If They Can They Will
What makes this pipe a (more) socially acceptable place to place trash than, say the ground or gutter?
From last winter's soujourn in Chengdu. The hard hat eventually moved - the chap was peeing against the other side of the wall.
Writing from Tokyo | March 23, 2007 | Permalink
Texture & Movement Standards
What is revealed, what remains hidden.
Writing from La Praz | January 23, 2007 | Permalink
Fake, Real, Fake, Real. Repeat until fade
Real and knock-off 8800's from Chengdu's Tai Shen Lan Lu Market (photos taken late last year). A used original about 220 Yuan, a fake with Nokia logo about 900 Yuan, and a version with identical industrial design but no logo 50 Yuan. The power of the brand? Does the same apply to your brand?
Incidentally, my translator & guide for the day correctly guessed the real from the fake with her eyes (literally) shut by listening to the sound and feeling the sliding mechanism, but with her eyes open she considered the fake to be the real thing. Not exactly surprising considering that she'd not held one in her hands before. This is where I should probably write something about the need to eductate consumers. However, in what contexts does educating consumers on the value of the original drive up the value of the fake?
I've touched on fakes before, whether the fluidity of markets in Shanghai, watching fake covers being packaged up in a Delhi market, the real/fake fake/real battery buying options in Ulan Bataar, fake cigarettes in Xiamen, a prevalance of Ecko in Lhasa, how to fool consumers into thinking a non-waterproof watch is in fact waterproof in Kathmandu, and why Al Zawahri was probably wearing fake New Balance convolutedly via Cairo.
The backdrop to the photos? A backstreet Sichuan eatery. And yes, I'm still in Tokyo.
Writing from Tokyo | January 22, 2007 | Permalink
Specialist Media
People's Railway Daily on the Xining to Lhasa train.
Writing from Chengdu | December 20, 2006 | Permalink
Element Protector
Writing from Chengdu | | Permalink
Cool = Obey = Not Cool
An adapted Obey logo sits a top of the cap of a Lhasa rickshaw driver, buying logo free clothing often costs more in the local markets.
Writing from Chengdu | December 19, 2006 | Permalink
To Catch A Rat
Continuing the theme of rats, a rather playfully designed rat trap in Chengdu Airport.
Writing from Chengdu | December 18, 2006 | Permalink
Crossing Clean and Dirty Spaces
A Chinese gentleman on a train platform makes a phone call wearing white slippers. The slippers were provided for soft-sleeper passengers on the Xining - Lhasa Express for comfort, to avoid the need to put shoes on and off before climbing into a bunk, and to keep the bunks clean of regular shoes.
Cultures have different notions of clean and dirty spaces, take Japan for example. As a device that is both portable and engages our senses the act of using a mobile phone is well equipped to help us temporarily forget these boundaries.
Writing from Chengdu | | Permalink
Microbreak Advertising
The appropriation of a zebra crossing in Chengdu as a backdrop for advertising, somewhat similar to this in Tokyo's Daikanyama.
How will local government digital infrastructure be similarly appropriated?
Writing from Chengdu | December 16, 2006 | Permalink
Pleasures of the Flesh at 4am in Chengdu
A stopover in Chengdu to round off this Chinese leg of my journey starts out innocently enough propping up, and playing go with the regulars of the Little Bar and ends many hours later as a witness to, um, wanton abandoned consumption.
Every culture has its own equivalent to the 4am, pile-on-the-energy meal that rounds off a decent night out - after-hours clubbing in Tokyo followed by a hot bowl of ramen, richly filled bagels in London's East End or a pide in Kreuzberg. For my Chengdu companions that food is simply off my culinary radar.
It takes our taxi driver an age of cruising empty streets to find a suitable eating establishment though to be fair he has to cope with our frequent requests for changes in direction. Given that he picked us up from a street known for its bars at this time of the morning he should expect a degree of incoherence and anyway the meter is nicely ticking over. At three am on a Chengdu winter's night there aren't a hell of a lot of culinary options and on more than one occasion places that should be open are shut. We eventually pull up to a row of cheap blue plastic tables, each identically set with boxes of tissues and a cup of rough wooden chopsticks. The uniform appearance of the tables is in stark contradiction with what they represent - set back from the road are 6 small street eateries each in competition for our trade. A tout opens the taxi door and steers us to a table - only to be roundly ignored by my two female companions.
Each of the slippery steps down into the restaurant proper is a lawsuit waiting to happen. What's the Chinese equivalent to a greasy spoon cafe?
