Activity & Waste Residues
Bin used as a spitton from Gangtok above, paint shop in Lhasa below.
Related: the residues from scree running and skateboarding.
Writing from La Praz | January 24, 2007 | 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
The Sound of Flem Hitting a Dirt Floor
If you close your eyes and listen carefully to the sounds in next room you can hear a large pot of chai coming to the boil. The stove and its owner are out of view, but a weak shadow is cast over the corridor between our rooms. Before long the smiling owner appears, places two fresh thermos flasks on a shelf in the corridor before his foot steps recede back into his workspace.
After two hours of early morning wandering around Lhasa's back alleys it was time to duck into a small chai house for some sustainence. Three rows of red laquered wooden benches face the back wall, or to be more precise they face the TV that is perched on the top right hand corner of the back wall. Hours ago the TV would have been blaring out bollywood movies to a packed local crowd but for now it sits in silence reflecting the room back on itself. To my immediate right are three labourers two with heavily worn hands and sun-at-altitude etched faces who I assume they are in their 30's and with them sits a fresh faced 10 year old. In front of them three sleeping bodies try to make the most of the limited space and benches designed for sitting not sleeping. The labourers look up as I walk in, nod and then shift their concentration back to chai and cigarettes. The kid is also smoking.
The menu options at this time of the day are either to go for a large or a small themos of chai, the ordering-gesture for which is difficult to mis-interpret. These simple choices remind me of a road trip through small-town Mexico and walking into one-room bar that only sold tequila by the shot, half or full bottle. The other memorable aspect of that experience was that the main feature on one one wall of the bar was an open urinal - how many can't-pee-when-you're-really-not-watching men walked out of there with a full bladder. How many were sober enough to care?
If you shut your eyes and listen the distinct sounds of a space gradually reveals itself. Here, the clearest sound is the repeated slurping of hot chai from small glass cups. At regular intervals this is followed by a low thwump as the worn cork is pulled from the thermos followed by the sound of fresh chai hitting the bottom of an empty glass. Throats are repeatedly cleared of flem and spit is allowed to fall to the dirt floor. One of the sleeping dead emits the gentlist of snores though his sleep pattern is sharply interrupted by a kid repeatedly trying to use a lighter that appears to have run out of fuel.
Nobody speaks. Outside as the city wakes the nearest thing to vehicles going by is bell attached to a cycle rickshaw.
Covering most of the wall on my right is a panoramic poster of Lhasa seen from a nearby mountain range. It's designer has thoughtfully surrounded it with a printed a wooden frame. On another wall a poster of a Chinese teenage with a skateboard looks down on our little nativity scene.
In Lhasa 1 yuan buys a thermos of hot sweet chai plus whatever memories you can walk out with.
Writing from Lhasa | December 14, 2006 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Informercials as a sign of a healthy productive society
The most frequently broadcast informercials on small hours Chinese TV are for energy drinks and breast enlargements. Whether the effects are accumulative? The latter promises to move ladies from an A cup to a C. There's a phone number to call but no web address.
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Spiritual Places, Places to Get Drunk
Writing from Lhasa | December 13, 2006 | Permalink
Homes Away From Home
The train journey from Chengdu to Lhasa takes 48 hours and 3 minutes. Before boarding passengers have to sign a waiver form saying that they don't have any significant ailments and that they are medically fit to cope with altitude - the highest mountain pass the train travels through is at 5000 meters and altitude sickness can start at around 3500. The form has been roughly (mis)translated into English including 'passengers are not suitable travel to the plateau area ... when they have one of the following diseases ... (f) highly dangerous pregnant women'.
The good news is that after 12 hours on the train I've yet to be attacked by a highly dangerous pregnant woman. I do however have had to cope with a dining car waitress who runs a side-line in selling an eclectic range of goods and she appears at my door every few hours with a different tray of goodies. The magnetic jewelry was just that, and her super tough socks which she ably demonstrated by running a wire brush across its surface looked like a steal. Just before we pull into Lhasa she's tries to flog me some strawberry milk tea and a Chinese language train time table. I can't explain the former but a train buff might appreciate the latter. However despite having taken the trans-Mongolian express this time last year I'm not especially enamoured by trains.
My home for the 2 days is a soft sleeper - one of four bunks in train compartment. It's off season and I've got the space to myself. Travelers to Tibet are supposed to be on a tour group but last year I discovered a travel agent in Chengdu who can set up a group of one - here are the tickets, have fun. The train is modern and the compartment has an electricity power socket and each bunk a flat panel TV showing Chinese VCDs. Fortunately it cuts out half an hour into the journey never to return. The compartments next to me are filled with chain smoking, tangerine munching, card playing Chinese gentlemen on their way to a holiday Lhasa - their carpeted floor is littered with the detritus of, well, card playing, chain smoking, tangerine chewing Chinese gentlemen. Not bad for a no smoking train. It doesn't take long before they make themselves at home in my space.
The journey itself offers up all sorts of magic, not least waking to a moonlit and frozen steppes and gazing up to a constellation filled sky. That hissing sound? Oxygen being piped into the carriage.
A train cleaning crew stands to attention on the platform as the train pulls into Lhasa station, their mops and brushes presented like weapons on a parade ground. Lines of cleaning crews are a common sight at airports for some reason they always seem too dressed too lightly for windswept context. China has a habit of throwing up unexpected contrasts - on a late night arrival at Chengdu Airport watching a cleaning crew cycle in a column across the vast tarmac landscape under the shadows of sleeping giants going by names such as Sichuan Air.
My home for the next few days is the Yak Hotel. If you're in Lhasa this is a good place to be.
