Cost, Perceived Cost Affecting Usage Behaviour
The humble Biro is one of those ubiquitous products that is by and large ok to forget to return, or to put it another way - steal. Which helps explain why this Salt Lake City café has adapted the default design to extend their claim of ownership. But why is this product socially acceptable to steal? Even in a city where faith and responsibllity is pushed to the fore?
For those wanting background research my colleague Jan Blom has written extensively on what motivates people to personalise objects e.g. here he's also got good material in the pipeline which I'll link to in due course.
For a start the pen is mass produced, ubiquitous, changes hands as part of a task process (signing a credit card slip), and typically can be replaced for very low cost. Last week I chatted with guys from our LA design studio (cheers RN, AG & DB) and have since been mulling over the extent to which the in-store sticker cost is associated with the perceived value of the product.
Lets take a real world example from the advertising in the photo below- is it really possible for a Wal-Mart to make a profit or at least break even on a Motorola c139 mobile phone at less than $15? This isn't just about loss-leading. Despite its tangible presence the product in this advertisement isn’t the phone - the product is connectivity, and that’s where for Tracfone and by association for Wal-Mart where the promise of future profits lie. Of course this is nothing new - operators the world over take a hit on the device and make it back over the course of the contract with devices that best support services offering up the largest sticker subsidy.
But the gulf between sticker cost and actual cost hides something deeper than a lighter wallet. Like the humble biro it changes our perception of what it means to 'own' a product and may well have significant impact on the speed at which the product ends up reaching the end of its life as a functional object, of being discarded. With an estimated 1.2 billion mobile phones being sold next year this is a non-trivial matter. Transparency plays an important role in helping individuals understand their environmental impact (which is why I like the Kill a Watt that came in the TED gift bag). To what extent could or should the price of objects be transparent?
Writing from Tokyo | March 15, 2007 | Permalink
Authoritative Reference Points
Time is everywhere, and its confusing.
It's strapped to my wrist, displayed in my rental car (though thankfully I don't have to deal with this) broadcast on the radio, there were two bedside alarms in the hotel, on my sat-nav, mobile phone, digital camera and laptop. Which is not inherently a problem except that many of these sources synchronise automatically, and to do this successfully it needs to know both where I am and what the local time is. And that today the US government has switched to day light saving hours, bless them so one of these is in doubt. And I don't know which time source I can trust.
In a world where current time information is ubitquitous the wrist watch has largely lost its relevance as a time keeping device (though don't expect it to disappear - it still has value). And no device has yet stepped up and completely filled its role as a time source you can always trust on. Yeah I know, you can get your mobile phone to automatically synchronise the current time with the network. When's the last time you really trusted the network? The network operator?
Right now I've either missed my flight, or got another hour to kill.
Writing from Monterey | March 12, 2007 | Permalink
When you Delegate Positive Experiences
During yesterday's TED talk I proposed that from a design perspective a potential solution to pretty much every design problem is delegation - getting other people or technology to complete those parts of a task or activity that the user is unable to complete themselves. With the exception for things like bodily functions e.g. going to the toilet or entertainment - you wouldn't pay someone to go to the cinema and enjoy a film on your behalf. (Yes, just because its a potential solution doesn't make it a worthwhile goal to aim for).
Except that at some point - when we are better able to understand and map sensorial experiences and have a better understanding of how the brain processes these you may well be able to delegate entertainment experiences to other people, to be enjoyed at your leisure at a later time and date. In essense - time, location and body-shifting experiences. Movie buffs amongst you will already be tutting about Strange Days, and so you should.
Experience shifting raises all sorts of interesting questions about empathic design, where from an physiological-emotional perspective experience designers will literally be able put themselves in someone elses shoes. What are the characteristics of the people whose experiences will define, well, the essense of the experience we wish to design for, to communicate? It can be anything from designing an out of the box experience to learning, knowing what it feels like to walk in a Sao Paulo subway station (above), the touch a razor from a Chinese back street barber (below) and yes, will encompass sexual encounters. In this world DRM boils down to removing experiences from human memory and the inevitable badly written DRM leaves its host as a vegetable.
A new profession will arise - people whose job it is to experience stuff, and who will be judged on their ability to capture the subtlties of any difference process, task or context. With a distinction between raw experiences and those enhanced though stimulants, or post production. And yes, Gonzo?
Anyone feel like writing a job spec for this job from the future? Thoughts in the comments please.
