May 01, 2006
Indicators To What Goes On Inside
The skylines of Ho Chi Minh City - knowing what people do inside their homes by what you see outside their homes.
Posted by Jan at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2006
Interactions With a Skin-Like Interface
I came across this tap attached to a water barrel during our getting-to-know-how-a-city-wakes-up walk around Old Delhi. I've been trying to figure out whether the design deliberately imitates the shape of male genitalia (I know it's small in the photo but, um, click to enlarge). The function - passing water maps well enough to the body, but the colour is not an accurate reflection of local skin pigmentation and I guess the design misses the opportunity to introduce modality. But the resemblance is there.
User interface designers like to tap into what their users already know - and in this vein the desktop metaphor relies on the basic assumption that users know that objects can be placed on and moved around a desktop. In an increasingly globalize world is there domain knowledge that is universally known across cultures, ages, and genders? What are the things that you have spent the most time with in your life? What has been there through thick and thin, good times and bad, and has been there in your most intimate moments?
High on this list is your body or at least the parts that you can easily see such as the back of your hands, or easily touched such as your shoulders, chest, front of legs, bum, face and yes genitalia. (There's also the stuff inside you that you feel - anything from the pressure of a full bladder to aching limbs but that's a discussion for another day). What if skin-like materials were just another tool in the designer's toolbox? Today we have mass-produce able pleather. With a desire to rebuild wounded soldiers and in particular treat burn victims leading research into growing body parts and skin is mass produced skin-like materials really that far behind?
Your first reaction is probably gentle, chiding revulsion - triggering of thoughts about eXistenZ and looking again at the photo you're thinking that the tap design (and this post) is just plain tacky. But pause and think. Given a life-time of getting to know and interaction with your own body and the knowledge of your shapes, scars, textures, preferences is there something there that can be tapped to design more optimal products? What I'm not proposing is cyborgs or human like robots. But put simply, what if your 12th generation iPod casing felt like, looked and behaved like your own skin? Supple, warm, tender. How would it respond to gentle squeezes, flexes, stroking, a tug or a pinch? What kind of interaction would play or stop a song? If you wanted to customised it would it be with a piercing? Or a tattoo?
If realistic skin was widely available it wouldnt take long before it was wrapped around body-part-like shapes. What would the inherent characteristics of those body shapes be? What functions could map to tapping a 'shoulder'? Rubbing a 'foot'? Nudging an 'elbow'? How would interactions differ depending on the age, gender and cultural background of the interactor? How would interaction preferences differ for the same? I may have a weak grip and rough flaky skin but that doesn't mean I just want to interact with skin-like products that feel the same as me.
And how would and should our skin-like products wear and tear? Would they age? Succumb to sun burn? Require a shave? Treatment for lice? End up with cancer? Can they be restored with the liberal application of aloe or would it require something more drastic such as botox or a nip and a tuck?
And given all of this do we even want to go there?
Posted by Jan at 09:54 AM | Comments (1)
April 29, 2006
Delivery Plus Related Services
Milk box located close to the front door of a Shanghai home. The design (above) is commonly found in Chinese cities includes a door within a door - enabling independent access by both the owner and by the person delivering the milk. The milk box design below requires both the owner and the deliverer to have the same padlock key. But why have a box in the first place? In a culture of extended families - where it is likely that someone will be at home when the delivery is made, what purpose does it serve?
Are there lessons that apply to the design of any physical or electronic delivery service?
The physical presence of the box also serves as an advertisement for the delivery service. How long before eBay gives away drop-boxes for customers of their auction sites? In 6 years time, if such a box was available what other digital services could it support?
Related material: media delivery in Delhi and Seattle.
Posted by Jan at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2006
Epic Adventures
Those of you who conduct field research or perhaps want to get into the game might be interested in EPIC - the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference which is happening in Portland in September. Why mention it now? Well the deadline for full papers May 1st, workshops May 15th and posters is July 15th.
Enough about work - it's friday night and Shanghai awaits.
Posted by Jan at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)
Getting From Here To There
A couple of hours trying to squeeze in a bit of research in Shanghai - I'm trying to figure out what the lauded government crack-down on branded fakes has had on the availability on the streets - more on this later if I remember. The quickest way to hop around this city - on the back of a motorobike. The downside? The driver tries to interest me in evey tourist attraction and a few destinations you might not want to tell your mother about along the way.
And the pegs in the bowl? An example of keeping track of what order goes to which table.
Posted by Jan at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)
Recordable Surfaces
Small, cheap and thin displays finding their way into Taxis - this model is showing a loop of TV programmes. A way of coping with Shanghai traffic perhaps? A simple example of the extending reach of moving image displays.
Posted by Jan at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
Motivations for Defining Boundaries
Motivations for carving out boundaries in public spaces: An Old Delhi street cafe above, Shanghai building site below.
