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
Demarkation of Segregation
Physical barrier on a Kobrasol bus deliniating who has paid and who has not, in the above photos. Male only queue for a Tehran bus in photos below - the female only queue was for the back half of the bus, and yes with equal number of seats in both halves.
At what part of the (service) process to sort/filter/segregate? Motivation for segregation? Implications of segregation on the objects/people being segregated?
Writing from Tokyo | November 9, 2006 | Permalink
Proof of Purchase, Experience, Honesty, ...
A fan clutches an admission ticket from a football match in Brazil above. A lottery was held at half time, a cue for spectators to take out their ticket stubs and try to catch the numbers read out over the stadium intercom and win a prize.
The detrius of receipts from the exit of a supermarket in Lhasa below. On leaving the supermarket the contents of bags were checked against what appeared on the receipt, which was then ripped and thrown on the floor.
Receipts that also function as a form of lottery tickets were reasonably common in China - a move by the government to encourage a culture of giving and receiving receipts with the ulterior motive of moving business to run on rather than off the books.
For any transactions, what tangible objects are produced as part of the transaction process and why? What are people's motivations for keeping hold of receipts and tickets, in what form and for how long?
During wallet mapping exercises its common for our participants to pull a few receipts from their wallet or purse - and to use the interview as an excuse to sort and throw. Reasons for keeping hold of receipts include: proof of purchase - being able to exchange at the store at a later date; the fear of being accused of shop lifting; franchised stores trying to reduce the risk of sales not going through the cash register - see examples from Seattle and Delhi; re-assurance that the right objects were bought and the right price was paid - especially for multiple-object purchases; horders who feel the need to keep a receipt for everything - and like to track the transaction minutae of their lives; the self employed who tend to systematically collect and catalogue receipts as real or potential expenses; receipts as emotional momentos of where you've been and done; and last but not least as conversation triggers to talk about what you've been and done. Bourg St Maurice train stubs? Moi? Mai oui.
Bearing in mind the reasons for keeping receipts what role is there for tangible ticket stubs in an otherwise digital transaction? What happens in the football lottery when match tickets are digital and everyone carries a personal communication device?
Writing from Tokyo | September 8, 2006 | Permalink
Clues to Where People Sit
From a jetlag induced early morning street walk through Brazil's Kobrasol.
Writing from Tokyo | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Swing, Bin
From Jardins, São Paulo.
Writing from Tokyo | September 1, 2006 | Permalink
Advertising in 2012
Lines leading up an Akihabara staircase to a maid cafe above, and through a São Paulo station below.
What do the properties of the line tell you about what to expect at the destination? Or whether there is a destination? What if these lines were ethereal? A digital flow made visible by your personal communication device, like having a radio tuned to static, walking into a signal and following. What would the flow communicate to encourage you to seek out its destination?
Writing from Tokyo | August 22, 2006 | Comments (3) | Permalink
Relevant, Less Relevant, More Relevant
Not sure if this São Paulo graffiti refers to this or this?
Writing from Tokyo | August 15, 2006 | Permalink
Digital Gait
Knowing a person by the sound of their footsteps, their gait. What would be unique about your digital gait?
From a series of photos taken in Shibuya Station above and Sé Station below.
Writing from Tokyo | August 14, 2006 | Comments (4) | Permalink
Personal Space, Changes In
The human density from the process of queueing and then boarding a train in Sé Station, above. The degree to which personal space is maintained at a pedestrian crossing in Shibuya visually extenuated by the umbrellas, below. Different cultures have different norms as to what constitutes an acceptable amount of personal space. How does this distance differ between contexts? In any given context what are acceptable 'excuses' to breach this space?
How do notions of personal space, privacy change as more about how we define ourselves and how others define us become digital? What are acceptable excuses to breach personal-digital space? How do you breach someone's personal-digital space?
Writing from Tokyo | | Comments (1) | Permalink
Taken, Missed Opportunities
Pixel art in Jardins.
Writing from Tokyo | August 11, 2006 | Permalink
Your Next Job Is Here
To round off today's virtual visit to Brazil - human billboards seated in a row carrying advertisements for jobs. In the photos below - a row of applicants queues and job advertisements displayed on public and ad-hoc infrastructure.
