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A Fear/Love of Mechanical Objects
Jul 07, 2008
The pleasure/fear of the anticipation of using a mechanical object versus the pleasure/fear that comes from actual use.
Sangenjaya launderette vending machines.
Conscious Design Choices
Jul 07, 2008
The flooring of this Sangenjaya sento? Carpet patterned linoleum. Disorientating.
All That You Come Back To
May 28, 2008
One of the late night conversations that seemed to occur with regularity during our Ghana field study was the stuff we do that makes us feel like we're back 'at home'. For one colleague it's surfing the Pacific, for me late night cycling around Tokyo or an occasional visit to a nearby bath house/sento.
These photos are from my local sento in Sangenjaya , a fairly working class district - about ten minutes cycle grind or two subway stops from Shibuya and home to a fair amount of small studio apartments that don't come with good any home bathing facilities. Which helps explain why, whilst sento's are gradually dying out in Japan there are still a number of them dotted around the neighbourhood.
A photo amongst all that nudity? Just prior to closing, when the other punter's have left the building.
Cooling Options
May 28, 2008
A common post sento ritual for many punters involves slumping on a toweled benches that line the changing room or, in winter pacing the outside veranda - either naked of with a towel loosely tied to hips. Wafting a fan gently speeds up the evaporation process and if you're in the mood for the full experience pull a bottle of once-upon-a-time branded drinks from a chilled glass cabinet, sip and chill. It's a building where history stares right back at you.
My regular sento includes a bandai style entrance - where the attendant sits astride of the wall separating the men's and women's changing areas - sometimes a gent sits there and sometimes his chatty/grinning sister. For the latter making use of the fan whilst letting it all hang out is not appropriate.
When Teens Poster-Bait
May 26, 2008
Posters for local politicians on this Sangenjaya - look carefully at the face of the third poster to see it has been gently vandalised.
In many of the places you see static advertising today you should expect find some form of dynamic advertising tomorrow - South Korea is probably the most advanced culture in terms of 'displays everywhere'. Imagery that reacts to ambient factors such as the time of the day, the weather, who is walking by and of course their purchasing habits, and perhaps also an equally dynamic poster from a competitor.
By 2015 some form of poster-baiting will have entered the arsenal of bored teens around the world - think Google bombing but with the sole aim of tipping dynamic, sensor aware advertising hoardings into some form of errant behaviour. The only thing more fun than a dynamic, sensor aware poster featuring a politician is one at odds with the other sensor aware poster featuring a politician. May the best algorithm win.
Signs as Indicator's of Expected Practices
May 23, 2008
Sign on the toilet door of our friendly sancha dive bar. The extent to which "do not" signs trigger behaviours?
Touch Screen Devices, Touched
May 23, 2008
Touchscreen interaction for karaoke selection, posture, hand positioning, support, interaction.
Way Searching, Finding
May 23, 2008
Maps that start with a "here". The ability to automate the same.
Static, Then Evolution
Apr 15, 2008
The pieces of infrastructure that become fixed reference points - which then evolve over time. From my local 'hood, Sangenjaya.
Cultural Arbitrage
Mar 18, 2008
Pattern recognition with a given format - URL, phone number, address, QR bar code...; the speed at which domain squatters squat; cultural nuances within a given format e.g. with numbers - the meaning of 666 in western culture or the number 4 in China; the opportunities for cultural arbitrage.
Related: the projection of status through phone numbers in Iran, Mongolia and China.
Form, Balance
Mar 16, 2008
Artistic license for the text to run left to right, right to left, top to bottom.
Textures of a Rooftop Batting Range
Mar 16, 2008
From a petite, how-can-they-possibly-stay-in-business batting range on the roof of a Sangenjaya pharmacy.
Local Delivery for Global Organisations
Mar 16, 2008
Second Life
Mar 16, 2008
Worn out baseballs for additional grip.
See also: the second life of tennis balls.
Bits, Bytes, Teeth
Mar 07, 2008
Local Sangenjaya dentist chair now includes a retrofitted flat screen TV (below) used for showing DVDs to fearful punters (Wallace & Gromit on heavy rotation since you ask) and is used to display x-rays shortly after they are taken. How long before visual dental record data such as x-rays can be digitally picked up by customers on the way out? Or simply forwarded to your secure home account? Along the lines of the near field communications.
And given our very-human penchant for losing things how long before data ends up in the 'wrong' hands.
Razored. Bladed
Dec 02, 2007
30 yen (0.20 Euro) razor - its body made from a single piece of molded aluminum.