For shared services, devices or projects how to signify who has control over what? What signals can the layout of the space send to imply inclusion or exclusion for members of the public? Does this map to the digital realm? How?
Posted by Jan at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2006
Number One Seller. Really
Phone numbers for sale at a kiosk - the numbers that have already been sold are struck through.
How does knowing what others have bought influence purchasing behaviour? How can this behaviour be manipulated by suggesting the popularity of certain items? Who would want to manipulate the data for what reasons?
Posted by Jan at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
Public Interfaces
Wandering the neighbourhoods around the hotel between working group sessions. Condom machine situated on a residential street points to the societal attitudes towards the availability of contraception.
Posted by Jan at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
Defacing As an Art Form
The extent to which graffiti is covered up is notable since my last visit here. As with Seattle the defacing of the defacing becomes an art-form in itself.
Posted by Jan at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
Motivations for
Walk along a street in a Chinese town or city and you are likely to see numbers stenciled on the walls. Street stenciling in China very much geared towards advertising - 'id cards' - without one a person who has migrated to work in a city might not be covered for health insurance, 'plumbing services', 'coke delivery' - coke for burning, not ingestion. The stencil describes the service and includes a mobile phone number.
Trees stenciled with advertising from Shanghai, above.
Leaves carved from Hawaii, below.
How does the object that is stencilled or defaced affect how the message is perceived?
Posted by Jan at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2006
Locks, Failed Locks
The battery in the room safe dies and the house manager turns up to reset it. He brings with him electronic key, a physical key two electricians and a member of the security team. There's failure and then there is elegant failure. Given the frequency of people forgetting the numbers of the safe or the batteries running out, this didn't fail particularly elegantly.
In system design is it better to block a task from being started or to let the user experience and then report inevitable errors? Same question, but this time imagine a more (or less) networked world. In what contexts and for what tasks is it advantageous to let the user report the error?
Posted by Jan at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2006
Taxis, Hotels In Beta
Today's taxi driver from the airport doesn't like the silence and borrows my headphones for a couple of songs. He pretends to enjoy Public Enemy, and after a couple of track hands the played back to me and lights a post coital cigarette. There's quite a storm coming in and I'm quite happy for him to concentrate on the road. Shanghai traffic makes the most of the available space and the first rule of the road is to take opportunities when they arise. Just like life then. Hmm, why don't bicycles have break lights?
Betas are not restricted to software. The hotel I'm staying in is having a soft launch. Whilst waiting for some paperwork to be completed the receptionist on the 46th floor murmurs 'The hotel has been open for half an hour, no, half a year'. Shes speaks faulting English and a smattering of Japanese. It's sweet but (unfairly) triggers the broader question of when a (5* commercial) service is not really a (commercial) service? In this context how important is good english? What should guests expect not to work? Or not to work to what extent? Fail often and fail fast is fine when its not you being failed and the consequences are minimal.
Spend 30 minutes in the pool and another hour on the rain soaked streets. It's warm and friendly in here, but definitely lacking in, well, life. And yet we're here in part to discuss what life is going to be like by the time the next wave of infrastructure is rolled out.
What is the commercial equivalent of an ivory tower?
Posted by Jan at 09:01 PM | Comments (2)
April 24, 2006
Physical Personalisation
What motivates people to customise their phones? Where are they customised? Why? And how can this influence the design of future devices?
The slides for a recent short presentation to NIFT Delhi is now online on research.nokia.com. Entitled Physical Personalisation of Phone Covers in Japan can be downloaded here [1 MB]. It's an example of quick-and-dirty research project (an afternoon collecting data by reviewing 6477 phone covers in a recycling plant) with a limited but interesting enough scope (document any physical customisation), that eventually led to researching a number of more meaty topics. It's also an example of something that would never make it to an academic conference, but has proved relevant in day to day work. There's a lesson there somewhere.
Captive audience here and related posts here.
Posted by Jan at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2006
Where Thin is Not In
This small, simple and relatively elegant Sony Ericsson phone belonging to a tea-house owner in South Delhi. The product design team will have spent countless hours massaging the components into the smallest possible form factor, selecting materials for the optimal tactile experience, and making the detailing just right. The overall elegance and perceived thickness of the device may have been a factor in its purchasing decision but ultimately this consumer bought a thick plastic cover to protect it from dust and scratches (photo below).
The need and consequent practices of covering and protecting consumer products varies according to cultural practices, individual tastes, climate and contexts. Whether it's a plastic coated car seat in New Orleans, individually wrapped sweets in Japan (in part to cope with intense summer humidity), plastic sheets on a hospice bed, or covered calculators and phones in India. The advertisement for dust free switches in South Delhi (photo, below) is only enhanced by the extremely dusty shop backdrop.
