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

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 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)

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)

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 considered secret from everyone including close family; but other things that are only secret within the work context. I expect to see more human behaviours shielding secrets from the sensors that surround us. A kind-of example of this arose in a study a couple of yeas ago. A participant knew that by default a particular communication channel was being recorded, and being about to do something that was not strictly adhering to the rules (but not necessarily breaking them either) pushed some of her communication through alternative channels. Which raises a number of questions on one side regarding legal obligations and on the other the obligation to say whether the alternatives themselves are being recorded.

How does all this affect how people carry what they carry? In subtle ways. Frequent use objects such as bicycle keys during a day shopping in town are more likely to be carried in a separate pocket to secret objects. Every time a person fishes into a pocket to take out the keys the [xx secret xx] object carried in the same pocket risks falling to the floor. Some of these issues map to the digital user interface realm: a device may contain personal information but supports tasks that involve shared use outside the immediate peer group. Watching a sports event on a Mobile Phone TV for example.

There are other ways to scope secret things that people carry. Our summer intern from last year carried out a series of interviews with organisations such as hotels, department stores and the police asking about: what people lose; with what frequency; how long it takes to discover they are lost; the triggers for losing; and the steps and barriers to recover the objects. Items turning up in lost and found included balistic weapons and large sums of money all of which require different levels of privacy and secrecy depending on the context in which they are carried. Mobile phones are relatively easy to recover because people tend to notice they are missing quite quickly, they can be called by the owner, and even if switched off they include a call log. However even if the ability to track down the owner is easy, recovery is not necessarily straight forward if people don't want to be identified with having been in a particular place and/or location at a particular time.

You look at a group of people and see a group of people. I look at the same thing and wonder what their secrets are and what I can do to keep their secrets well, secret.

And the photo above? Nothing to do with secrecy research - just a random shot taken in an elevator.

Posted by Jan at 11:47 PM | Comments (2)

Turns Towards

About 7 minutes spent watching the body language of a telephone conversation on a Tokyo side-street. The conversationalist spent most of his time turned to the wall, or more accurately turned to the 'corner' afforded by the pipe and the wall (the lady looking up the street was not with him and quicky moved on). But why?

It's an extreme example of not wanting to disturb other people with details of the call. It is more usual to see Japanese people to move to take a call out of earshot and/or to cup the hand around the mouthpiece and speak quietly.

What devices are associated with carrying out what anti-social activities? Anti-social to whom and in what contexts? Mobile phone's and talking loudly, electric batons and torture. Does taking out an object imply intent to carry out a particular task? And how does the perception of devices/services and their associated tasks evolve as the majority of users switch from early adopters (with their inherent behaviours) to more mainstream users? How does this perception change as the range of features offered by that device changes? How would people react to a stun gun that is mostly used to kills bugs?

Can and should we create a feedback loop to help user's better understand the social reaction to utilizing technologies? Can we demystify technologies to lessen the social reaction in the first place?

Posted by Jan at 10:50 PM | Comments (1)

Well Hung

Properties of the lock condusive for carrying around neck. Too long and it increases the risk of getting snagged, too short and it just doesn't fit. This lock is notable for how flimsy it it compared to the value of the bike.

After a few consecutive days of good weather the bicycle messengers are coming out in force. Tokyo's got a relatively high percentage of tricked out rides. Just need a good excuse to study communication practices of bike couriers.

Posted by Jan at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2006

Wanting Some, Wanting To Avoid Some

Trend spotter out in Shibuya on a friday evening, above. Self caught in reflection of motorbike mirror documenting street life in Ho Chi Minh City, below. Tele Atlas van recording street data in Brighton, bottom photo. Satellite photography.

What right to record what data? The obviousness by which it is done? The practical ease at which people can opt out of data collection? Who has what right to view the data?

Posted by Jan at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

Notifications

Notification of bike parking violations. Tokyo above, Chengdu, below. Which is more practical? efficient? noticed by the violator? noticed by the other membes of society? noticed by the peson who enforces violations?