Textures of a Local Sento
Dec 02, 2007
One of more enjoyable aspects of moving to the new 'hood are the expansive local sento options. There are two easy ways to identify that a sento is nearby - a smoke-stack that juts out from the lo-rise skyline; and at ground level following the trickle of pristine punters to the source of their pristinity.
The Shimizuyu sento in Sangenjaya is more interesting than most - layers of bath-house history dating back to the 1920's encapsulated in objects & practices: an expansive Mt Fuji mural; a pool with a surprisingly strong electric current, a wood decked veranda to cool off and take a smoke; bottles of milk sitting in a glass fridge; a 1st gen massage chair that accepts 10 yen without living up to its end of the bargain.
Carsten, nice one dude.
Loosely related - public bath house in Iran.
Spoken Interfaces
Nov 26, 2007
A sign at a local Sangenjaya fire station extols residents to install a fire alarm. Is the speaking alarm simply artistic license by the local illustrator or accurate representation of the device's aural interface? Actually the latter - many alarms sold in Japan have a voice that warns of "fire" to accompany the siren.
One of the pleasures of moving into a new home has been getting up to speed on Japanese domestic appliance (aural) interface norms - including a bath tub that intones in a slightly-too-electronic voice when the bath has been drawn to the correct depth and temperature; a fish grill that warns how much grill time is remaining and, yes the speaking fire alarm.
No word yet from the toilet.
Thankfully.
For a European with a penchant for simple devices spoken feedback of what is happening on the device is often a step too far, but here in Japan it can be found in anything from ATM's, ticket machines to having the time and date spoken when the key turns in the ignition of a rental car.
Spoken interfaces are often considered a partial solution to illiterate device use - if someone can read the interface then they're going to understand what is spoken right? Wrong. A least sort of - its a complex issue. A video explaining the different solutions to support illiterate consumers here the supporting slides here [PowerPoint, 6MB].
Cinema Queuing Norms
Oct 30, 2007
Back alley cinema in Sangenjaya.
Of note? No barriers to segregate men and women during the queueing process. Compared to? This cinema in Gangtok, India.
Contextual Actions Deflected
Oct 29, 2007
The sign for temple drawn on this wall. Why?
The wall is situated in a maze of bars and izakaya in the back of Sangenjaya - so the need to urinate is high and late night the risk of 'getting caught' relatively low. But whom, even in a drunken state would pee on a temple sign? Thomas Stovicek spotted very similar thinking during our field study in Delhi, but with enameled pictures of gods.
Symbols that deflect actions. And with lo-power no-power digital displays turning up in ever more places, the ability to customise the symbols/message to increase its impact. Would you pee on a wall with a picture of your lover looking down? Mother? Boss? Diety?
Post Office Norms
Oct 23, 2007
Continuing on today’s transaction theme - this Tokyo post office form filling tables includes: the current date; commonly used forms; a hanko ink pad; tissues for wiping hanko after use; glue; and an unlikely-to-be-stolen pen.
Height, Extended
Oct 23, 2007
Transaction Privacy, Service Design
Oct 23, 2007
ATM’s are almost exclusively found inside buildings in Japan yet commonly accessible directly from the street in cities like Helsinki or London.
The relatively low recorded incidence of street crime in Japan suggests that public spaces are an ideal location to situate ATMs. Except that, generally, Japanese people are more likely to feel uncomfortable carrying out ATM transactions in public spaces preferring instead the relative privacy afforded by a building even if it’s nothing more than a glorified lobby. Perhaps there are other factors at play: that in Japan ATMs are more likely to be used for more complex transactions than just cash withdrawals - whether for money transfers or and bill payments; and that in a cash driven society people are more likely to withdraw larger sums of money; its also more common for the ATM to give voice feedback on the current status of the transaction?
A more subtle example of the need for transaction privacy can be found by looking at the central divide of bank and post office tables - in Japan customers are likely to feel uncomfortable and complain if their form filing can be witnessed by others in close proximity. The net result - it is common to find a raised central divide that acts as a privacy shield.
And what if anything, has this got to do with service design?
The future perfect will increasingly include touch based payments systems such as Edy or similar - and a multitude of public electronic feedback mechanisms from LED displays on Suica vending machines to high definition flat screen displays. The granularity of possible feedback will range from simply showing the remaining credit on your card to a photo of you, your entire transaction history. What to reveal when? What are the cultural, contextual differences?
Cheers DM for the pointers/sake.
Bowl Etiquette
Oct 16, 2007
Naming, Wearing Strategies
Sep 16, 2007
It's not that the slippers are named - it's that the builders remove their outdoor shoes and wear slippers inside the building site.