Of these products mobile phones are somewhat unique in that they have to cope with conditions in a wide range of contexts - from when the owner gets up to when s/he goes to sleep and everything in between. Whilst women are most likely to be carrying phones in hand bags the desire to be contactable and to communicate often leads them to be carried in the hand for short periods of time. For men the situation is compounded by the extent to which the phone is carried in pockets - close to the skin and consequently exposed to more human moisture & sweat.
There is currently a lot of noise about who has the thinnest phone, and the thickness of the RAZR was undoubtedly a factor in its worldwide success. But as the adoption of mobile phones spread the reality for many of the world's population is that protection is paramount. My personal take on device thickness is that thin devices have their pros e.g. perceived elegance and cons e.g. an tendency to break more easily, but that things will only become genuinely interesting in this space as and when true flexibility is introduced.
The after market for protective phone covers in India is well developed and is quickly able to cater for new phone form factors, even down to coping with sliding mechanisms. How can mass market products be re-designed to cope with the need for greater protection? (the dust free keypad on the 1101 is a good example). And given that the two factors are often mutually exclusive, is it possible to design products that are able to offer increased protection when needed, but can shed their protective cladding when the need for elegance is paramount? Finally, when new materials and manufacturing techniques enable forms of protection that are not visible to the human eye how important will the design be to the perception of protection?
Posted by Jan at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)
Corrected Error
A simple error to make.
[updated: photo below makes it easier to spot]
Posted by Jan at 08:58 PM | Comments (3)
Man (Wearing Adidas) Sprints to Save Child From Car
Will the reporting of unfortunate but everyday events such as car accidents be affected by having easier access to more detailed information on what the victim or rescuers were wearing and carrying?
Today, passive advertising such as Samsung Mobile above, is ubiquitous. In an world where say, clothing monitors the wearer's vital signs is combined with the availability of accurate location information, a tool for ambient wireless communication and the ability to prioritize the newsworthiness of micro events (either retroactively or in real time) provide sufficient information to automatically generate the outline for a press release? Would Adidas want to spin 'Man Wearing Adidas Sprints to Save Child From Car'?
Fickle stuff. More interesting - will insurance scams be more difficult to pull off?
Posted by Jan at 08:18 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2006
Dare, Counter Dare
"This is a Dare drug free school zone"
"Dare to think for yourself"
Posted by Jan at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
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.
Posted by Jan at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)
The Wedding Planner
And his heroes (below).
Photos from a row of wedding shops on the outskirts of Delhi. His job was to trick out the wedding carts for the wedding procession - example shown in the background.
Posted by Jan at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2006
To Hack Me Is To Love Me
To run a light in an alleyway outside his shop this Delhi resident simply taps into the public power supply (junction box hidden at the top of the photo).
What is to stop people from doing the same with all future 'utilities' - whether it is digital storage space, connectivity or downloading content from a as-much-as-you-can-eat subscription account? What level of leakage is privately acceptable for these modern day utility companies? And in what situations is this form of hacking beneficial to both parties?
Posted by Jan at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2006
When Everyone Finds Their Rhythm
Reviewing photos taken in the last month came across one that evokes many postive feelings.
It shows two of our team sitting in garden in our hotel/guesthouse in Delhi, my laptop is in the foreground and I'm sitting with my back to a tree. It must be around 7:30 am and the city heat has yet to descend. Despite having all the windows open the lack of breezes and the mosquito nets meant that at this moment the guesthouse is somewhat stuffy (though by 9am it will be cooler inside the building than outside). They are both wearing headsets plugged into laptops and are transcribing the previous days interviews. I'm not sure exactly how long they've been up or what time they slept but they were working when I awoke. We'd all been chucked out of the breakfast room by the housekeeper who was eager to set the table.
And the positivity? A mixture of coming together in a flexible and condusive space, seeing old friends, having a common, agreed and understood purpose, everyone getting on with the job without having to be asked, and everyone working within the boundaries of their own rhythm (a couple of the team were still asleep but then they'd been working late). Sometimes the jetlag can play havok with getting the job done, but this time everyone synced just fine.
It also reminds me how sterile regular corporate approved hotels can be.
Posted by Jan at 07:53 PM | Comments (1)
April 19, 2006
Attention To Detail
Ash-tray in cafe somewhere around the back of Harajuku - text says 'Caution', small print says 'Smoking may cause your nasel hair to grow'. This level of attention to design details is fairly common in Japan.
Posted by Jan at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
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?
Posted by Jan at 08:47 PM | Comments (0)
Micro Breaks, Macro Breaks
A security guard settling into another hour seated in front of a closed store in South Delhi (above), motorcyclist checking text messages whilst smoking a cigarette in Tokyo (below) and a bus stop indicating how long before the next bus arrives, Brighton (end photo).