Posted by Jan at 10:06 PM | Comments (3)

Bling Customisation

Posted by Jan at 09:34 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2006

What You Take, When You Go Where You Go

There is s a corner of the office that is forever collecting materials for the next field study. The process of piling things up starts anywhere from 3 weeks before departure and usually reaches its conclusion the eve before heading out. Making sure everyone brings the equipment they are supposed to is not especially difficult, but neither is it straight forward given that team members arrive from different home cities.

So what to bring and what to leave?

The minimal kit is a decent camera, three fully charged batteries (doing away with the need for a bulky charger), spare memory, a paper notebook and a wad of cash.

The maximal kit includes: printers + inks; diary kits (cameras, chargers, spare batteries); a wide variety of camera, video and audio bits and pieces; spare laptops for secure data entry (e.g. hiring students in China) or for running specialist software; print-outs of all forms needed for the first few days; and a med kit. Some things like white boards & bicycles are bought on arrival but when time is tight, and it often is, it is easier to bring most things oneself. (Yes the running of the whole study can and frequently is subcontracted, but the pros and cons of subcontracting are another issue).

Shipping everything in advance? It's sometimes feasible when there are no international customs for packages to get stopped at: too many times electronics-heavy research kit is held up in customs or heavily taxed or both. It's funny how importing 6 identical cameras (for user diaries) can be considered suspect. Even with customs out of the equation and regardless of what the courier companies want you to believe, if it absolutely, definitely has to get there on time you need to take it yourself.

Off on another study next week with a research team arriving from different corners of the globe. Will they bring everything? Let's see.

Posted by Jan at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2006

Street Fill

iMac dumped on Tokyo back street. Land-fill. Street-fill.

Posted by Jan at 05:29 PM | Comments (0)

Mobile Essentials

Presentation by Per Persson, Mikko Aarras, Petri Piippo & Tetsuya Yamamoto & myself to last year's Designing the User Experience conference can now be downloaded from here [2MB].

Slides include photo examples of how to think about carrying behaviours including Center of Gravity, Point of Reflection and the Range of Distribution. A conclusion? The easiest way to have nothing to forget is to have nothing to remember. Whilst you might be tempted to enterpret this as a form of Zen philosophy, it is actually more about the art of delegation.

Related research here and here.

Posted by Jan at 01:31 PM | Comments (1)

March 19, 2006

Don't Do As I Do

2 sets of apartment blocks in Ho Chi Minh City. One literally overflowing, the other externally more ordered and possibly sterile.

Which would you prefer to look at?
And which would you prefer to live in?

Posted by Jan at 08:18 AM | Comments (0)

When Understanding Doesn't Matter

"Please refrain from the following acts in the store"

Many of the Japanese customers to this store will be unable to read with understanding this text, so what's its purpose?

Posted by Jan at 07:18 AM | Comments (5)

March 15, 2006

Double Wrap

The smallest example range of distribution of objects that I've come across during behavioural research was interviewing a vice-squad policeman in Berlin. He discussed drug dealers double-wrapping their product in clingfilm which was then carried in the mouth. At the point of sale one item is taken from the mouth and handed over. If the police tried to bust them they swallow the produce and since the drugs take time to clear the digestive tract it meant putting dealers behind bars at least overnight for what often amounted to a small bust.

The range of distribution more affected the consequence of discover by the wrong person (in this instance the police), rather than risk of theft per se.

Do I know the origin of the Double Wrap shop name (half way between Harajuku and Shibuya photo above)? I do not.

Posted by Jan at 08:20 PM | Comments (1)

March 13, 2006

Slip, Grip

Deck mats as stair grips - leading up to skate shop.

Posted by Jan at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)

Knowing When Something is Worn

What are the circumstances that trigger knowing when something is overly worn and no longer useful for its intended purpose? Things wear unevenly. And since the context of use varies so do definitions of 'overly worn'.