Writing from Lhasa | December 11, 2006 | Comments (2) | 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
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
Do You Aspire To This?
Advertising for dental services in Lhasa (above) and Ho Chi Minh City (below). There are strong cultural differences for what makes a perfect body, but what about for teeth? What do the viewers of these advertisements aspire to? Do the aspirations differ? How?
Writing from Tokyo | June 7, 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
Unlikely Symbols of Power
Pilgrims on their circuit of the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa walking past an innocent looking plastic table.
Why a symbol of power? This is where the police sit.
Writing from Tokyo | April 22, 2006 | Permalink
Coping With Shared Use
Shop owner in South Delhi limits employee access to his land line phone. Similar solution used at a security checkpoint in Lhasa.
For devices that are shared, hold private information and can incur costs for use, like um, mobile phones how to restict access to features?
Writing from Tokyo | April 19, 2006 | Permalink
Unexpecting the Expected
Close to midnight, after giving up on me being a customer, 3 rick-shaw drivers are fine to just hang out around Barkhor Square, Lhasa, chat about the day's events and and smoke heavy chinese cigarettes. Somewhere a phone rings and one driver unexpectedly pulls a Razr phone out of his trouser pocket and takes a call from his wife.
It was the middle of winter and there were relatively few passengers. The cost of this device related to his income? My perceived cost vs. his actual cost. A practical design choice in his line of work? Does it matter?
Writing from Tokyo | March 18, 2006 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Snap Shot Photo Studios
One thing to spare a little time for during user studies is visiting the neighbourhood photo studio. I rarely go to have a photos taken but the space offers insights into local cultural norms and in some areas - adoption of technologies. Some studios, especially those which offer 'print club' photo stickers are adorned with photos of customers and give a pleasant sense of the volume of people, time passing and personal preferences. Most urban spaces have somewhere where locals, with the help of a studio assistant can create then pose for a scene which is then documented. But why pose in front of a painted canvas of the Potala Palace, when the original is just around the corner? Why pose in front of a beach scene?
With the tools to capture rich experiences be they photos, audio, video, location data, whaterver, in the hands of more and more individuals what value added do studios offer?
Star Shot photo studios in Seoul are a good example of value added services. Geared up to making the punter look very much the star - the results typically involve over-saturated colours, heavily patterns backdrops, the removal of any blemishes, and a fine haze of soft focus - in other words your typical magazine star treatment.
Photos above from Lhasa whilst photo below is from New Orleans, mostly gay and lesbian night club. For 8 US dollars (6+ Euro) or whatever the clubbers could negociate - and they did try to negociate. Photos printed on a mobile (HP) photo printer. The spray painted sheet includes a tombstone with the engraving 'Chronic - get high, take a ride, then die".
This temporary studio tucked inside the entrance of the club was moderately busy, and run by a real gent.
Photos taken from street and club research during 2005.
Update: You may also enjoy [correction] these photos from a studio in Tibet and others by the same gentleman.
Writing from Ho Chi Minh City | December 28, 2005 | Comments (3) | 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
Oversight
Internet cafe appears to be used for online gaming 99% of the time, 1% for communication related tasks.
Writing from Lhasa | December 16, 2005 | Permalink
Worn Welcome (If You Are Chinese Speaking)
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Bedside UI
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Wire Frame
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Protector
Shoe polisher's customer's sock protected by card board.
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Solar Heaters
First time I laid eyes on one of these from a passing vehicle thought it was some kind of satellite dish. Can be found dotted around Lhasa. Heats the water, but not hot enough to boil water. A small handle underneath the dish allows the user to adjust the angle of the dish.
Can the infrastructure be put to other uses?
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (1) | Permalink
Communicating That Features Are Disabled
Security gate at entrance of gated community somewhere along Beijing Xin Lu. Calling out feature temporarily disabled through use of a metal box. Whilst it is possible to disable the calling out feature using software this solutions is easy to understand, can be adapted without referring to an authority, doesn't require literacy, and also sends a signal to people in proximity that a feature is not available.
Under what circumstances would a physical mobile phone lock/chastity belt be valid? Apart from disabling calling out, what other features would benefit from this kind of physical solution?
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Net Presence
It's 10am and I'm today's first arrival in this internet cafe. It is however far from empty - half a dozen bodies are slumped dozing into red armchairs covered by blankets, and another half-dozen are still online half-heartedly playing a first person shooter - these are the remnants of last nights online gaming session. The place smells like an ashtray and somewhere a toilet has overflowed.
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Very Worn
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Brand Ownership
Most common 'faked' branded jackets in Lhasa were: Ecko (by a wide margin), North Face and Mountain Hardware. Beanies with Nike logos were omnipresent and its costs the same or more to by one without any logo on. It would makes sense if the logo subsidised the cost of the garment.
Writing from Lhasa | | Permalink
What Is Communicated
A comment book in a cafe popular with back-packers.
Most of the entries are written in Japanese, with a smattering of English, Korean, Polish and French. Is it that Japanese are more inclined to write comments, or is it an accurate reflection of the cultural background of the visitors to this place? The entries detail places to visit, stay, travel tips 'the guides tend to under-estimate the travel times for fear of frightening you off', and occasionally longer posts about the how Tibetan culture is changing over time.
According to the cover this is their fourth book.
Writing from Lhasa | December 15, 2005 | Comments (1) | Permalink
Convergence
Radio, cassette, alarm clock and flashing light display. The most popular media formats here are tape cassette for audio and VCD for video.
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Pool Table Lock
Locking private infrastructure in public space.
Writing from Lhasa | | Comments (0) | Permalink
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