Writing from Monterey | March 10, 2007 | Comments (1) | Permalink
Ideo Presentation Download
Yesterday's presentation at Ideo Palo Alto entitled Always On - An Introduction to the Design Research for Everyware can now be downloaded from here [Powerpoint, PDF 2MB]. It highlights the challenge of designing for everyware and that, if we are serious about minimising negative externalities, our ultimate need to understand the relationship between everyone and everything. In essense our challenge is to understand the sum of all human experiences - which is clearly impossible. The PowerPoint includes slide notes, which I'll expand on at some point.
Thanks to Jane Fulton Suri for the invite, and the lunch-time audience for, well, engaging between mouthfulls.
And the snowglobed city? The San Francisco view from my capsule hotel.
Writing from San Francisco | March 6, 2007 | Permalink
The Selfish Toothbrush
The electric toothbrush is a selfish object. Not in terms of the power it consumes - a viable enough argument, but in the level of engagement it requires during use.
For many people mornings are about completing a number of time-pressured tasks before walking out the door - ablutions, sustenance, getting dressed, and caring for appearance to present ourselves in public. In between all of this we somehow find time to catch up on the latest news, make packed lunches, and look after dependents whether kids, pets, plants or (occassionally) spouses. And at some point most people brush their teeth.
With so many things to do its not surprising that we multi-task - newspapers browsed whilst downing coffee, listening to the radio whilst getting dressed, interrupting tooth brushing to complete two handed tasks like opening the sock drawer or place objects into bags. Which is why the electric toothbrush is a selfish object - it demands to be held the whole time it is used and the alternative that works with regular tooth brushes - to be clasped in the mouth for those moments when you need both hands is not an option. Why? The device is too heavy, and more importantly it continues to vibrate making the mouth-clasp a thoroughly unpleasant experience. (Yes it can be temporarily placed on flat surfaces but it leaves nasty hard to remove toothpaste marks). At what point does the electric toothbrush becomes light enough to be clasped in the mouth polite enough to turn off the vibrator for that moment? At what point does it really fit into the flow of the morning? And in our sunny, shiny future perfect at what point does the act of brushing teeth become redundant? Replaced, for example by super efficient armies of Colgate branded bacteria scrubbing your teeth on your behalf? Pop a pill when you walk out the door, arrive at work feeling minty fresh.
A convoluted link, but a link never the less - I've been using the N800 for the past week - and it seems destined to fill a small but friendly role the the home. But as with the toothbrush its a selfish device that requires two handed engagement to be able to appreciate what it has to offer, which is fine in a number of contexts just not during the morning multi-task.
There’s another much talked-about selfish object on the horizon - the iPhone. How well will it fare as a two- handed device in what is more many people a one-handed multi-tasking world?
Writing from Tokyo | February 26, 2007 | Permalink
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
Keyholes as Entry Point to Nodes in the System
But what functionality does the key hole represent? And what is the cost of finding out?
The way in which an object is inserted into another object affecting the way that the data on that object is treated by the device it is inserted into. Simple example? Your home computer has 2 USB slots - attaching your digital camera cable to the 'secure' slot automatically carries out a sequence of tasks such as copying and encrypting the data before wiping the memory card. Yes, potentially it severely limits the host device functionality - in what contexts is this beneficial?
Need more options? The ways in which memory cards (yeah, gosh, keys) are inserted into their host affecting what happens next. Variables? Whether the memory card is squeezed, rammed, pinched, stroked, caressed, or even held during insertion and copying process. Beyond the obvious what effect for memory card coitus interruptus? Hmm, definitely time to head out.
Last thought for the day: to what extent do memory cards remain embedded in one device or 'migrate' between devices? Between owners?
Ta Ben for the loan of the finger.
Writing from Geneva | February 10, 2007 | Permalink
LIFT Presentation Download
The slides to today's LIFT presentation on Literacy, Communication & Design can be found here [6MB PowerPoint] with a related essay here. The presentation was long on highlighting issued raised by the design research and short on showing solutions that have been proven to work beyond what is currently possible with well designed simple mobile phones. I can understand this probably disappointed a number of the audience, but ask yourself why. I'm not yet convinced that the obvious solutions - spoken menus and more comprehensive use of icons particularly work and the complexity and subtlety of the design solutions don't translate well to this presentation format in the time available.
A summary? Illiterate consumers are in many ways lead users for the rest of us.
The MotoFone mentioned in the question and answer session can be found here, and related Nokia products here and here. Related research can be downloaded from here.