Micro and macro breaks are the time we have between defined tasks: waiting for a bus to arrive; for a traffic light to change; for friends to turn up; to smoke a cigarette (assuming the act of smoking is not seen as a primary task). If you design mobile devices, applications or services you should be interested in micro and macro breaks - as a commonly carried mobile essential there is a fair chance that the mobile phone will be used during that break.
Not all all breaks are equal: some are planned, some not; the ability to predict how long a break will last affects how the time is used and whether tasks are started; some we have degree of control over how long they last; and the contexts in which breaks occur can vary considerably - just think of the range of situations you find yourself in.
What are the characteristics of micro or macro breaks? How do they differ between cultures? For that matter, how does the pace of life, the perception of time and how it 'should' be filled differ between cultures? How long do these breaks last compared the time it takes to complete a task such as sending a text message, locating information on a mobile web site or to go to a more topical application - tuning into signal for a mobile TV station?
And why the bus stop? Quite simply - knowing when the break will finish affects what tasks will be started.
Posted by Jan at 08:03 PM | Comments (1)
The Half-Life of Food on a Plate
Back home for a few days.
An observation from a recent meal with friends - as dishes arrive there is a polite free-for-all for food until that is, there is only one portion left on each plate. The final portion of each dish has a half-life - with no-one (obviously) willing to take the whole portion.
Posted by Jan at 06:14 PM | Comments (3)
April 18, 2006
Understanding Consequences, Affecting Actions
Graffiti/sign stencilled close to many of drains in Hilo make it harder to ignore/easier to understand the consequence of inappropriate dumping.
Fast forward, same situation, but what happens when there are numerous objects embedded with a life-time's worth of data; being able to identify (or partially identify) a person has been in proximity of that drain at a particular time; a framework of legal/social rules; and the ability to display dynamic signs based on that legal/social framework? Pro-active contextual street signage?
It's not a million miles from a real-time equivilent of this.
Given that some of the fun of life is in ignoring the (increased risk of the) consequences of some of our actions whether it's smoking (whatever), extreme sports or simply crossing the road, how will this play out when the consequences of actions can be calcuated and projected to a person in real time? There are likely to be signficant cultural differences - in terms of issues like the respect for authority and the extent to which people take a fatalistic attitude to life.
Posted by Jan at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2006
Effort Required to Help People Wayfind
How much effort to help people find their way? The consequence of not making the effort?
Marking trails at 3000+ meter altitude (Mauna Loa, above). Or directing people to a nearby toilet.
Posted by Jan at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)
Anti-Social Luggage
I'm intrigued about the affects physical/digital objects can have on other physical/digital objects during everyday use. We know from multi-cultural studies on what people carry where and why that people tend to keep keys and phones in separate pockets to avoid scratching the device (this applies mostly to men, our research indicates that women are much more likely to use handbags than pockets to carry their mobiles).
What happens to other carried objects or carrying spaces such as pockets when a device is covered in gem stones? Or is defiant about being put in your pocket?
What happens to other people's luggage when a skateboard slip-mat is applied to the surface of your check-in luggage? (photo, above). How will it differ when the anti-social behaviour is digital?
Posted by Jan at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)
Adult Content, Other Grey Market Goods & Services
The availability of adult content is restricted in China. But what does this have to do with these women standing on the side of a busy Beijing road during last December's bitter cold?
In Beijing a woman in a market street holding a baby is associated by many with selling pornography. (The seated lady in the photo above is holding a baby and has a CD visible in her hand). Pornography sellers have even been known to carry fake babies since the baby is the signifier of the goods that are for sale. I've not gone out of my way to research this topic but my assumption is that is applies to other parts of China also - a clarification from Chinese residents welcome.
Every culture has goods and services that are considered illegal, or at the very least anti-social. For consumers wishing to buy adult content or for that matter any grey or black market services, how to identify who is selling what? What is the risk of making the wrong assumptions? The transaction process is may be made more difficult through a high turn over sellers (if they are frequently busted by the authorities), the degree to which any transactions needs to be shielded from prying eyes, and the risk that the seller is in fact working for the authorities.
What lessons can we apply to the distribution of legal content? On the assumption that all stratas of society are consumers of these goods and services, how long before marketers seek to distribute advertising content through these channels? Apart from flyposting, any examples of it having happened already?
Posted by Jan at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2006
Buying Fakes With Eyes Open
Observed during a short visit to a street market in Delhi - the seated gentlemen is boxing up covers for Nokia phones.
The quality of the covers varied but the boxes were pretty obvious fakes. On the assumption that most consumers in this market will be aware are of the origin of the goods, to what extent do (fake) boxes increase the value of (fake) covers? Are there markets where taking objects out of packaging increases their value?
Hmm, what makes a fake a fake?