Many of the people queuing will have public access to online job advertising so what is that attracts, and continues to attract job advertisers and job seekers to this physical space? What are the benefits of human over stationary billboards? Are these benefits being fully utilised? What are the cultural characteristics that make human billboards omnipresent in this Sao Paulo street?
How do the human billboards affect the perception of the quality of the job (or other services) on offer?
Writing from Tokyo | August 4, 2006 | Comments (4) | Permalink
Mobile Location Based Advertising
Mobile advertising From Shanghai (above), Sao Paulo, Ho Chi Minh City and Delhi (in sequence, below). If these vehicles and the majority of people are carrying connected high capacity devices what kind of services does this enable? What will be your criteria for judging whether to connect or not?
OK, technically the Delhi photo is announcing a funeral.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
The Positioning of People
Human hoardings in a Sao Paulo street - there were at leat 16 different information hawkers. What would be different if they were selling digitial services or content?
For a Tokyo equivilent see the value of you, is where you are.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Tangible vs Digital
Locks and MP3s for sale side by side in a Sao Paulo market street. For customers buying digital content from street vendors how to recognize the quality of what is for sale? That it plays? That it contains the correct music? That the metadata is present and accurate? In the way that collectiions are put together?
In the corner of the DVD market stalls below you can (just) spot a portable DVD player - for offering customers previews of movies. For music and in a noisy street environment how can a buyer appreciate what it is they are buying? Currently the quality of music bought in these contexts is largely 'that the CD-ROM or DVD actually plays', rather than the quality of the recording, but like with DVD previews its only a matter of time before some form of value added preview is offered. In some Delhi markets its more likely that the music would be burned just-in-time - its already the case with software purchased through the same channels.
With digital music larger file sizes might imply higher quality recordings. Part of the AllofMP3 business model is to allow the customer to choose the quality and ultimately pay according to the resulting file size - for example MP3s can be encoded at low, high or CD quality (128, 192 or 320 kbps) and the customer can choose which DRM free format to encode into. There is a flip side to all this of course.
How can street sellers raise the perception of quality of their digital wares? How will quality be judged by future, more savvy consumers?
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Security Concerned
A metro-using Paulista shields his back pack by wearing a coat.
Given all the security and theft stories both prior to and on arrival in Brazil this kind of most-obviously concerned-with-theft wearing style was rare. From our various studies on where people carry stuff (not that we did any formal research in Brazil, but drawing on data from 8 other cultures) people concerned with theft tend to carry bags and objects of value e.g. mobile phones or wallets hidden, within easy reach of hands, in lines of sight and/or in tactile contact to the body. Given that a back pack worn normally is mostly out of sight and out of reach the number spotted being worn on the Sao Paulo metro was surprising.
For every context a series of trade-offs.
Writing from Tokyo | August 2, 2006 | Permalink
Ease of Sorting Items for Recycling
Does 7 plus or minus 2 apply here?
Writing from Tokyo | July 31, 2006 | Permalink
Under the Flyover
The Garrido Boxing gym taken during a São Paulo how the-city-wakes-up session, which eventually morphed into trying to figure out how-people-utilise-the-space-under-flyovers.
Related photos here.
Writing from Tokyo | July 27, 2006 | Permalink
Smaller. Happier?
Re-sellers catering for highly price sensitive customers whether its cigarettes sold individually (Sao Paulo, above), shampoo & soap powder and tobacco (Delhi, below) or small units of call time in the Philippines. To what extent can what elements of goods and services be broken down into smaller parts? If manufacturers are unable or unwilling to directly cater to this market themselves what design elements support secondary markets? What are the limits of this approach?
Why does the Sao Paulo shop not offer a service to pair up customers who cannot afford to buy the sole consumption rights to a cigarette? Why is there not an aftermarket for second or even third hand smoke & nicoteen? What are the limits indeed.
Writing from Tokyo | July 26, 2006 | Permalink
Density & Flow & Use of Spaces
An hour spent people watching at Sé Metro station. What if anything, is unique about the São Paulo context?