And the photos? The first two were used in the presentation - field research in Delhi from 2006, snow falling on Helsinki from earlier this year and a presenter on the podium from an earlier session.
Writing from Geneva | February 9, 2007 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Infrastructure, Discoverability & Speed of Adoption
At what point does infrastructure become, well, infrastructure - the stuff you can rely on being out there?
Would you buy an electric driven vehicle when there are only a few public recharging points scattered around your regular stomping ground? To what extent do technologies such as personal access to accurate location positioning and real-time status updates mitigate the need for blanket coverage of infrastructure such as this Elektrobay charging poing in London's Covent Garden? (This charging point is aimed at council workers not the general public so the argument is moot in this exact context).
Knowing a charging point's location, availability, quality and cost can go some way to support early adopters. Being able to reserve it ahead of time takes some risk out of the process - though it could introduce a hedge market for access to that particular power stand. Value added? Self driving vehicles that hook themselves up to the nearest power source will remove the end user hassle of having to remember (in the same way that in the domestic context keeping personal devices charged and otherwise maintained is something that can be delegated to autonamous machines).
And yes you could argue that to maintain a higher degree of consumer environmental awareness you don't want to make the re-charging process seamless. Will we see the fuel equivilent of warning signs on cigarette packets?
Writing from London | February 5, 2007 | Permalink
The Legality of Supporting Recognised Usage Behaviours
Power cord for a mobile phone re-routed around the gear stick. The conflict between designing for known usage patterns and supporting what is increasingly becoming an illegal activity - calling without using a headset whilst driving.
A journey to Geneva somewhat marred by the vehicle having a fuel leak.
Writing from La Praz | January 30, 2007 | Permalink
Separation of Church & State, What You Carry
Religious slogan adorns the wall of an Iranian sports hall - a common enough sight in a city adorned with revolutionary murals. Thoughts for today: the cultural differences in separation between church and state. Does the relatively high level of physical religious presence encourage or discourage the carrying of religious artifacts amongst mobile essentials? And for mobile phone manurfacturers does it encourage or discourage the religous customisation such as ringtones or wallpapers?
And the photos in the sport hall? Your's truly partaking in a 5-aside footy game between conducting contextual interviews in Tehran late last year. Yup, that phone is not a phone, its a stop-watch.
Writing from Tokyo | January 18, 2007 | Permalink
Hear My Tunes
Writing from Darjeeling | December 28, 2006 | Permalink
Shared Phone Practices
What happens when people share an object that is inherently designed for personal use?
A Nokia Research team set out explore this topic during a July 2006 field study in Uganda with a brief to understand how people share mobile phones. The research builds on prior research from India, China, Nepal and Mongolia and Indonesia.
An longish essay on Shared Phone Use can be found here, and a presentation co-authored with colleague Indri Tulusan entitled Shared Phone Practices: Exploratory Field Research from Uganda and Beyond can be downloaded from research dot nokia dot com here [7MB, PowerPoint]. A full list of related research can be downloaded from here , and you can sign up to be notified of new downloads by email info @ janchipchase.com with the word subscribe in the subject line.
The research team identified 6 shared use practices: an informal service called Sente that essentially enables a mobile phone owner to function as an ATM machine; mediated communication that neatly side-steps issues of technological and textual literacy; the ever popular practice of making missed calls; the pooling of resources to buy the lowest denominations of pre-paid airtime and extend the access days for the phone that is topped up; the use of community address books to reduce errors and (supposedly) encourage phone kiosk customer loyalty; and finally Step Messaging - the delivery of text and spoken messages on foot.
Whilst the baseline benefits of sole ownership and use of a mobile phone are personal, convenient, synchronous and asynchronous communication, the personal and convenient aspects of mobile phone ownership are compromised by sharing. This support the notion that phone sharing (as it is defined at the beginning of the essay) is seen as more of a transition to sole ownership than a naturally stable state.
For many poorer consumers in emerging markets other people's perception that you are connected is the status symbol, a sign that you have arrived and in some senses are worth connecting to. When most of the members of a person's peer group , or society are connected the focus of status shifts to the brand and model of device. phone ownership is not the same as use - if there are cheaper ways to communicate these will be used.
We are increasingly coming across what have termed unlikely consumers, where feature rich and once premium devices in the hands of the very poor and the myriad of ways the devices get there we have dubbed sideways adoption. Today the front-line of telecommunications innovation is in connecting the unconnected, and its a matter of time before today's unlikely consumers become tomorrow's innovators.