Posted by Jan at 10:32 PM | Comments (3)
Content Middle Men
In Delhi's Karol Bagh Market 100+ Rupees (2+ Euro) will buy you as much content as you can fit on a 512 MB memory card. Widely available digital contents includes the usual suspects: ring tones in various formats; wallpapers; themes; applications; games - including Series 60 ports of many popular Nintendo ES games; Hindi pop videos; and a couple of full length Hindi movies. Given that most of this content is available somewhere online, its interesting to note the presence of someone who takes the time to find and package the material for less networked (or less network-motivated) consumers.
Posted by Jan at 08:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2006
What You See, Are Allowed to See
You are doing ad-hoc field data collection - what are you really seeing when you see what you see? And how much of the (data collecting) situation exists because of your presence? And given the positive and negative biases that your presence has, how can you reduce their impact?
Taking the most recent field study in Delhi as an example - being an obvious foreigner made it easier to gain access to people to a number of situations, but I'm well aware that almost all of the street interviews that I took part in only involved male participants - introducing a gender bias to my data. Gender mixed field study teams is a basic requirement, but even with a gender mixed team there are biases such as what data is given what prominence in the final report which is affected by who the primary authors are which goes back to who has what access to collecting what data?
if you study a topic such as what people carry eventually you'll come in contact with grey market activities - which given the nature of the grey market provides a number of opportunities to introduce data biase. I recall a recent street interview where the conversation veered to anti-social activities and whether I was an undercover cop - the participant pushed the convesation to this topic by first suggesting that I could be the police, then reaching the conclusion herself that I was not. At this point I tried to argue that I could be the police - the conversation went something along the lines of [her] you're not the police [me] how do you know? [her] you don't dress like the police [me] yeah, but you can't really be sure? In the event (I assume) she assumed I was not the police because the conversation and her manner was open. But ultimately was it? And whilst there is a good deal of literature on why and how we affect the data that is collected, in the field it sometimes comes down to making a judgment call, ideally with biases discussed by the team and factored in during the data analysis.
And why these photos? To work effectively the telescopes on Mauna Kea require support from Big Island residents - the use of orange low impact sodium street lighting which, like our biases, can be filtered out (in this case by the telescopes). The end result is a clear view of the night sky.
I'm in the planning process for a field study in a highly gender segregated culture later this year, and wondering how best to approach ad-hoc street data collection, if at all. Thoughts and suggestions welcome.
Posted by Jan at 11:38 PM | Comments (2)
Authority
Whether you believe the sign depends on a number of things including: the authority of the organisation or person that placed it there; the context (cloud covered mountain roads); and the risk of it happening to you (running into a cow with a car). It's rare to find humour in warning signs but it works well here. Do you believe?
Posted by Jan at 03:59 AM | Comments (0)
Map To Rest Room
How you get from here to there.
Posted by Jan at 03:45 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2006
Correlation
Mental, physical and spatial mapping.
Posted by Jan at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
Minimalism
Testing a car stereo's CD drives to hear it works - photo of a street stall in Delhi. Minimalism of both the CD drive and the plug. A relatively common alternative to sticking bare wire ends in the socket is to support the wire position with short pieces of wood.
Posted by Jan at 05:17 AM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2006
What You Are Likely To Forget
Sign to correct a common problem.
Got a few days R & R - the plan is to hit the trail for the next few days, assuming the weather lets up.
Posted by Jan at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)
Your Rights Are Irrelevant. If Anything, Demand Trust
A sign that reads: "Can you keep an eye on our workers to stop them stealing?" would not go down that well in this Delhi coffee shop - yet this is basically what this sign says. Another example of using customers as a resource.
Posted by Jan at 08:20 PM | Comments (2)
April 11, 2006
Inviting Interaction
The extent to which spaces, places and technologies welcome interaction and use.
Posted by Jan at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2006
Socket Plus?
Are there any advantages to influencing use behaviour by promoting the use of one socket over another? What factors could influence which socket was used first?
Posted by Jan at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2006
Larger Small Print
Long queues to clear security checks at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International airport providing plenty of time for looking around and passenger watching. Due to the size of the sign the small print on the advertisement on the left is relatively large and noticeable - *conditions apply and *only in Delhi departure.
Four trends that might affect how this plays out in the future perfect: the increase of advertising across digital medium is not constrained by physical limits and provides greater scope for more small print; more people will carry personal devices capable of accessing related information; an increased quality of search engines to help you track down just what you are looking for; and an aging demographic with poorer eyesight demanding alternatives to today's small print.
Are more informed consumers better off? An opportunity to increase consumer understanding assumes that all parties benefit from having informed consumers - whereas in the real world conflicts abound.
