probably call a mash-up; helps the traveller reflect on his or her environmental impact of air travel; and from the service design perspective raises interesting questions about what user's of services such as Dopplr's should expect to remain private.
To what extent is your carbon footprint a public matter? Why? With what exceptions?
The tools to measure personal consumption are growing in sophistication and ubiquity and we're only a rew hacks away from syncing this with other data sources such as meeting schedules, medical records and, yes carbon and other resource footprints.
Fast forward to your future perfect - you're thinking of booking that flight for a business trip to Dallas having made it as far as the Book Flight button. Which service will be the first to include a 'sell down' screen in the purchasing process - encouraging you to think of alternatives with reduced planetary and personal costs. Yes offsetting carbon credits already exists, but use your imagination and throw in a few more data sources.
In what contexts is there a business case for travel agents to encouraging you not to fly? How about in a corporation trying to cut the frequency of employee travel. Or a health insurer who can offer discounts based on the correlation between sick days and long-haul flights.
Next week the team flies to Accra. Pressure to come up with something good? Multiplied.
Related research: urban street charging services in Kampala [PowerPoint, PDF 3MB] and rural charging services in Uganda [PowerPoint, PDF MB]. Robert Neuwirth's TED talk on Shadow Cities and Bunker Roy's Pop!Tech presentation on the Barefoot College and the impact that access to water has on communities.
Writing from Tokyo | October 29, 2007 | Permalink
Contextual Actions Deflected
The sign for temple drawn on this wall. Why?
The wall is situated in a maze of bars and izakaya in the back of Sangenjaya - so the need to urinate is high and late night the risk of 'getting caught' relatively low. But whom, even in a drunken state would pee on a temple sign? Thomas Stovicek spotted very similar thinking during our field study in Delhi, but with enameled pictures of gods.
Symbols that deflect actions. And with lo-power no-power digital displays turning up in ever more places, the ability to customise the symbols/message to increase its impact. Would you pee on a wall with a picture of your lover looking down? Mother? Boss? Diety?
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | | Permalink
Tech. Popped. Twice
Reader's with an interest in emerging markets research you may wish to check out my colleague Joe McCarthy's presentation at Pop Tech: Empowering People Through Mobile Technologies in Developing Regions on slideshare here. It provides a broader summary of the work Nokia is doing in this area than you'll find on Future Perfect.
As a presentation author whose research presentations have been uploaded to slideshare (for worse and for better without my knowledge) I'm in two point zero minds about slideshare. On the one hand it provides a useful service for making presentation material accessible and clusters tech orientated research in a relatively easy to discover format. And on the other hand the company founders are making advertising revenue out of someone else's work. It will be interesting to see whether and how slideshare offers sufficient control and revenue generating opportunities to original authors before someone gets legal messy. Given that the presentations are largely uploaded by individuals that day in court is a long way off.
From a design researcher's point of view I have the legal right to present this research in the public domain, but not necessarily the legal or moral right to generate direct monetary profit or to allow others to do the same. We spend a lot of time reviewing what material to reveal outside the company in particular to protect the people whose lives we are allowed to document. Slideshare and a multitude of similar services add an additional moral filter to the process of deciding what publish.
Expect to see less published, more widely disseminated.
Writing from | October 24, 2007 | Permalink
TED Links
Visitors arriving from the TED blog may want to download the original presentation titled Connections & Consequence [PowerPoint, PDF 4MB]. A list of related research is published here.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Post Office Norms
Continuing on today’s transaction theme - this Tokyo post office form filling tables includes: the current date; commonly used forms; a hanko ink pad; tissues for wiping hanko after use; glue; and an unlikely-to-be-stolen pen.
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | October 23, 2007 | Permalink
Height, Extended
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | | Permalink
Transaction Privacy, Service Design
ATM’s are almost exclusively found inside buildings in Japan yet commonly accessible directly from the street in cities like Helsinki or London.
The relatively low recorded incidence of street crime in Japan suggests that public spaces are an ideal location to situate ATMs. Except that, generally, Japanese people are more likely to feel uncomfortable carrying out ATM transactions in public spaces preferring instead the relative privacy afforded by a building even if it’s nothing more than a glorified lobby. Perhaps there are other factors at play: that in Japan ATMs are more likely to be used for more complex transactions than just cash withdrawals - whether for money transfers or and bill payments; and that in a cash driven society people are more likely to withdraw larger sums of money; its also more common for the ATM to give voice feedback on the current status of the transaction?
A more subtle example of the need for transaction privacy can be found by looking at the central divide of bank and post office tables - in Japan customers are likely to feel uncomfortable and complain if their form filing can be witnessed by others in close proximity. The net result - it is common to find a raised central divide that acts as a privacy shield.
And what if anything, has this got to do with service design?
The future perfect will increasingly include touch based payments systems such as Edy or similar - and a multitude of public electronic feedback mechanisms from LED displays on Suica vending machines to high definition flat screen displays. The granularity of possible feedback will range from simply showing the remaining credit on your card to a photo of you, your entire transaction history. What to reveal when? What are the cultural, contextual differences?
Cheers DM for the pointers/sake.
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | | Permalink
Supporting Likely Queues
The place where you’re likely to find a queue first thing in the morning in the US is outside the phone operator store; in Japan outside a pachinko parlour.
This Tokyo suburb pachinko parlour entrance includes coffee for queueing punters, and a sign indicating: no uniformed school kids; no parents with young children - the child in the sign is wearinag a cap often worn by pre-schoolers; and no parents with babies.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Replacement Cycles
Sunday's street market in Nakame and the emergency services are out force, demonstrating their willingness to, well, service emergencies. Their presence includes this not-particularly Japanese looking resuscitation dummy.