Posted by Jan at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)

Pointer, Sent

Following a request for pointers to papers and articles, I particularly enjoyed Paul Dourish writing about the evaluation of ethnographic research papers in HCI - paper online here and his related research here. He ends with:

"Frankly, I doubt that this is the last CHI paper on ethnographic work that will find itself forced to end with "implications for design" ... but it is certainly nice to think that this is a possibility"

Which in a round-about way leads me to the question - what motivates you to do what you do? And how far are you willing to go to communicate this to others? Coming from a corporate research lab - my starting assumption is that none of the research or design we do is by default relevant for anything or anyone. The relevance comes from all the communication that occurs around the edges of the actual research from observing, listening and debating, anticipating other people's next steps whether it is 15 months or 15 years from now, and trying to figure out the smart questions in that space before they get there (whether we are successful at doing this is another matter entirely).

And, bringing it back to the closing statement of Paul's paper - where do conferences fit in with all of this? Like researchers, conferences need to fight to first gain relevance, and then continue to fight to maintain relevance.

Thanks VT for the link - the book is on its way.

Posted by Jan at 08:12 AM | Comments (4)

March 11, 2006

Anti-Social Sensors

Sensor and display showing noise levels on building site (shown in center-right of photo).

How do the behaviour and activities of the builders change according to the feedback displayed on the noise meter? At what point, and to whom is the information on the noise meter no longer relevant - because stakeholders are adept at judging noise levels? What exceptions are there to this? What are the consequences of going over limits? Does a greater degree of accuracy encourage behaviours that push things to the the social, anti-social and/or legal limits?

Same questions, but this time for a speedometer in a car...

Posted by Jan at 06:47 AM | Comments (5)

March 10, 2006

Monitored , Monitoring

This afternoon's office of sorts is a waiting room in a health clinic. I've just spent half an hour lying on my side whilst getting an ultrasound scan of my heart. I was in here yesterday too and in the intervening 24 hours had the pleasure of walking around with a number of heart monitors strapped to my chest and an event monitor designed to log heart-related activities. So now the monitors are removed, the scans are done and I've got 45 minutes to kill before the doctor can talk me through the results.

The waiting room is empty other than a lady who has just arrived and is seated to my right. She keeps looking just above my head, but never making eye contact suggesting that either she is in here for a condition akin to having (vertically) lazy eyes, or more likely, something is occurring just above my head. She gets called by a consultant and leaves. Somewhere to my left, behind a frosted glass screen I can hear a receptionist ever-so ever-so-politely field calls and direct the odd incoming patient to the appropriate room in the clinic. Mus(ic/ak), is being piped through speakers in the ceiling - a mixture of piano sprinkled with acoustic guitar. The blandest of bland magazines sit in rack at my feet and tone of room is comfortable and muted. I suspect these are all deliberate design choices - little things that keep patients calm and collected as they wait to be tested or wait for test results. It's a comfortable environment and now is as good an opportunity as any to catch up on emails and write.

I'm usually in the position of collecting data and asking questions of study participants, but today the view is from the other side of the fence. The doctor is young but appears to have a bedside manner and level of experience that somehow belies his age. New experiences are fun and this is no exception: warmed gel on the tip of the ultrasound; a lying posture which i guess is optimised for reading the patients heart and minimising spoken interaction; listening to the sound of blood being pushed around the body; and, over my shoulder watching as the doctor makes constant one-handed re-adjustments on an intricate control panel to bring up different views of the same data. To the untrained eye it all looks pretty complex. What exactly is he looking for, and once he's found it how will he communicate it?

During the recent presentation in Seattle Ian Smith raised the issue of biases in self documentation techniques such as photo-diaries or everything-I-touch-diaries - for example choosing what to frame or not frame in a photo. A related issue is how monitoring changes behaviours.

If say, we could monitor everything you do for 24 hours - from what you consume to what you say what would you do differently? And perhaps more interestingly what are you motivations for doing things differently?

Posted by Jan at 09:02 AM | Comments (4)

March 08, 2006

Identity, Memory

A simple and expressive example of how a restaurant overcomes the problem of guests forgetting their coats - an issue probably caused by the coats being located out of the line of sight when people leave. This restaurant is well warmed by the sun, and a number of guests arrive by car (relatively unusual for Tokyo) so remembering a coat may not be a high priority.