Posted by Jan at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
It's Easy Getting Objects Carried
Like many shops in Delhi the Rama Color photo studio in Bengali Market uses advertising handouts to get their logo carried and displayed by their customers. One side of the advertisement depicts a god and the other side a calendar. During wallet mapping studies I'm often surprised at the ease by which people accept objects which are then carried, at least until the next time the wallet is cleared out. One of the most prevalent of these objects in modern urban centers is the buy-10-get-one-free coffee 'loyalty' card, but in India if the religious depiction doesn't grab a person's attention then the calendar will. It's not even the functionality that draws people to take the object, but the perceived functionality - the fact that it might be useful and that it's, well, free.
At what point is it economically feasible for stores to give away, by today's standards, richer more complex objects? Electronic flyers for example. To be picked up in the first place one thing will remain the same - they object will have a perceived functionality. What will be different is that they can act independently - designed to take advantage of the proximity of being placed in someone's purse, pocket, handbag or wallet to collect and report proximity data. To some people the physical space of your wallet will be just another real-time commercial battleground. Knowing what you have in there and how frequently you use is valuable data - disabling the opponent in whatever way will be a bonus. Its tempting to use the word Trojan or parasite, but by being self-sustaining and self-maintaining a self-reporting free-bee is more accurate.
And in a world where this is widespread how will this affect what we decide to pick up?
Posted by Jan at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
Motivations for Ranking
[Corrected] Coaching institute in South Delhi publicises the students that have excelled on a billboard outside the school. The effort required to put up a printed billboard suggests that the ranking will be valid for a long period of time. In an increasingly real-time world what is a meaningful way of ranking people, events or other statistics?
This reminds me of two things: Awards are generally given out by people who like to be seen to be giving out awards to people who like to be seen receiving awards; and the easiest way to get an award is to first set up an award ceremony - what goes around will eventually comes around.
Posted by Jan at 11:38 PM | Comments (3)
Decompression
Two days in a rural location to analyse and debate 8 days of field data before the team disperses. A big part of coping with urban Delhi is dealing with the heat, noise and dust. Time for reflection with the team is in one location is a necessity and we make the most of what we have - the quiet space should ease decompression.
The glow on the left of the photo shows the distant Delhi light leaking into the sky. And the ghostly figures? The field research team on a 30 second exposure whilst our hosts sleep. The nights offered some respite from the intense day time heat.
Posted by Jan at 10:55 PM | Comments (1)
April 08, 2006
Cultural Conversions
Chai house worker wearing LIVESTRONG bracelets, somethings which were spotted on a number of young males around Delhi. The rubber bracelets are good triggers for charitable donations in part because they are so cheap to produce - more of the donation can go to the charity. This same property makes the statement-bracelet trend viable in highly price/cost cultures such as India.
Whether the intentions of the original statement for these bracelets is relevant to the wearer is another matter entirely. To what extent does the additional cultural distance travelled change the message?
Posted by Jan at 11:53 PM | Comments (1)
Components Stripped and Re-used
The degree to which used and damaged individual components are stripped for repair and re-sale.
Car stereos above.
Car, below.
Posted by Jan at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
Protect To Serve
Posted by Jan at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2006
Events Which
Demonstration in Delhi recorded by the demonstrators.
What consequences of the widespread availability of media gathering and reporting tools.
Posted by Jan at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
Local Insights, Insights from Locals
Being local doesn't qualify someone to be a local guide. Being a foreigner doesn't dis-qualify someone from having insights into a local culture. Something that enables a decent specialist to be able to specialise (and, um, be, er, special) is their ability to apply their expertise and work effectively in foreign contexts. And some specialists are ultimately not that special.
With these provisos in mind it's fair to say that our ability to gather meaningful data in foreign climes is dependent on having good local guides. The most obvious reason to hire guides is to provide cultural insights enterpret the local language. Less obviously a good local guide will use her social network to find appropriate study participants (when not using a recruiting agency); will know where to find what you want and negociate decent prices on anything and everything; makes the team aware of local sensitivities such as how to behave during meetings and where not to point the soles of your feet; dealing with local nuances such as power cuts; and even such simple but moral boosting things as knowing a decent neighbourhood restaurant. Also, in situations where gender is a barrier to gathering data having someone of the opposite sex around provides more options which ultimately leads to more data gathering opportunities.
Much like the rest of us, guides need a clearly described brief to be able to perform well. Given that the brief often changes as the project progresses we make an effort to keep everyone in the loop regarding the range and quality of the data that is being collected. It's worth bearing in mind that asking questions can be seen as a strength or weakness depending on issues as cultural norms, age and the personality of the individuals and that positive and negative feedback can be enterpreted in a number of ways.
Thanks to our cultural guides this past week: Priyanka, Smriiti, Aashish, Samir and Surbee - your insights were much appreciated.