Heading to Sikkim early tomorrow for altitude + fresh mountains air, will return in the new year. Oh, and whilst no-one got it totally correct there is a winner for the blinged nano - will be shipped in January.
Writing from Darjeeling | December 21, 2006 | Comments (1) | Permalink
Contextual Advertising
Advertising for train pass (Suica) equipped mobile phones advertised at the point of their intended use - the ticket barrier.
Writing from Tokyo | December 4, 2006 | Comments (4) | Permalink
Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere (in Tokyo)
Shibuya Station morning commuters walk past a sign advertising Mobile TV. 10 things you didn't know about mobile TV here.
Cultural practices and the the likelyhood of technology adoption.
Writing from Tokyo | | Comments (3) | Permalink
Personal Cultural Radar
A lamp shade made from dozens of internal rubber sheaths of Tenga's - a Japanese single use penis pump.
For those of you who like to know how things work - a cross section diagram of a Tenga can be viewed here and its possible to contrast the internal differences between each of the designs that they make. The product packaging, its relative simplicity, and the rich sensory nature of its human interface when in use make it an interesting case study for user experience designers.
The lamp shade formed part of the Peace Needs a New Logo event in Aoyama and an element of its appeal (or otherwise) as an artifact is in understanding its origins. In practical terms it means having dismantled a penis pump which in turn implies having purchased and used one, or at least having spoken with someone who has. And whilst there are contextual, individual and cultural differences to what you discuss with whom, the obscurity of its origins, its display in a public space, and the very personal nature of a Tenga's use make this lamp shade a conversational bonding experience waiting to happen. As such it reminds me of the shift that is well underway in how we process the cultural references around us and how future changes in technology will in turn create new shifts in this landscape.
Today's mobile phone already combines the ability to process audio, visual and other sensor captured information. It is in essense an early form of a cultural radar - in tune with your personal preferences and the values you prescribe to. The quality of those carried sensors, the sensors in the world around us, the extent to which interaction is automated will only grow over time - leading to new ways of understanding our context. If you value the perspective and critical eye of WallPaper*, the New York Times or even Future Perfect then you'll simply sign up to their subscription service to apply their filter to your literal view of the world.
Given that part of the enjoyment of an object or service is in the process of discovery, in knowing and understanding obscure references, how does the designer/artist/creator remain two steps ahead when the links between things are inherently that much clearer?
As a valued reader kindly pointed out earlier this year Future Perfect is not half the site of Grant McCracken's This Blog Sits at The Intersection of Anthropoogy and Economics. When it comes to writing about culture I couldn't agree more. And finally credit where credit is due, during my travels to and from the mountains this week I finally managed to spend time on Adam Greenfield's Everywhere well worth a read if you want a more systematic approach to understanding the ubitquitous world.
Writing from Tokyo | December 3, 2006 | Permalink
QR Bar Code Meta Data
QR bar codes (photo below) embedded into the mosaic of the station posters (above) - each 'tile' is a separate bar code. Snap a photo of the bar code with an appropriate camera phone to follow the link. From Shibuya station.
Writing from Tokyo | December 1, 2006 | Comments (1) | Permalink
Large Buttons, Gesture Input
Spent the last couple of weeks observing an elderly relative first puchase then use a digital camera for the first time. What stood out? The touch screen on the Sony T50. Why? Human motor skills depreciate over time and the soft keys are larger and less fiddly than anything than can be squeezed on the physical form factor.
But the bonus? The speed at which a (relative) novice learnt and understood gesture based interaction - sliding her finger left and right, to navigate photos.
Writing from Tokyo | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Mobile TV, Personal Experiences
Learn ten things you didn't know about Mobile TV in this essay.
A summary? Its all about a personal experiences; home use is surprisingly popular; watching is a small part of the whole; up to 4 people can view a mobile TV at the same time but the act of sharing changes what it means to be a phone; why accessories are a struggle; design content for changing user postures; immersion is possible but is it desireable?; interactive experiences require interaction which is difficult if the user is not holding the device; everything you wanted to know about very personal media consumption but were afraid to ask; and finally what, how and why people watch in secret.
You can download a new presentation on Mobile TV entitled Mobile TV, Personal Experiences here [4MB PowerPoint].
