Shimo Kitazawa Archives
Shapes Waiting To Be Filled
Jan 28, 2009
Fixating with pre-defined shapes and how they can be used in our augmented reality future perfect.
Bridging Physical & Digital
Jan 19, 2009
Requests for band members in these Shimo Kitazawa posters - including an easily searchable reference to YouTube.
Implied Presense
Jan 19, 2009
A presence of a virtual construction worker implied by the standing position of the boots. Whilst it's probably not intentional - you can find a similarly implied presence in the way mobile phone's are positioned during conference calls.
Cellular Crimes
Jan 09, 2009
Poster warning (elderly) people of phone crimes - a Japanese variation of the Brazilian virtual kidnap crime where a (random) person is called and informed that their loved grand/son/daughter has got into trouble/been in a car accident/accused of sexual harassment and that they can buy their way out of trouble if only they can transfer money to an account. In Brazil it's common for the money to be transferred as pre-paid credit to a phone account, in Japan the victim is given instructions to go to an ATM machine to make the transfer.
Related: disconnecting people in proximity of ATM's in Japan to make this crime more difficult to carry out.
Support for Anti-Social Behaviours
Nov 16, 2008
Packaging is nice enough - but more interesting this that this is offered in a cafe. In fifteen years time this'll be the social equivilent as finding a stack of sterile needles and tourniquets in your local bar.
Tokyo Graph
Nov 16, 2008
Ghetto + Tokyo = Fail.
Gosh
Oct 26, 2008
In Ur Huud, 'Prezentin
Oct 06, 2008
A couple of talks coming up - Street / Emotion at the Design and Emotion conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday and Something Witty with Espoo design studio colleagues at the University of Art and Design, Helsinki on the 15th October.
A week of London and its joyous weather in between, packing a-hand luggage-only trip that crosses three weather zones is a bitch.
Urban Annotation
Sep 24, 2008
Setagaya Ku municipal workers documenting motorbike parking violations in Shimo Kitawa.
Consider ground covered, the frequency of visits to that neighbourhood, and the type/quality of data that can be collected by municipal workers compared to dedicated street mapping services such as Street View or Navteq. Garbage collection trucks as neighbourhood data collection points?
Permeable Boundaries
Sep 02, 2008
Pedestrians walking past this Shimo Kitazawa real estate agent (above) are able to browse the database of properties by interacting with the a touch screen overlaid on the glass. The practice of digital content providers in Kabul placing much of the computer hardware behind the main shop glass - typically the keyboard, mouse and the speaker blaring the latests songs/ring tones remain outside exposed to the elements.
For every space - the characteristics of the physical barrier that separates what's in there with what's out there. The means through which this barrier is breached.
Based on a limited observation the Tokyo touch screen interface proved to be easy for pedestrians to use and understand - the area is popular with students and is considered a desirable neighbourhood to live so there was also considerable passing traffic. Perhaps one reason for its relative success is that pedestrians may not feel comfortable stepping into a real estate office because it implies and requires some form of commitment - signing up as a new customer and the risk of a follow-up hard sell. By limiting their interaction with the shop in this way pedestrians retain a greater degree of control. Whilst I didn't see it in action - this is an ideal use case for QR bar codes - with customers able to transfer apartment information onto their mobile phones.
Related: the social/legal contracts created through our conscious and subconscious actions and reactions.
Brand Drool / LA Mo Fos
Sep 01, 2008
Grammatically correct no less.
Return to Sender / Guaranteed
Mar 09, 2008
A single glove bagged and posted to this Shimo Kitazawa wall. As with bags used to advertise the availability of labour and skills in Urumqi how to know whether an object is deliberately discarded, placed or accidentally lost?
An object + a recognised owner + the ability of that object to negotiate its way home = objects that come with with 'return to sender' guarantee.
Yeah, how to know whether an object is deliberately discarded or accidentally lost?
Note, Not Bikes
Mar 09, 2008
Public, Private, Personal
Mar 06, 2008
The practice of wandering through a neighbourhood - in this case Tokyo's Shimo Kitazawa en mass and picking up litter. Common enough in Japan, sometimes spotted as part of sponsor-a-highway campaigns in the US.