Limited undertaking of activities such as reading, text messaging, and listening to music whilst waiting for or riding transport; the density of people at 16:00 on a friday; that the train pictured is pulling out of the station with many passengers still on the platform; separate platforms to enter and leave the train; that in culture with a high perceived risk of theft a number of bags are carried on people's backs - essentially out of sight.
Engaging in tasks such as listening to music or reading send a signal to others that your senses are othewise engaged. What can be undertaken without drawing attention to the fact that a task is being carried out? What strategies do people use to avoid detection? How do these strategies change according to the context?
Sad to leave São Paulo, but good to be heading home to enjoy the Tokyo summer.
Writing from Sé | July 23, 2006 | Permalink
Features That Make a Service
A photo processing shop owner leans into a photo booth to adjust a customer's poise before taking a ID card photo.
A photo booth without an in built camera seems counter-intuitive but that's simply a lack of imagination on our behalf. The physical presence of the booth signals to customers what service is on offer; it re-enforces the idea of a minimum level of quality (though naturally this will depend on the camera that is used to take the actual photo); the proprietor can easily upgrade the camera; and the camera can be used in other contexts not just for taking ID card photos.
In some ways this shop is ahead of its time - it enables a setting for customers to use their own widely available tools to create. There's no evidence that this happens here, but with the widespread adoption of personal content creation tools I consider it only a matter of time - todays high end cameras will be tomorrow's mass market both in terms of perception of image quality and after effects that are possible. Shop's like this will still perform a valuable role in the creation process - a providing a suitable ambience, backdrop, props, printing and naturally guideance on poise, but many consumers will choose to utilise their own tools.
A photo booth without an in-built camera. Whatever next?
Related research from Fujian Province, Lhasa and New Orleans.
Writing from Sé | | Permalink
Placement
Why are the stickers advertising the services of Mika, Karla, Pati, Juliana, Kakau and Sheilinha (and/or their pimp) placed on the phone body and handset and not in the infrastructurre of the booth itself? Why stickers and not cards that are popular in places like London or Berlin?
There's a Hugler Sao Paulo phone model in there somewhere.
Writing from Perdizes | | Comments (2) | Permalink
The Speed of Subcultures
A saturday night of Sao Paulo subcultures.
A Paulista uses his mobile phone to video the smoking, oh all right then - smokin' wheelspin from a muscle car in a downtown backstreet (above); climbers abseil down from the Sumare bridge onto the motorway traffic island; and bathroom covered with S&M club flyers in a Consolacao dive bar (below).
The first activity starts out legal but can drift into a grey legal territory. Whilst the abseiling is being clamped down by the new mayor it's not as if it's not obvious to passing traffic and the police did not intervene whilst I was there.
Thought for today? The blurring of legal, non-legal and illegal activities depending on context. The change in the legal status as laws play catch-up with what's happening on the ground. And on a slightly different tack - the speed at which sub-cultures are disseminated, absorbed and re-appropriated for local contexts.
Writing from Consolacao | | Permalink
Icons, Rituals
The role of faith, religious icons, rituals in everyday life, from Sao Paulo above, and Old Delhi below.
For everything I believe in there are more people who believe in something else. The same goes for the rest of you.
Writing from Consolacao | | Permalink
Lateral Thinking Required
Writing from Jardins | | Permalink
Inverse Textures
Writing from Jardins | | Permalink
Context & Understanding
Sao Paulo is very much a city of flyovers and underpasses, that latter being the focus of yesterday's street research.
This refrigerator has been converted to a novel use. What is it currently used for?
Photos contain some clues but I don't reckon any of you will get it.
Update: The following photo shows its recycled use - as equipment in an under-the-flyover gym.
Writing from Bela Vista | July 22, 2006 | Comments (13) | Permalink
Touching Bases
A few days in the Sao Paulo to wrap up this trip to Brazil. In a world of dense urban spaces it doesn't get much more dense-urban than this.
The city is going through a heat-wave of sorts - the violence between Police and local gangs has escalated with police stations and government buildings being attacked. I'm tempted to say that it there is an Escape from New York edge to the city, but for the locals its business as usual.