Want more? A paper co-authored with my colleagues Cui Yanqing and Younghee Jung (pictured in Seoul above) entitled Personal Television: A Qualitative Study of Mobile TV Users in South Korea can be downloaded here [0.2 MB PDF]. And the previously published presentation entitled An Anatomy of Mobile TV Use Cases can be downloaded from here [7MB, PowerPoint]
Related research as always, here.
Writing from Tokyo | November 20, 2006 | Permalink
Bacterial Paranoia And Device Handling
What are the cultural differences in attitudes towards cleanliness?
Some cultures have an inherently high awareness (or paranoia depending on your perspective) of bacteria and its perceived consequences. These photos are taken in carrier shops in Seoul, South Korea - where you can irradiate, air-brush, wipe and scent your phone.
How might this affect device usage? For starters: the extent to which devices are shared; where objects are placed when not used; the likelihood that a protective cover will be placed over a phone - all of which affect device interaction.
Related: cleaning swab for telephone in a Seattle hotel room.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Personal TV
A mobile phone user sits alone watching live baseball whilst sitting in Komazawa Koen, Tokyo.
One of the surprising findings of a recent research study we did in South Korea was the extent to which Mobile TV was used in the home. Given the competition in the home from large screens, good audio, high definition and known content why would anyone watch mobile TV in the home space?
Its turns out that people really value control over the watching experience. No need to negociate with other family members over control of the remote or control of the sofa. Curled up in bed with a hot cup of cocoa. Of course. Want to multi-task whilst you're instant messaging/downloading/doing homework? Why Not? Extrapolate this contol over the experience to contexts in and outside the home. The key benefit from Mobile TV is not mobility- very few people will watch whilst actively on the move - its that the experience is personal. Its time to start thinking about Personal TV.
Picked up in a recently published summary of Mobile TV research published by Dr Shani Orgad. Plus a few slides from the South Korea study can be downloaded from here with a full paper due once a suitable venue to publish is found.
In the big scheme of things does a more personal experience for you imply a more impersonal experience for the rest of us? Are your personal experiences socially connecting? Or do they cut you off from everyone except your media?
Writing from Heidelberg | November 13, 2006 | Permalink
Trust in What You Give
At any time the average urban Iranian is within a few meters of a collection box like the one pictured - the larger model can be found at regular intervals on most pavements and its smaller cousin (photo below) is frequently found on shop walls. A snap assumption would be that their frequency is indicative of the nature of giving in Iranian society, but is it really so? Does the tangible reminder to give translate into actual giving?
It's partly an issue of trust - to what extent do you trust that the money that is placed in the collection box ends up in the hands of those for whom it is intended? Street crime is an issue in Tehran - I’d guess from the way people behave, carry and interact with the objects they carry it is similar to London in its intensity. To a thief the charity box represents an-hoc 24 hour loose change machine - to be carried off, forced open or, given the volume of keys that must be out there, simply unlocked.
And supposing you trust that the money is affectively collected by the, um, money collector, do you trust that it is put to good use? How transparent is the collection, distribution and application of those monies?
Fast forward to our naturally future perfect, where you carry the real time means to browse, preview, pay, track, and in the case of digital goods and services, receive and store what you buy i.e. through a personal mobile device. What new ways of charity giving does this enable? What is the personal mobile device equivalent of putting a few pennies in a collection box? A pre-loaded Give Now application - simply select a charity an amount and press send where the results are billed to your account? Or donations triggered by the tasks you complete - every time game played results in a 10 cent donation. Even matched funding according to how much you spend on your phone bill, assuming of course calls are not already free by then.
But as with the collection boxes on the streets of Tehran, how sure are you that your digital donation is actually being put to good use? Whom do you trust to administer the money collection service? A Vodafone, MTN or Cingular? A Motorola, Samsung or Nokia? An HSBC or CitiBank? Or a charity branded application or service?
And given that donations can be tracked to what extent do you, or for that matter the charity, want to highlight exactly when and how the money is spent?
Writing from Tokyo | November 6, 2006 | Permalink
Opportunity to Give
As collection boxes become part of the urban landscape, how to ensure that customers continue to give? And the same question when giving is digitized?
Photo from newspaper kiosk in Tehran.
Writing from Tokyo | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Features That Help Owners Make the Sale
Menu items on a japanese Sony Ericsson phone converted on the fly into a comic strip - each speech bubble represents a function. Navigating left or right trigger a new comic strip layout. Highly creative but also a jarring transition as soon as you skip to any other part of the phone's standard menus driven interface.