Of note in this context: it's a Sunday and the neighbourhood is roughly equivalent to the Camden Town, Williamsburg or Prenzlaurberg - studenty-trendy give or take; the group are in their early 20's - at an age when peer group affiliation and appearance is at the fore; they are wearing uniforms; the task they are engaged is non-glamorous and benefits the community. Welcome to the social.
A Light Extinguished
Mar 06, 2008
Ta UB & RB.
Lead Use Case
Mar 06, 2008
Thoughts & Action
Jan 08, 2008
The inner workings of the process revealed.
Vehicles typically share the road with pedestrians in the Tokyo suburbs - with fleshy humans separated from the metal beasts by little more than a white (or sometimes yellow or blue) line, much like the one above. For every country a geometry.
Related: blue and yellow lines to navigate Se station, Sao Paolo.
Heading to Europe today. Anyone with good furniture store recommendations for London & Helsinki - please ping me.
NCS
Dec 01, 2007
Cause(d). Effect(ed) (?)
Nov 29, 2007
Anti-smoking advertisement (posted by Japan Tobacco) raising awareness of the consequences of smoking. The extent to which different cultures care about the outcome once awareness is raised. The motivation for posting this sign in English - to what extent do the intended audience understand what is written?
Raska
Nov 25, 2007
Reductive, Addictive Counting
Aug 26, 2007
One for the interface designers out there - knowing if, when and how to engage in a bit of l10n or I18N.
A shimokitazawa bar patron holds her right hand open closing each digit to count from zero to five, followed by opening each digit to count from six to ten - first reducing then adding. Do you use one or both hands to count up to ten? Do you start with clenched fist or an open palm?
Related: counting systems for different objects in Japan; counting in China and Bangkok, and at more of a tangent the sequential naming of rice cookers in Akedake, and the naming strateghy for items on a LA diner menu.
Can’t quite remember what she was actually counting - it was that kind of night. Ta DM, CS.
The Experience of Moving Bits
Aug 26, 2007
Signage for a new Softbank concept store in Shimokitazawa targeted at Japanese consumers but written in English.
Given that most people reading this sign will have at least a basic awareness of what store operated by Softbank will offer, to what extent does it matter that it is written in the audiences non-primary language? In this context Softbank is stretching their brand to encompass more experience orientated objects and activities such as clothes, books and a cafe to what extent will non-English speakers appreciate the subtleties of this new broader offering?
And in a ever more connected world, how will the local perception of foreign cool change over time? When will we see Hindi or Russian Cyrillic or Chinese kanji?
Blue Rinse
Jul 23, 2007
A familiar sight in the (toilet-bowl-using) world over.
But it could and ultimately will, be so much more.
Expat discussions about toilets in Japan tend to center around technologies: under seat lighting to support more accurate target acquisition i.e. taking a half-drunken midnight pee; bacteria neutralising porcelain for when you miss anyway, chaps; a range of audio options; heated seats to counter a lack of central heating in most Japanese homes; fans to extract odor; air jets & a fine mist to cool and help cope with the intense Japanese summer heat; and the needless complexity of wireless remote control user interfaces. Which is all uninteresting enough - because ultimately it's the real time analysis of what we excrete that can and will have the biggest impact on everyday life.
I had the pleasure a while back to listen to Roger Ibars talk about reflective moments - those momentary pauses in the flow of everyday tasks that provide an opportunity to, well, reflect and gauge your current status. And as Roger reminded, glancing at the colour of pee is one of those moments. Simply consider the range of what can be tested from urine & stool samples to understand what can be monitored and fed back. And there-in lies the challenge for tomorrows Toto engineers & scientists - what information to feedback (to whom) and in what format?
Which is why the light blue rinse that you see above is an indicator of what is, ahem, yet to pass. The colour of the liquid in the toilet bowl will be the most commonly used mechanism to feedback relatively minor but good-to-know status updates about the state of your body, a simply chemical adaptation of what many of you already do today. (The critical stuff will sent directly to your doctor/insurance company, so that they can break the news to you gently, unless of course you think you can handle staring down at a blood red toilet bowl).
Given human limitations - whether its remembering which colours are associated with what, to our ability to effectively distinguish between colours, what are the other parameters can will be put into play by tomorrows porcelain experience designers?