Posted by Jan at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)
April 06, 2006
Faith In
Posted by Jan at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)
Slabs of Joy
A shop selling game controllers to hook up to TV based consoles - designed for arcade use.
Example of use here.
Posted by Jan at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2006
A Sufficiently Focused Group
Lo-tech setup for home based focus group - a wire connecting the video camera with the TV in the observation room. The space used for the focus group is normally someone's home, and in this instance the observation room is a converted bedroom - there are no seats so the observation team is perched on the edges of a large double bed. The setup works surprisingly well, with the participants relaxed in the surroundings and the proceedings sufficiently focused.
A backup battery sits in one corner of the home a sign that they are used to having power cuts. The host informs us that if the power does go for any length of time then the TV in the observation room will cut off, and given that it is a windowless room presumably we will be plunged into darkness.
But for once I'm able to say I spent a half day lounging around on a bed (there were no chairs), sipping tea and watching (the participants on the) TV and all in the name of work.
Posted by Jan at 05:36 PM | Comments (2)
April 04, 2006
Privacy Lost, Never Had, A Sham
Public call office receipts litter the street in front of a shop. These receipts typically include information relating to the call - the phone number, time, duration and cost of call.
Posted by Jan at 05:29 PM | Comments (0)
Same But Different
Posted by Jan at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)
Clean Teeth
Sticks for cleaning teeth/chewing, sold to very low income workers close to Old Delhi station.
Photos from a watching-the-city-waking-up street walking session.
Posted by Jan at 02:49 PM | Comments (2)
Media Delivery
Newspapers delivered over the last meters by throwing, a practice similar in the US.
In the UK newspapers are mostly delivered directly into a home mail box. Why the difference in delivery styles between these cultures? Factors include: the risk of theft; the perceived value of the papers; the size of properties and the location of the mail box on the property; whether gates are locked; the size of mail boxes; the size of papers; a culture of putting other things in the mail box? The risk of being rained on does not appear to be a factor - Seattle probably gets a similar amount of rain to many parts of the UK.
This gentleman managed to throw the paper into a tree. Is throwing efficient? For whom?
Posted by Jan at 12:34 PM | Comments (2)
April 03, 2006
(Out of the) Out-of-Office
We've set up a mobile office here in Delhi, but this afternoon's office is, well, out of the out-of-office. I'm perched on the edge of a street stall in South Delhi sipping hot sweet chai. A black and white TV is balanced on a high shelf and is blaring out a Harry Potter movie in Hindi. On my left the owner takes a pot of the boil and pours chai into 6 glasses - one of which ends up in my hands. Two rows of customers, mostly children, line the walls and most are intently watching the movies. They don't appear to be drinking anything.
The chai is pleasant enough, but if I'm honest I don't actually want or need it. The same can be said of a number of purchases today - the chai before this and the chai before that. I also didn't need the haircut, the shave, the picture frames, stickers, manuals, pens and a multitude of other things that were bought at various stalls in this neighbourhood market. But what all these things have in common is that they enable me to slow down social interactions to the point where an ad-hoc interview can take place.
Posted by Jan at 08:43 PM | Comments (2)
Out of Office Reply
The door to the office of an advocate includes both his mobile and residential numbers.
How easy is it to provide contextual information to deal with being out-of-office? In what situations is it useful?
Posted by Jan at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)
How India Wakes Up
What percentage of the world's population wakes up to a phone alarm clock?
The advertisement for a Nokia 1600 and 1110 phones above focuses on a single feature - a talking alarm and clock. Jaago India Jaago translates to 'wake up India'.
Posted by Jan at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)
Aspect Ratio
Three urinals to one squat.
Posted by Jan at 05:38 AM | Comments (0)
How (Parts of) Delhi Wake Up
An attempt to understand the flow of the city. Team has a 6am start. The streets are already buzzing.
Posted by Jan at 03:30 AM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2006
Conversion
"Old currency changed here"
In cultures with grey and black markets for currency gullible tourists can be fooled into changing money for out-of-date local currency. Where? Well from personal experience, the Czech Republic.
How will this kind of scam play out as objects contain more meta data (such as sell by dates) and the life of those objects becomes more traceable?
Posted by Jan at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)
Motivation to Protect
High quality cover for mobile phone to protect against damage and to a lesser extent dust.
From most angles the phone's appearance is similar with and without this transparent cover with the exception shown above. Beyond reducing the risk damage what are the motivations to use covers? To what extent does this choice boil down to appearance now vs. appearance later?
Posted by Jan at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2006
Do, And What You Do
The style of holding the money and tickets is both practical (change lined up for customers) and a visual symbol of his role (bus conductor).
Posted by Jan at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2006
Office Away From The Office
My office for the next two weeks is a townhouse /guesthouse close to Delhi's CP. The house is owned by an English couple who now spend most of their time on an estate just outside Delhi, and its current occupants are the 5 members of our research team plus the Nepali housekeeper and her family. It is welcoming, comfortable and coincidentally very, very English (including little touches like afternoon tea).