Tonight's driver has promised a Paulista's view of the city, lets see if he delivers.
Writing from Perdizes | July 21, 2006 | Permalink
Lines That
How do you know whether a line is designed to be followed? Or when it marks the border between two states?
Writing from Kobrasol, back of | | Permalink
Traces Of
The point at which traces fade (above), the extent to which traces are enhanced (below).
Writing from Campeche | | Permalink
The Passion Of
Our home for the last few nights has been located in Campeche a small surfing community nestled on Brasil's South Atlantic coast. It's somewhat of a relief to move out of Kobrasol - both in terms of creating a mental and physical distance between ourselves and the environment that we have spent the last 8 days researching, but also because we were situated in a dense urban sprawl with so much natural beauty nearby.
I'd like to say that I awoke this morning to the sound of crashing waves, but despite our stones-throw proximity to the sea the reality is far more mundane - at dawn a nearby rooster belted its lungs out. This was followed by 10 minutes of what sounded like someone quickly and repeatedly exhaling air through their nose but in fact turned out to be a combination of a vocal bird and the vivid imagination of lying in a beta-state. Local fowl aside, the distinct lack of distractions makes Campeche a good space to discuss, discuss and discuss again the focus of our research.
The hotel lies sandwiched between the beach and a road that runs the coast. At night the noise from a local football game drifts over nearby wasteland: the squeak of rubber on asphalt; the sounds of the ball being flipped, tipped, nudged and occasional kicked (this is after all Brazil not Hackney Marshes), and when a goal goes in a acknowledgements from spectators and soon-to-be-players. The pitch has been set up directly under one of the sodium street lights and is book-ended by barricades constructed out of old furniture, boxes and salvaged wood, its design? - to reduce the amount of time chasing wayward balls. The pitch itself is 15 meters long and exactly one road-width wide enabling a skillful player to use the kerb for quick one-twos. The goal, constructed from more salvaged wood is backed by a sack that at first glance is designed as a net but from further observation is really there to lend authority to the playing experience and to make it easier to distinguish whether the ball has passed between the posts. Each goal is less than 1 by half a meter and this small size helps explains why despite the skill of the players and the fact that they are playing 3 on 3 more goals are not scored. We're in the middle of a mild winter here in Brazil and the dress code is t-shirts, shorts and by and large, beat up skate shoes. The choice of footwear is somewhat surprising given that shoe shops here stock large amounts of futbal shoes, but skate culture is also pretty prevalent. The first team to score two in a row, wins and the losing team is replaced by three pairs of fresh legs. Logic dictates that at this pace the winner's will eventually have to retire worn out by the constant barrage. But for the duration of my stay one, skillful team remains on the pitch.
Three nights in a row they have been playing here, maybe they are here every night. It's always a pleasure to witness the passion with which people do what they do whether its cricket on the streets of India, basketball in China or, like tonight, street football in Brazil.
Writing from Campeche | | Permalink
Location Based Advertising
Some skate parks have better views than others.
Writing from Kobrasol, back of | July 20, 2006 | Permalink
Local Norms
Riot police escorting the referees from the pitch.
Writing from Florianopolis, Outskirts of | July 19, 2006 | Permalink
When Legacy Works
A photo processing shop utilising the same bag-like form for processing digital prints as for physical films. The digital prints are stored on a computer but the final prints are delivered using the same 'infrastructure'. There may well be a better way, but the process is understood by both consumers and shop workers.
Writing from Kobrasol | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Bench
The permanence of different forms of advertising media.
Writing from Kobrasol, back of | | Permalink
Traces of Enjoyment
Car parking lot on the beach front close to Kobrasol. Wanted to check out the Brazillian custom car culture up close but the weather and sleep patterns have made it one research topic too far.