Where does this lead to in the future perfect? Lower insurance premiums for your employer when they install (and allow the remote monitoring of) your [insurance company] sponsored washroom. Automated devices travelling the sewage systems monitoring dye pigmentation by sewage outlets of the stars? That you are willing to walk an extra three blocks to use a unmonitored public toilet.
Is this a technological 'advance' that applies to everyone equally? Reflecting on the colour of pee is more of a male behaviour - the standing posture supports reflection and it is usually a singular event - it is, after all difficult to multi-task whilst maintaining accuracy. But in part women are more likely to wipe before rising off the bowl - and the tissue obscures the colour of the liquid. Or will the dual ply, become just another feedback mechanism?
Textures of a (Niche)
Jul 17, 2007
The niche-of-a-niche bar is, quite simply, something that Tokyo does well.
But why? What are the inherent properties of a city that support the defining of cultural tastes in ever-smaller chunks - nichification?
What are the lessons for our ever-more-granular digital lifestyles?
Context & Macro-Break Tasks
Feb 25, 2007
Tokyo is criss-crossed with railway lines so one cultural anomaly is the amount of time people spending waiting at crossings for trains to pass. Unlike other waiting contexts there’s not a huge amout of people watching going on - everyone on one side of the crossing is facing the same direction, and the people on the opposite side of the tracks are too far away to be able to pick up subtle (flirting) behaviours. For people standing alone mobile devices feature heavily in how they occupy their time.
Thought for today - the cultural differences in the causes of waiting. And how these differences affect technology/service adoption.
Corrected Error
Apr 23, 2006 | 3 Comments
A simple error to make.
[updated: photo below makes it easier to spot]
Knowing Which Way the Wind Blows
Oct 30, 2005 | 2 Comments
Pre-determining Use
Oct 30, 2005
Anticipation of use, contexts of use.
False Hope
Oct 29, 2005
Designing Outside Human Limitations
Sep 17, 2005 | 2 Comments
Spent yesterday with a colleague refining the goals of our next user study and discussing where we should focus our research energies next year. Talking through what to research is one of the more pleasurable aspects of this job - there's typically some scope to decide where to conduct user studies, you don't need to lug 26kg of equipment through rush-hour Tokyo to get there, assistants always turn up on time, the printer always works, you don't every run out of quarters for the launderette, and the deadlines have yet to be set.
At some point in the day we cycled over to Shimo Kitazawa to be surrounded by people and to reflect on whether what we had planned was feasible. There can be a jarring moment in user studies where you realise you were well off the mark 'of course people are going to react in that way when you do xyz!?' and being surrounded by people going about their business is a good reality check before even running a pilot study. At some point in our wander through the neighbourhood we ended up in a Vietnamese restaurant, and seated on the counter watching the chef prepare the food and continued our discussion. In front of us, on the counter was a bowl of small, brass spinning tops for sale. I picked one up and spun it on the flat wooden counter.
This spinning top had two properties that made it special. Being pure brass with no decoration and perfect symmetry it looked identical when it was spinning compared to when it was stationary. In addition it was so finely balanced and the table surface so condusive to spinning that it seemingly spun for minutes. The only time you could tell it was moving was at the beginning of the spin cycle - when it slowly orbited an imaginary planet before settling in one place, and at the very end when it lost its momentum and spun out. After being spun it quickly became a background activity, since it required no further interaction and other tasks like tucking into the food and continuing conversations took over.
There was a moment when our attention returned to the top which because it was so long since it was last spun appears totally stationary seemingly balanced upright on its tip and somehow defying gravity. There were no cues to it spinning, and the affect was simply indistinguishable from magic. Do magicians have a word or phrase to describe the affect of tricking human perception? (not closure, but something similar?)
A lot of the time we think about designing to and within human limitations - think usability, think ergonomics. There's a world out there that is beyond human perception (and to extrapolate this, there is a world out there that is beyond the perception of the tools we can perceivable design). Increasingly however the objects we carry are able to extend our human capabilities: cameras can record more accurately or, shown in the example below - can record differently to (my) falable human memory; mobile phones enable you to shout further; text messaging is nothing less than shifting time and space.
What human capabilities will be extended or dampened by what tools next? Why?
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