The extent to which this kind of software interface feature helps raise awareness of the product - the 'hey check this out' part of hanging out with friends. The extent to which device owners actually uses this feature once bought - or whether they revert to the (arguably more) usable menu driven interface for day to day usage. The extent to which use after purchase is irrelevant i.e. the feature has served its function.
It's owner? David Williams of Asentio Design Shanghai.
Writing from Daikanyama, back of | November 5, 2006 | Permalink
ID Cards and the market for Fake ID Cards
Take a journey through a Chinese urban landscape and you'll soon come across stenciled advertisements for fake IDs - one phone call, meet up, hand over some yuan and you can obtain a work live/permit for a different city. In China there are restrictions on where you can live/work and although its possible to get away with it, having the necessary permit brings a degree of flexibility. Jump over the ocean to the US where college students are frequently carded - producing a photo ID, typically a driver's license to get served in bars or enter nightclubs. It's not surprising that in the US fake IDs abound, or at least that they did when I was underage and hitching my way across Texas.
What has this got to do with Iran? Iranians carry a National ID card and from experience where there are originals there are invariably fakes. Or are there? Buying a train, bus or plane ticket requires the ID card but the activities where fake IDs are most likely to be used in other cultures - drinking alcohol and entering night clubs don't apply to Iran. Underground events or private pool parties aren't the sort of places where a card with a photo is any more likely to get you in and buying alcohol is strictly an under the counter affair.
What mainstream activities enabled by being able to prove you are a different age, person or even gender? Are these 'benefits' sufficient to trigger the mainstream use of fake ID cards?
And what does this have to do with the photos above? Actually... nothing, they're just details from one of dozens of revolution related murals that have been painted on the sides of Terhan tenements. These remind me of the 'men ...rituals... touch...' by Barbara Kruger.
Writing from Tokyo | November 1, 2006 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Abstract Commodities: Money, Identity
The shared understanding and agreement of value that enables markets to form and transactions to take place. Current Iranian Rials, Shah era Rials and US Dollar bank notes for sale in the photo above, and SIM card + phone numbers below.
SIM cards are still scarse in Iran - ordering one takes months unless you're willing to pay to jump the queue. Numbers starting with a 1 - the first SIM cards to be issued by the government/operator, command a higher price than more recent issues. Abstract values indeed.
Shipping out in a few minutes. Cheers to the local crew for making it happen so smoothly: Mahsa, Saeed, Mohy, Nigar and Azadeh.
Writing from Tehran | | Comments (0) | Permalink
Literal Translation, In the Name of God
Only a few days of the study left and a still a need to cover a lot a ground in different parts of the city - in Terhan if you want to beat the traffic you either take a motorbike or the metro and since I need to document above ground it's a bike + driver. Lunch is spent sipping a decent coffee - Raees Cafe on Jam St. trying to making calls whilst admiring the advertisement for the Jeff Koons Illy collection. Its too much to hope to see any Koons + Cicciolina products on the shelves here.
For one call the automated operator voice kicks in - Bismillah hir hahram ibrahim... which is then followed by a literal translation in English "In the name of god. This is the International Iranian Switching Center. The number you have dialed does not exist on this network."
One for you l10n people out there.
Writing from Tehran | October 29, 2006 | Permalink
Wayfinding Redundancy I
An arrow pointing the way to Mecca on the ceiling of a Tehran hotel room - a simple enough task for a GPS enabled mobile device. Given the relative predictability of everyday life, and the multitude of actual and relative directional cues - in what contexts is a Muslim really unlikely to know the direction of Mecca? What other more emotional needs could a digital direction finder meet?
Writing from Tehran | | Permalink
Value Added Services
Ringtone, wallpaper, application and anti-virus services of Cairo's thriving mobile phone market in Abdul Aziz Street. Most of the people in this photo are either buying or selling a mobile phone, or phone related services.
Popularity of file transfers mechanisms: copying to memory card, Bluetooth and in last place infra red.
Writing from Cairo | October 14, 2006 | Permalink
Anatomy of Mobile TV Use Cases
The slides for yesterday's presentation on An Anatomy of Mobile TV Use Cases at the Annenberg Center for Communication can now be downloaded from here [7MB].
The presentation draws on a 2005 qualitative study into commercial S-DMB Mobile TV in Seoul, South Korea by Younghee Jung, Cui Yanqing and myself. These slides concentrate on only one aspect of the study - the three main use cases that were documented and explored - evening commuting, macro breaks and home use. Actually we uncovered a compelling fourth use case, but we'll wait until a full research paper is published before revealing what it is.