Hot glasses of water are first to arrive. This is swiftly followed by a pig's knuckle soup and the oily seal that has formed across its cooling surface is only broken by icebergs of bone, ligament and a floating white bean. When the final dish arrived it took a while for me to recognize the origins of the 3 skinned and identically shaped lumps of flesh and bone staring somewhat nonchalantly out of a pool of chili oil. As a non-local one of the pleasures of meal times in China is trying to figure out the origins of the food, the ingredients and style preparation so alien to a European. Ultimately it was the dental records and snout that gave it away. "It's stewed rat head" one of my companions grins matter-of-factly before donning a pair of disposable plastic gloves, selecting a choice skull, snapping open its jaw and with a happy abandon not normally associated with this time of the morning proceeds to suck the meat from the bones. I tell myself that ultimately there is little difference between a well cooked rat or pig or cow or lobster but years of culinary conditioning kick in.
I forget to ask what kind of rat makes a good stew. Are free range better tasting than caged?
If there's a future perfect link to all of this, and I'm not entirely convinced that there is, then it's the plastic gloves that Cecelia uses during the meal. Eating stewed rats head is a messy business and the plastic gloves make sense but I can't help thinking that another culture would have evolved some form of implement to help expose the meat, or alternately that an apron would be worn and that hands would be first used then washed. When a task process, whether eating a rats head or lobster, changing a car's oil filter or even sorting though a digital music collection is this messy how to contain the 'dirty' from the 'clean'?
A number of small-town China market stalls serve soup in a regular bowl lined with a thin, transparent plastic bag. When the meal is over the bag is thrown and the bowl can be reused without needing to be washed. (Not that I've ever seen it used this way, but the bag-lining-the-bowl design is well suited to being a doggy-bag-bowl)
How do the cultural differences in the ways we interact with food carry over to the way we interact with what is carried, and what we worn? How well would the stick-your-finger-in-your-ear Whisper Phone go down in this mass-market Chinese context? In a world of wearables it's a question worth asking.
Heading to Tokyo tomorrow to pick up supplies, a fresh change of clothes and a travel companion before the next leg of my December journey. Peace of mind is an open road, hand-luggage and the promise of good times ahead.
Writing from Chengdu | | Permalink
Recycling Collection Options
Writing from Chengdu | December 15, 2006 | Permalink
Rubbish Collection Norms
Flexible waste pick up in Chengdu above, and three forms of fixed rubbish drop off from Jardins São Paulo below. If I understand correctly the waste in Brazil isn't placed directly on the sidewalk for two reasons: to deter rats; and to allow trucks with water jets to blast the street whilst driving by.
Writing from Chengdu | | Permalink
Customisation, Consequences of Lack of
Belonging to a house maid, Chengdu.
Writing from Tokyo | September 1, 2006 | Permalink
Cultures of Repair, Innovation
Update: a slightly more print friendly version of this post appears here and the slides of the presentation can be downloaded via here [4MB].
In an effort to understand the total user experience I've taken time out during recent field studies in emerging markets to explore local repair cultures. The journey has taken me to cities such as Chengdu, Delhi, Ulan Bataar, Ho Chi Minh and Lhasa with recent brief stopovers in Kampala and Soweto. They all contain clusters of shops and market stalls selling a mixture of used and new mobile phones, and whilst (in this instance) size does not necessarily matter, they often operate on a scale not seen in cities such as London or Tokyo. The mobile phone market around Chengdu's Tai Shen Lan Lu Market for example stretches across number of streets and shopping arcades and includes 100's of small shops and stalls. If you want a snapshot of urban mobile phone consumers in emerging markets this is a good place to start.
What sets these locations apart from cities in more 'emerged' markets? Aside from the scale of what's on sale there is a thriving market for device repair services ranging from swapping out components to re-soldering circuit boards to reflashing phones in a language of your choice , naturally. Repairs are often carried out with little more than a screwdriver, a toothbrush (for cleaning contact points) the right knowledge and a flat surface to work on. Repair manuals (which appear to be reverse engineered) are available, written in Hindi, English and Chinese and can even be subscribed to, but there is little evidence of them being actively used. Instead many of the repairers rely on informal social networks to share knowledge on common faults, and repair techniques. It's often easier to peer over the shoulder of a neighbour than open the manual itself. Delhi has the distinction of also offering a wide variety of mobile phone repair courses at training institutes such as Britco and Bridco turning out a steady flow of mobile phone repair engineers. To round off the ecosystem wholesalers' offer all the tools required to set up and run a repair business from individual components and circuit board schematics to screwdrivers and software installers.