Writing from Kobrasol, back of | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Secondary Activities
The photo above was taken at a football match in the suburbs of Florianopolis - it captures the moment between a ball going in the back of the visiting side's net, and official confirmation of the score. If you look closely to will see two fans holding radios and another two with headsets running up to their ear (I don't know whether the headset was connected to a radio or a mobile phone - it wasn't the really the right context to ask). The stadium didn't have a score board - when the first goal went in the fans that were not jumping up and down in excitement were glued to the radio broadcast - the opposing team were naturally contesting the goal and its possible that it would be dis-allowed. In this stadium the live radio commentary provided the definitive version of what's going on down on the pitch.
Product and service designers like to think of their creations being the sole focus of the user's attention but the reality is that we increasingly live in a multi-tasking world. As devices become smaller there is more potential for them to be carried in a wider range of situations. Consider the difference between a device that requires two hands vs. one handed use vs. no handed use. The supporting role implies a degree of comfort with the object that is carried - it is considered sufficient to carry that device 'merely' to enhance the experience of other activities.
What level of interaction and sensory engagement does your service need to be understood or enjoyed? Why? How is designing for a supporting role different from designing for the primary activities? How to support switching between primary and non-primary tasks?
Writing from Florianopolis, Outskirts of | July 18, 2006 | Permalink
Wrap, Dry
Writing from Kobrasol | July 16, 2006 | Permalink
Wrap, Own
By default beer bottles are served in a plastic wrapping adorned with advertising.
For all the effort that goes into presenting products or information in a particular way, what is required to take visual, mental ownership?
Writing from Kobrasol | | Comments (2) | Permalink
Norms
Cuba libre served in the stands.
Writing from Kobrasol | July 15, 2006 | Permalink
The Power of Information & Misinformation
On the way to the stadium two way streets are funneled into one direction to cope with volume of traffic - signage and road markings delineating road rules overturned for an event geared around the football seasons. We are in Brazil after all. On the approach to the stadium hustlers try to sell tickets at prices you'll only be able to confirm are inflated only once you reach the end of the ticket queue. They have a business model based, from the user's perspective, on misinformation and scarcity. Today however it is raining, tickets are plentiful and there is no queue.
Access to price and availability information is the difference between success and failure for these ticket touts but parallels can be found everywhere, including handset and service design. It's no surprise that consumers who sign up for a monthly call plan that covers talk-time, messages and data like to make the most of what they have paid for. Without roll-over you lose what you don't use. But going over pre-set limits often results in disproportionate penalties. Teens and other highly price-sensitive users often make the most of their remaining time by lending or gifting remaining credit amongst their peer group. But for most consumers this level of micro-management takes too much effort.
But why is it too much effort? Accurate information is available and it's easy to present it in a format that users' understand. The answer is of course quite simple - when time is money, timely information is king.
The broader design questions are - who stands to gain from providing what information or misinformation to whom? How does the power of whom has timely access to information shift by the widespread availability of personal and convenient communication devices?
What services are enabled by that shift?
The score? Despite the body language of the crowd above, two-nil to the home team.
Writing from Kobrasol | | Permalink
Knowing What is, What is Not
The clarity that comes from proximity. The extent to which filters are whole or are by-passable.
Writing from Kobrasol | | Permalink
Recognition
Writing from Kobrasol | July 14, 2006 | Comments (2) | Permalink
Form(al) Defaults
Writing from Florianopolis | July 13, 2006 | Comments (2) | Permalink
Securing Possessions
Straps attached to each chair restricting the range of distribution in a hotel restaurant in Florianopolis Brazil (above) and a restaurant in Bejing below. To what extent are the differences in approach cultural? To what extent context dependent? How are the spaces used differently?
How do you keep the posessions you carry that are not worn secure when you are in a restaurant? If your culture doesn't by default offer additional chair security? Why not?
Writing from Florianopolis | | Permalink
A Message To Our Guests
Hotel elevator (above)- children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult. Hotel flyer (below) - article 227 paragraph 4 - "the law will punish and abuse serverely, the violence and the child's sexual exploration of the adolescent".
Writing from Florianopolis | July 12, 2006 | Permalink
So New It's...
Still covered signs at the check-in counter of TAM Airlines - the moment between delivery, installation and use.
Varig appears to be cancelling a lot of flights out of Sao Paulo.
Writing from São Paulo | July 11, 2006 | Permalink
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