A summary? Researchers and designers often talk about use cases but to what extent do the details of the experience need to be communicated to the project team (and in what formats) in order for these scenarios to be useful? What are the elements of the experience that can make or break whether new services move beyond early adopters? The devil is in the details.
Thanks to Mizuto Ito for hosting and to HyeRyoung Ok for carrying the discussion.
Writing from Los Angeles | September 22, 2006 | Comments (1) | Permalink
Literacy, Communication, Design Presentation
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The slides from last week's UIAH presentation on designing for illterate users can now be downloaded from here [6MB]. The presentation draws a lot of its material from this essay on research into illiterate communication practices that weve been doing.
A synopsis? Don't frame the question by 'designing for illiterate people', think about the skills that are necessary to use the core features on a device - something which we term device competency. Consider the different types of literacy that users do have. To what extent do risks & consequences affect device exploration? Why iconic support and voice prompts can be part of a solution but are far from being the solution - instead look to a range of solutions on the device, on the network, and in user's ecosytem. The eco-system can be anything from (task or device) literacy classes to posters on walls. Last but certainly not least that it is better to solve the problem (illiteracy), than design work-around solutions for dealing with the problem (illiterate users stumped by text driven device interfaces).
Why should you be interested designing for illterate people? For selfish reasons of course - illiterate people make excellent lead users - solutions that meets their needs may well point the way to ease of use for the rest of us. I'm sure you can think of other reasons too.
The download is a somewhat condensed version of the original presentation. One slide I removed plays the devil's advocate - that textual literacy is itself a work-around for other forms of communication. At what point does human kind evolve to the point where literacy as we know it becomes redundant? A topic for another day perhaps.
Thank-you to Teemu Leinonen and Andrea Botero Cabrera for hosting the session, Media Lab students for posing questions worth answering and a lively discussion and of course to the extensive team of colleagues who made it all happen (slide 2 of the presentation since you ask).
Related illteracy research here, related presentations here. To be sent notification of new Future Perfect publications, presentations and presentation downloads send an email to info @ janchipchase dot com with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Writing from Tokyo | September 20, 2006 | Permalink
Swimming Not Drowning
Playing timezone yo-yo and heading stateside today.
For those of you that prefer a tangible presence - I'll be presenting some research we did last year on Mobile TV Usage in South Korea. Design teams often uitlize use cases as a way to focus the direction of a design - this presentation will focus on the details of three use cases from the Mobile TV field study considering the elements that can make or break technology adoption in the real world.
Where? A double bill with HyeRyoung Ok on the 21st September 2006 at the Annenberg Center for Communication hosted by Mizuto Ito and on the 26th September Hillsboro, Oregon hosted by Wendy March of Intel's People & Practices Group.
And on the 25th September the Waving Not Drowning workshop at the EPIC conference will cover processes to make effective use of lots of photo data in field work. Sounds exciting doesn't it? It's basically about following a few simple rules so that you can concentrate on more interesting things - such as the content of the photos. The workshop will not be buzzword complient so feel free not to drop by if thats your thing.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
The Order in Which Services Are Cut
Four phone booths, one of which was optimised for wheelchair access.
The order in which services roled out. The order in which services are rolled back.
Writing from Helsinki | September 16, 2006 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Clearing Hotel Security
The ASEM summit that is being held in Helsinki and today's hotel check-in is somewhat different to the usual. The SAS Royal is hosting the Malaysian and Singapore delegations and the lobby has been retrofitted to include an airport style security procedure - pass all bags and metal objects through the x-ray machine and walk through the screening gate. (A friend staying in a hotel with Chinese delegation later mentions a perimeter around the hotel and guards on floors - I'm experiencing security-lite). After 20 hours on the road anything that gets between me and a shower/bed/privacy is simply a nuisance so and since the security screening appears to be optional and dependent on being pulled aside I take the opportunity to waltz by and check-in. So far so good.
Except that 2 hours later trying to catch up on sleep and there is a knock at the door. The Helsinki police, the hotel manager are there - my bags need to be repacked and pass through the x-ray machine. Oh, and you'll need to leave the room to accompany the bags. Given that I'm naked and wrapped in a duvet it seems reasonable to want to get dressed - which is fine as long as the officer is present. His definition of privacy involves him turning around whilst I try to pull on my clothes in a haze of being woken from sleep + jetlag. As we exit the room 3 members of the Helsinki bomb squad accompanied by a sniffer dog walk in. Mental check of objects I've come in contact with in the last 24 hours.