And anti-slip gloves strapped to the feet of the step ladder? Floors laid, new apartment taking shape, wouldn't want to scratch it before the clients move in,
A House Divided I
Aug 26, 2007
Sign (above) left by the construction company employee to the demolition-and-rebuild crew - essentially contextual, lo-fi asynchronous messaging. And the left over messages from the previous builder (below) - from 30 or so years ago when this place was first built still readable under layers of wall paper. What's the likelihood that the digital geo-tags of tomorrow will still be readable the day-after-the-day-after tomorrow?. And the consequences of unreadable formats?
The apartment? A new home in the making, a week to strip it down to an empty shell, two months of re-construction to make it livable. Just need to spend enough time in Tokyo to enjoy it.
Legacy Transactions in Cashless Society
Jun 17, 2007
The contract sits in front of me, its dense kanji taunting me from the printed page. I stare blankly back and try hard to focus on what is being said. Which is difficult because the solicitor, sitting at the head of the table is speed-reading a 24 page document pausing only to draw breath and respond to the very occasional question from K. With his rapid-fire patter he could be a caller for the daily tuna auction at Tsukiji, but instead here we sit in the estate agent’s office in Sangenjaya. Everything above the table is calm and collected, but with my seat pushed back I have a view of his feet, that, for the hour-long duration of his recital gently rock to and fro like a golfer trying to get comfortable to make the putt. Eventually the vibra on his phone hums, he apologies to the assembled whips out a Guantanamo-orange clamshell from his suit pocket, cups his hand over his mouth and whispers to the interrupter. Everyone in the room listens intently. Five minutes later the sellers walk in.
When we arrived the highest honour was afforded to us, the buyers, and I’m given the seat furthest away from the door with a view of anyone that enters. Two large red ink pads sit in the middle of the table, and over the course of the meeting our hankos are used more than 20 times to stamp various official documents. You don’t need to conduct a time and motion study to know that when two hankos are required it easier for one person to do both, so I watch as K sign’s my signature, and later on as her wrist tires, she does likewise. Mental note on the leeway is possible to legally represent someone else’s identity. The sellers both use the same hanko, interchangable identities.
Glasses of iced tea sit on the table – and over the course of the hour the condensation gently recedes like a 21st century glacier. The wet outer from a glass and paperwork don’t normally mix so it's a surprising inclusion here in this space, but for all my concern there is never enough condensed to drip onto the table.
Buying the Tokyo apartment has (thus far, touch wood) been a painless experience in direct contrast to the last – which felt like a hundred and one forms to create an identity of sufficient value to be considered worthy to be lent money to. The wolf-pack intensity of some our prior estate agent were lead use cases for disposable identities – phone numbers and email addresses to be trashed when they become too persistent (they became too persistent).
With ten minutes to go K uses both hands to offer the brown envelope to the seller. It contains enough cash to make a capo smile, and a SOX compliance officer weep. But this is Japan and cash is the norm regardless of whether its a deposit for the house, the commission for the solicitor or the estate agent’s fees, in this case its all three. Our agent looks glum but he’s simply a good actor (and according to his blog which K found online he’s also a surfer), so inside he’s probably already spending his commission on a tasty new watch, a trip to the big shore.
I ((Shred)) U
Jun 15, 2007
My local Sangenjaya post office now offers a shredder - for munging transaction receipts. Its front facade includes a small window to watch the shreds fall, which combined with the motion and noise of the activity brings a certain closure valuable-personal-data destroying process. A shredder situated here is intriguing because it suggests there is sufficient demand from customers for tangible proof of their transaction, but that tangible proof is destroyed shortly after being received. Or alternatively that people make errors during the transaction process and don't want to carry the tangible result of those errors.
Is there a point we start to see physical shredders such as this move further into the public mainstream? And if that occurs will some service providers up the ante by including more sensitive data on the physical receipts, assuming that it can destroyed? But is your personal data really destroyed? How to hack the device to intercept receipts and give the impression that your personal data is being shredded?
Two separate tacks: what is the digital equivalent of a public-use shredder?; are there lessons from this that apply to electronic voting machines?
And the reason for hitting the 24 hour post office? NF - package angekommen, ta!
Action, Correlated Reward
Apr 22, 2007
Why would a recycling truck on the back streets of Sangenjaya carry around a huge box of recycled toilet paper?
The recycling company rewards newspaper recyclers with free toilet paper, which is dropped off for every pickup of bundled paper made. An elegant mapping between the action - recycling paper the consequences of that action recycled paper used to make toilet paper+, and a reward for that action - free toilet paper.
Equivalents? Digital equivalents?
'07 Tokyo, Local Election Poster Layout Norms
Apr 17, 2007
Mixed Media
Jun 14, 2006 | 7 Comments
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