How are mobile phone repair cultures different from the everyday repair shops for other mainstream electronics filled with televisions and video recorders? For a start consider the volumes of mobile phones in the marketplace compared to other electronics. Network effects soon kick in - it's easier to find a dead RAZR to cannabalise for spares than spares for a Sony DVD drive drive quite simply because there's more of them about. The physical size of the products to be repaired is also an factor - consider the space required to store and repair 200 mobile phones vs CRT televisions. As objects that many consider essential tools for everyday life mobile phones are carried, dropped, sat on, run over, submerged in a wide variety of situations leading to use cases outside the parameters of most phones. Finally, for many emerging market consumers the phone is considered an essential tool for conducting a successful business whether it's a boda-boda driver in Kampala (gentleman on moped in photo, below) or a midwife in Xiamen. If a person has the choice between repairing a television or a (shared) mobile phone which do you think he or she would choose first?
Each of the cities mentioned above offers more formal repair services, usually officially through customer care service centers, but the scale and sophistication of what is on offer informally is way beyond what many readers of Future Perfect will be familiar. And yes, many of the places mentioned already have networks to (from my observations) efficiently recycle, repair and re-use a wide variety objects including electronics . But in the spirit of the Future Perfect let's start with a very basic question - why do these informal repair cultures exist at all? What is so different between London and Lhasa or Helsinki and Ho Chi Minh?
The informal repair services that are offered are quite simply driven by necessity - highly price sensitive customers cannot afford to go through more expensive official customer care centers and even if they could their phones are unlikely to be covered by warrantee - having been bought through grey market channels, been sent as gifts from friends and relatives abroad, or were locally bought used, second or third+ ownership. In many cases these users cannot afford to be without their mobile phone, not in the social sense of being out of touch (which is valid enough), but in many instances because their livelihoods depend on it. On the supply side there is a ready pool of sufficiently skilled labour, ready access to tools, components and above all knowledge.
It's worth acknowledging that grey and black goods and services are also part of the mobile phone market ecosystem - whether it's passing faked goods off as originals or offering pirated software. Some markets also sell a wide variety of phones that copy the industrial designs of other products, examples are shown here and and example of how it can unfold here (these two links are unrelated). These are however, only a part of the whole market ecosystem and from my understanding are small in scale within the context of the physical markets' themselves, compared to the repair services on offer. And before you ask - no, I'm not arguing that piracy is a minor issue.
For consumers the informal repair culture is largely convenient, efficient, fast and cheap, reducing the total cost of ownership for people for whom a small drop in price may make the difference between having or not having a phone. The culture of repair also increases the lifetime of products lowering their environmental impact (though this could be offset by other factors such as inefficiency of using old batteries).
What can we learn from informal repair cultures? Aside from the benefits, what are the risks for consumers and for companies whose products are repaired, refurbished and resold? Given the benefit to (bottom of the pyramid) consumers are there elements of the repair ecosystem that can be exported to other cultures? Can the same skills be applied to other parts of the value chain? And, turning to my original interest in this topic and the work we do in the Mobile HCI Group, given the range of resources and skills available what would it take to turn cultures of repair into cultures of innovation?
I'm at Cape Town University today discussing qualitative research methods and Informal Repair Cultures. The slides of the presentation can be downloaded via here [4MB download] and related presentations here.
Writing from Cape Town | July 3, 2006 | Comments (4) | Permalink
Repair
This counter is located in Chengdu's Tai Shen Lan Lu Market which specialises in new and used mobile phones and has a well developed mobile phone repair culture. The sales assistant is filling a receipt for equipment to make a basic mobile phone repair kit.
For the companies that make the products that are repaired, what are the implications of what you see in this photo?
Writing from Tokyo | June 15, 2006 | Permalink
Subtleties in the Norm
The red-background-gold-text welcome mat is a regular feature of many shops and restaurants in China - and in many respects has become cultural norm. What subtle (or not so subtle) messages do they send to passers by, in how they are placed, the degree of wear and tear, the language(s) that are supported, and how they are serviced?
Writing from Tokyo | May 8, 2006 | Comments (1) | Permalink
Notifications
Notification of bike parking violations. Tokyo above, Chengdu, below. Which is more practical? efficient? noticed by the violator? noticed by the other membes of society? noticed by the peson who enforces violations?
Writing from Tokyo | March 24, 2006 | Comments (3) | Permalink
Learning From Extreme Products
These photos, taken last year on a private trip to Chengdu, are from a shop selling equipment for the emergency services. As with the PLA store it was open to the public - so uniforms, accessories, ID badges and flashing lights to stick on the roof of your car were all for sale to whomever was able to stump up the cash.