Today's travel clothes include a pair of reverse-pocketed snopants which I manage to put on back to front. I and the security detail notice this as I walk through the hotel lobby and I figure somewhere a fashion diety is smiling to herself. Down here my luggage is scanned. Up there a sniffer dog sniffs. And eventually my police escort gets the radio all-clear and I'm allowed back in my room.
Last year we spent some time researching what people lose and the steps they take to recover those objects. There are a range of situations where the owner of the lost-object doesn't want to be associated with either the object or the context in which it was left. What kind of objects? Use your imagination and you'll be pretty close.
Most people carry objects (and data) that they consider to be private and it's reasonable to assume that people who check into hotels will be carrying more private objects than the average person walking on the street. Except that the x-ray machine and increased frequency of bag checks mean that the objects are less likely to remain private. Beyond the more obvious security controlled items like knives and, um, baby milk what new categories of objects will be left at home because they are less likely to remain private? To what extent does this challenge our notions of privacy?
A gentle start to the working week.
Writing from Helsinki | September 10, 2006 | Permalink
Whose Finger on the Trigger?
This photo shows the futsal pitch next to Shibuya crossing - its nice enough but it's far from unique. Probably 10s of thousands of photos have been taken looking at the same view all shot within 1 meter of where this was taken. How are your memories of experiences shaped by other people's recordings of pretty much the same thing?
If you've ever gazed down onto that pitch you've probably either spent time in the spot where this photo was taken or one floor directly above. The hotel top floor has the best elevated view but is on route to a restaurant with a constant stream of people coming and going, and pretty bad reflectivity. The floor where this photos was taken is not open to the public but once the photographer is past the admittedly lax hotel security it offers an unhurried view, time and space to document.
How does what you decide to capture change when you have real time access to the 1,000+ geotagged photos (a small selection of Future Perfect geo-tagged photos here) taken from the same space? With sufficient processing power its possible to extrapolate views of how somewhere, something or someone will look like in the future - in essense creating a mock-up of what photos will be taken after you were there. How does it change your sense of what is original? The value you put on what was created? Or the details in the creation process? And seen from the opposite side - how does the subject of what is being documented change in response to access to photos of itself?
How long before we have sufficient creative commons content to auto-generate static movies? A Year in the Life of the Eiffel Tower is now streaming from server near you.
Writing from Tokyo | September 5, 2006 | Permalink
I Was Here, But These Are Your Experiences
Two personal experiences - a Harajuku schoolgirl-uniform-wearing-death-metal-band above, yesterday's pingmag festival in Yoyogi park below. Everyone shapes their own recollection of events not least by deciding what to capture. Apart from the picture taker, who wants to extenuate postive and/or negative aspects of these experiences? And to what end? So many people took photos of these same events. To what extent are these their and not my experiences?
Writing from Tokyo | September 4, 2006 | Permalink
To Have You To Hand
Mobile phone in female jean back pocket. Given that back trouser pockets are often perceived as a carrying 'problem area' for women and the fact that she is also carrying a handbag why is it carried there? How does the role of the phone strap change when it becomes the main part of the 'phone' that is visible when carried?
The extent to which the position of carried objects changes according to: perceived necessity and a desire to keep it within hand reach reach; and (the lack of) alternative carrying positions; convenience after finishing other activities e.g. putting the phone in the pocket is a one-handed action after a call but opening the handbag is a two-handed action. The degree to which object's move around the body and from the body to other carried objects such as bags, resting on nearby surfaces, handed around with friends or simply left charging. From a rather lively friday night out in Tokyo.
Why is where-stuff-is-carried interesting? More about Center of Gravity here.
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Customisation, Consequences of Lack of
Belonging to a house maid, Chengdu.
Writing from Tokyo | September 1, 2006 | Permalink
The Very Definition of Local
When personal communication devices were less common arriving visitors to Nagano's Kouri Station would hunt down the nearest phone booth and could rote dial a taxi. The sign provided all the necessary information - since call to a local number were made from a local device. Mobility changes what we consider to be local - and in this instance for a mobile phone to connect to this number requires knowledge of the local prefix.
Incidentally, the addtional complexity and rules for dialling non-local numbers can be a barrier for low-literacy mobile phone users.
Writing from Nagano | August 28, 2006 | Permalink