Thought for the day: the replacement cycle for specialist objects; the societal shifts that occur over the course of that time period.
Writing from Naka Meguro | October 16, 2007 | Permalink
If It Moves, Vend It
Today's dentist reception includes an electronic massage chair and, bless them, a slipper vending machine - slippers being worn in the building. Punters heading for the chair receive a 'freshly cleaned' pair at the press of a button. And on your way out - used pairs are placed on the plate at the top of the machine where gravity drops them into slots where they are apparently, irradiated.
Its size suits the tiny reception area that is common in Tokyo dentists. However it makes me wonder whether its real function is the psychological reassurance that the rest of the building has such 'high' hygiene standards.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Knowing What to Press
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Bowl Etiquette
Writing from Sangenjaya, back of | | Permalink
Light
The lighting set from Minimal Tokyo's Spielfilm generating an algorithmic response to the sound - walking the line between abstraction and visual closure.
In the future perfect clubbing experience - our ever sensor filled world has, for medical purposes and insurance discounts extended to monitor our bodies in real time - your heart rate, pupil dilation, body's reaction to the world around you. How will tomorrow's sound and light surgeons tap into this real time data to heighten and dampen your collective and individual experiences? Your mental and physiological responses to sound, light and your live-in grade A+ pharmaceuticals used as inputs to affect yourself, your possie, and anyone who taps into your feed.
In 2020 Tokyo Art Beat includes a real time emotion map of the city - highlighting the range and intensity of emotional experiences as they occur. That broad red blob? An encore at the Tokyo Dome. A momentary intense red followed by fade-to-grey? A fatal stabbing. Your decision of where to hang-out tonight influenced by real time experiences and historical data of the same.
And as with all of this stuff, how will promoters game the system by artificially stimulating experiences to encourage swarming?.
Writing from Roppongi Hills | October 14, 2007 | Permalink
Sound
Exploration of sound, and ways of creating sounds at Kurikku. A user interface designer's playground.
Writing from Roppongi Hills | | Permalink
Inherent Properties
The properties that make this a suitable space for dumping bags of dog excrement, and a sign to encourage owners not to do the same. Street architecture that formally supports this behaviour in Helsinki.
Eager beavers heading out to Tokyo Design Week should consider taking in D & Dept (where this photo was taken) - its one store that consistently stocks a subtle range of Design Japan. Being a bit out of the way means it avoids the usual design-tourist crowd. Take in a lunch setto and spend an hour to peruse the warehouse.
Writing from Jyu Gaoka | | Permalink
Night Walker
Booklet advertising sex-services posted on pedestrian route frequently used by office workers.
In many cultures phone booths are the advertising battleground for sex service advertsing - whether plastered over the booth in the UK, limited to the phone handset in Brazil and equally absent from phone booth's in Thailand. What does it say about Japanese culture (or the profitability of sex services) that this kind of advertising survives in such a public space?
In a world of highly contextual adverstising expect to see ever more sensitive material make it into the public domain.
Writing from Meguro | | Permalink
Paranoia / Re-assurance / Paranoia / etc
A furniture store staff entrance. Mirrors to check you, to check self. The documentation, self-documentation arms race.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Subtle Changes in Behaviour
For the Passmo contact-less travel card used around Tokyo. From their blurb: "Do not stick labels or anything similar on the card, as this may cause the card to jam in ticket vending machines, fare adjustment machines or the like and may damage the card" How to support personalisation for this frequently used object?
"Do not give it to other people". Travel cards tend to have a primary single user, whereas carried cash frequently changes hands. Given that Passmo can be used for travel and is a cash replacement, are people more likely to share a Passmo card with other people?
And given that the card should not officially be personalised, to what extent does this support sharing behaviours? Whether to inherently support wear-and-tear uniqueness?
Writing from Tokyo | October 11, 2007 | Permalink
Primary, Secondary Purpose Cues
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Clustering Behaviours
Design cues that would encourage people to hang their umbrella on the outside edge? (Yeah, regardless of whether thats desireable)
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Conden-sation
Writing from Tokyo | October 6, 2007 | Permalink
Caution Fragile
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
East & West
The complimentary nature of two objects not normally associated with one another - wooden chopsticks used to remove (a stuck tortillas) from a toaster.
Writing from Sakura Shinmachi | | Permalink
Platform, Exit
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Accra Calling
Live in Accra?
Our research team will be heading to Accra in November 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 multi-lingual, live and breathe Accra, 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 the 1st and 17th November or there abouts. Email info (at) janchipchase.com for more details.
The gent on a bike? Boda boda driver from our recent study in Uganda.
Writing from Tokyo | October 4, 2007 | Permalink
Thought Lite
Ten days of workshops to brain dump/extrapolate five years of research. The pop-traditional Japanese packaging? For an occasional sugar rush brain food.
Writing from Meguro | | Permalink
Activity Frames
No smoking between the hours of 7:30 and 9:30 - rare to see time boundaries for this activity. The increasing ability to monitor what kind of (susceptible) people/things are in this context when the (anti-social) activity is taking place we are likely to see much more of this.
Want to get a sense of how activities such as smoking will be seen in the future perfect? Every time you see a 'no xxxx' sign switch out the x's with, well anti-social activities from days gone by. Like? Opium.
Writing from Shibuya | October 2, 2007 | Permalink
Transformational Projects
8 foot transformer Optimus Styro constructed from 2 years of selected styrofoam made in the studio of Kevin & Tywen Kelly
The length of time it takes to gather sufficient resoures for a craft project. The factors that make it easier to collect sufficient material to start a project e.g. households/supermarkets engaged is a greater range of recycling, consumption of a particular type of product or more difficult e.g. a shift to smaller apartment sizes, and the types of projects this leads to.
Writing from Tokyo | October 1, 2007 | Permalink
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