It's 5am as I write this and the first strains of sun light are peeking through the expansive mosquito screen and beyond that the canopy of a tree on the front lawn of the house. My body clock is halfway between Tokyo and New Delhi which according to the Windows time zone application puts me somewhere near Krasnoyarsk. The fresh morning air drifts through the house accompanied by bird-song and the distant but frequent sound of trains shunting along to Old Delhi station.
So what are we doing here? The fixed part of the plan is to run a series of focus groups to understand the pros and cons of various concepts. As with a lot of these studies the contextual work that happens around the edges is expected to also yield rich data - observing and documenting the contexts in which the concepts will be used, contextual interviews, and exploring themes such as rituals, customisation, repair cultures, coping with dust and dirt as well as generally trying to understand what both unique and the same about the Indian (communications) context.
The guesthouse is a conducive space to running this kind of study: the expansive and airy lounge can comfortably cope with the team and our 5 assistants (and at night a mattress is rolled out in one corner's it becomes my bedroom). A researcher from Hyderabad is asleep in the master bedroom which is now doubling up as mission control and the mobile office is unpacked and the walls are starting to be covered with data, schedules, photos and sketches of new design iterations. Further along the corridor are the sleeping bodies of a Canadian concept designer living in Helsinki and a Chinese colleague from, um, China whilst the final member of the team - an Indian studying in Helsinki is housed in a room on the roof of this one story building. In a choice between a regular corporate hotel with all mod-cons and this guesthouse with shared living quarters I'd take this any day. There are numerous benefits from having the entire team stay in one space - the net result of which is that we live, eat and sleep the research topic for the duration of our stay (and having access to a housekeeper makes life easier too).
6:30, the newspapers have just landed on the path and the house begins to wake.
Posted by Jan at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
Game Play
The range of motion of hands shown by the dirt-scraped clean areas.
Is it possible to conduct accurate, longitudinal hand-placement usability tests using dirt as a boundary marker?
The weight of the TV is a counter balance to the pressure exerted on the buttons and joystick.
Posted by Jan at 09:02 PM | Comments (1)
Custom
Repeatedly self-customised phone by Fiza Khan a student at NIFT Delhi's Department of Fashion and Lifestyle Accessories.
To what extent does the customisation of a product or service facilitate or become a barrier to and ongoing customisation?
Posted by Jan at 06:32 AM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2006
Wear and Tear
Supple skin on the hands of a South Delhi barber. The shaving process included a face massage and the liberal application of raw aloe.
Dead skin on the hand of a rickshaw driver - his other hand was similarly worn in the same place.
Posted by Jan at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)
Not in Here, But Out There
Thursday's presentation about field research to the Department of Fashion & Lifestyle Accessories at the New Delhi Institiute for Fashion Technology. Hosted by Associate Professor Bhawna Vij Katyal. Slides can be downloaded from here [3MB]. Update: link to the presentation now works
A summary?
Get out the lab.
Keep your eyes peeled.
Question eveything, including why you need to be out of the lab.
Stay warm.
Posted by Jan at 12:21 PM | Comments (2)
March 28, 2006
On Getting There
Can't think of a city that isn't beautiful to cruise around at night. Window down, non-spoken communication with the driver and the night-air blowing away hours of jet-fug.
From Delhi Airport to deep sleep in the guesthouse in less than an hour.
Posted by Jan at 03:24 AM
March 27, 2006
One-Way Conversation
Sign in Narita airport's Terminal 2 reads "We accept US$. But we can do the only bills (no coins). And change will be Japanese Yen"
Are there any benefits for the provider of (digital) services in offering two way conversions? (In this case offering change in either currency)
Posted by Jan at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2006
Secrets (But Not Lies)
I know you have a secret.
But don't worry I won't tell, but I just wanted to let you know that I know. That's enough.
During in-depth interviews into what people carry a sub-theme that sometimes emerges is the issue of privacy and secrecy - the things people carry that they don't want to reveal to others. They can be physical objects but increasingly they come in the form of electronic data.
Why would anyone tell a researcher about the secret things they carry? In the street interview context participants consider themselves anonymous (and we preserve this anonymity); they may not think through the consequences of what they are saying - which might be fine for an investigative journalist but can put a corporate researcher on the spot; it may be that the reward for revealing this information now is greater that the perceived consequences of having revealed it to the wrong person later (we work hard not to put people in this situation but it has been done); sometimes people don't know what they've revealed or reveal by accident; but more often than not the risk of revealing information to me, that is someone who is 'neutral' and not an authority figure, is low.
There are different levels of privacy and secrecy - a medical condition may be co