Two police officers (or possibly private security guards, I'm not especially china-uniform-literate) were standing next to me checking out various electric shock devices and in the spirit of try-before-you-buy they decided to, well, try-before-they-bought. Since this was a small shop the electric current crackled a couple of feet from my face for each of the 3 models they tried. The guards appeared to be discussing the merits of each device before picking one out then moving on to negotiate the price with the owner.
The unique selling points appeared to be their size and whether the case was metal or plastic. The packaging advertised that they could shock to 35,000 Watts of power, a fact which I was not interested in validating. They had already succumbed to feature creep - the most feature rich included a torch, siren and electric shock button with the design making it possible to multi-task... see who you're electrocuting as they hold their hands up to cover their ears. I picked out a large plastic model which from the perspective of someone trying to subdue an assailant has the potential additional benefit of being usable as a cosh, it costs 100 RMB (8 Euro).
The three buttons on the device were identical so the only way to know which button belonged to which feature was trial and error. The design was not particularly smart given that people are prone to forget the details of infrequently carried out tasks. The electric shock feature did not work unless a plug, otherwise dangling from a short strap, was inserted in a socket on the base of the device. At least that's the theory - what is the quality assurance of a device that costs 100 RMB?
This shop happened to be in China, but I'm pretty sure I would have similar legal or grey-market consumer choices from Colombia to Canada, the UK to the US.
Designers often talk about learning from lead users or extreme users. What merits are there for looking at and learning from extreme products both in terms of their design, and in the moral/ethical/commercial/legal reaction of society to those products?
Writing from Tokyo | March 16, 2006 | Comments (1) | Permalink
Localised Design
An example of a localised seat design for an airline in China (Sichuan Air or Air China if I recall correctly). The cup holder can support the almost ubitquitously carried green tea/hot water containers (above) without having to lower the main tray (below).
Writing from Tokyo | March 12, 2006 | Permalink
Consumer Options
Four batteries for sale in China.
Covering a gamut of real consumer options: official Nokia; fake Nokia; premium non-Nokia - costs just below the official Nokia price but doesn't pretend to be official; and generic no-brand. Getting what you pay for? Getting what you perceive you pay for? Quality assurance? Risks?
Writing from Tokyo | March 9, 2006 | Comments (3) | Permalink
Barriers to Market Entry
You buy and sell second hand phones. What steps do you need to take before deciding whether to purchase a second hand device? How easy is it to check that the device works? And given that, what is the minimum infrastructure you need be able to operate? What are the barriers to entering the market?
A sign, a display case, somewhere to sit and something to sell. Photo from the extensive mobile phone market around Chengdu's Tai Shen Lan Lu.
Writing from Tokyo | January 22, 2006 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Notification
It turns out the markings left on a bike saddle by parking attendents in Chengdu are largely water resistant. And if you manage to leave your bike parked overnight for whatever reason, then the saddle will be marked with the fine needed to pay to get your bike back. Somewhat surprised to find it in one piece.
Writing from Back of Ebisu | January 13, 2006 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Used Sales
Traders haggle over the price of a barely used, boxed mobile phone. One trader's stall in the foreground - buying and selling used phones, and a list of phone numbers for sale.
Photo taken last week in Chengdu.
Writing from Tokyo | December 23, 2005 | Permalink
Cleanliness (Not Godliness)
Not come across this kind of infrastructure outside Asia Pacific: public phone charging station in Chengdu airport includes a small sterilisation pad (just above the red cables, inside the machine). On my travels Seoul appears to be the world capital of cleanliness paranoia - mobile phones shops such as Phone & Fun and member's clubs such as TTL have cleaning stations where you can wipe down, air-blast and sterlise your mobile phone.
What cultural differences are there in attitudes to cleanliness? Practical differences like dealing with dirt, access to clean water, the affects of extreme humidity, dust, animals living on-site or diseases? How does the perception of cleanliness of an environment affect use of infrastructure or personal objects and devices?
And lastly, just because the infrastructure is there does not mean it is being used, is used effectively, is understood, or is on a practical level, necessary.
Writing from Tokyo | | Comments (1) | Permalink
Unexpected Behaviours
Cycling in Chinese cities I was frequently surprised by electric bicyles - the driver seated often with feet resting on pedals, but not pedalling, nor the sound of a motor, yet faster, silently and effortlessly drifting by.
What makes a bicycle a bicycle? Or a motorbike a motorbike? At what point do objects outgrow their original names? To what extent are new features, or the way we use an object constrained by its legacy features, expectations of how it should be used?
Writing from Tokyo | December 22, 2005 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Scale of Repair Cultures
Formal and highly organised mobile phone repair culture in Chengdu, above and more disorganised and smaller scale TV and other electronics repair in Lhasa below. What are the pre-requisites for informal repair cultures? What are the repair volumes for TVs vs mobile phones? Diversity of stocks? Size of components?
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Premiums
Phone numbers for sale from one of the many street vendors in Chengdu. The plus numbers e.g. +10, +20 refer to the RMB premiums required to buy those numbers. The phone number 86823666 has a premium of +400 RMB (40 Euro). Prioritisation of user preferences can lead to charging premiums, or alternately giving discounts.
Writing from Tokyo | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Natural Stack
Writing from Beijing | December 20, 2005 | Comments (0) | Permalink
The Way It Is Balanced
Writing from Chengdu | December 18, 2005 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Cultural Reference Points
Global cultural centers of gravity shift.
Today's Mouse will be tomorrow's mouse.
How much does your job rely on creativity?
How much of your creativity is based on your deep insights into local cultural norms?
How long will it take before the global cultural center of gravity shifts to marginalize your culture?
How long before the (global) relevance that you take for granted is gone?
How long before your job is no longer relevant?
What do you need to do to stay relevant?
Photo taken earlier this year wandering around Old Delhi.
Writing from Chengdu | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Odd Choices, Space For Media Consumption
Been trying to figure this out. Both toilet booths don't have their own toilet paper holder - the user needs to reach outside to grab some sheets. First time you need to go you end up with none and have to open the door, reach outside. Second time and you are more likely to over-estimate need and take too much paper.
Many Chinese public toilets don't have doors individual booths - is this an obscure attempt to increase the sociobility of the (mainly western) users of this toilet?
In many cultures the toilet is: a private space; where the user has one or two hands free some of the time; that is socially acceptable to enter a number of times during the day (though there can be a social stigma associated with staying too long if this is tracked) - making it perfect for short bursts of communication or media consumption. Women have the relative advantage in that sitting typically takes longer than standing and provides more opportunity for two handed device interaction.
Writing from Chengdu | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Low Tech Solution
Pedestrians are stopped from crossing road by rope, which is dropped when its OK to cross. Lo-tech barrier.
Writing from Chengdu | December 13, 2005 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Perpetual Lube
Is it possible for an extractor fan to self-lubricate?
Writing from Chengdu | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Context, Trust
Spent the afternoon wandering around Chengdu with an inspiring traveler. We knew the direction of the center of town so we headed in roughly the opposite direction following our noses for the whole afternoon. In a small side alley off the main thoroughfare of a street market we chanced upon the local equivalent of a sex shop - a gentleman with a motorbike, the back of which is folded out to reveal a range of libido enhancers and condoms.
Buy a single Viagra which comes in an authentic looking Viagra container, the seal of which is already broken. Assume it is a fake - have no desire to validate.
Further along the alley there are two other ad-hoc sex shops. Why are they clustered in this alley?
To what degree does the environment convey trust in the product or service for sale?
In a market with a high degree of fakes, and with a product that is easy to fake, what extra steps does a consumer make during the purchasing process? How does it affect use?
And a suitcase sex shop in Xiamen here.
Writing from Chengdu | | Permalink
Sole
Street cleaners bicycle. Plus minus link.
Writing from Chengdu | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Recycling Buildings
Many parts of Chengdu are active building sites. One end of this apartment block is being torn down, whilst the other is still occupied as a temporary home by construction workers. On the top floor a work team is dismantleing the building brick by brick which are then stacked ready for re-use on another building. A fine layer of dust covers everything.
Writing from Chengdu | | Permalink
Fused
Writing from Chengdu | December 12, 2005 | Permalink
Payment Status Indicator
If you want to park a bicycle in the center of a Chinese city chances are you need to use a bike-parking lot. Attendant marks the saddle to show that you have paid. Wonder how effective this is in the rain?
Writing from Chengdu | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Protection
Unusual to find these arm protectors on white collar workers.
Writing from Chengdu | December 11, 2005 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Worn, Trusted, Painful
The degree to which his instruments were worn implied trust that they could do their job. Just a little too blunt to be an enjoyable shave. Highly skilled, and gentle hands. His whole ensemble of tools packs away into a little suitcase hanging on the wall.
Writing from Chengdu | | Comments (0) | Permalink
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