Our paper submitted to DUX last year proposed the concept of the range of distribution to describe how far people allows allow objects to stray from their person. Range of distribution is not just about distance, but also location in relation the body such as out of the line of sight and/or out of the range of reach.

Understanding the range of distribution for objects is interesting primarily because objects that are placed out of sight are more likely to be forgotten - and objects that are forgotten are less likely to be used, and people tend to value and eventually pay for things that they use. Another non-trivial issue is that the performance of wireless devices may be affected by how far objects stray from one another - some RFID readers have a range of millimeter's, Bluetooth has a range of meters. Its not just about data transmission but can also affect battery life as devices scan to relocate one another.

Back to the restaurant cloakroom... guests are given a toy (shown in the box below) that matches the one on the hanger (photo above). When leaving the restaurant the toy acts as a reminder that the coat needs to be taken, and perhaps more obviously acts as a ticket to identify the right coat. Simple, fun and elegant very much keeping with style the restaurant itself.

Posted by Jan at 06:22 AM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2006

Technologies Around Spaces

Advertisement for using Suica equipped mobile phone to pass through ticket barrier, above. Vending machine using the same technology to purchase drinks, below. Both photos taken in Shinagawa Station. Japan Rail (JR) has invested heavily in Suica so it makes sense to find use of this technology clustered in and around its properties. A relatively easy way to provide consumers with exposure to a new technology, but will its use spread?

On a side note - the C-Mode DoCoMo/Coca Cola vending machine in Shibuya that supported payments via mobile phone is gone. It had quite possibly the most confusing user interface for any vending machine.

Posted by Jan at 11:46 PM | Comments (1)

Resolution, Error Rates

Sewn 2D bar code into beanie. Sufficient resolution to be read, but what level of read-error rates?

Posted by Jan at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2006

The Traces of Traces

These guides to paint the road markings were first laid down in November 2005 and are still visible 3 months later. Understanding the process of how something is designed and built can raise or lower its perceived value in the minds-eye of its users.

In what contexts is it desireable to include traces of processes? Or fake traces? Is there a point at which traces should disappear?

Posted by Jan at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2006

Getting Here From There

Sometimes it's good to be home and live and breathe with a regular rhythm. My home city is many things - not least of which is looking out from tall buildings and wondering about the stories behind each of the lives that pass ant-like below (Shibuya, above).

When travelling, the first emotional jolt that I may be nearing home comes from boarding a plane and seeing row after row of heads with jet black hair in front of me. That and the gentle ebb and flow of Japanese conversations.

When you've been away, what are the things that make you feel like you are nearing home?

Posted by Jan at 08:31 PM | Comments (5)

February 19, 2006

Recycle, Resale

The resale of used magazines mined from the waste bins in and around Shibuya station. Mostly thick and cheap weekly manga plus the a small selection of pornographic magazines (near left, back of the table). Stalls similar to this can be found near all the main commuter stations so its somewhat surprising that the infrastructure to recycle is not more sophisticated.

Posted by Jan at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2006

To Miss You, Is To Love You

Aibo is gone, but not forgotten
But also not missed
What does that say?

Posted by Jan at 02:58 PM | Comments (7)

January 30, 2006

Device Customisation

Customised iPod Nano encrusted in rhinestones - photo taken during a night out with friends in Shibuya.

Extreme customisation of devices such as mobile phones, iPods and tamagotchi is taking off amongst women (and occassionally men) in their 20's and early 30's here in Tokyo. Mobile phone and nail shops are offering extreme customisation as an extension of their existing services, nail shops being a particularly good fit given the skill set required to carry out the procedure. 7,000 yen (56 Euro) will buy you a glittery off-the-shelf design, whilst 60,000 yen (430 Euro) will buy you front, back, top and bottom fully customised design of your choice. Downside of the process? Losing use of the device whilst it is being customised, and the customisation process can invalidate the warrantee.

For the customer: what drivers for customising?
For the service provider: is it possible to scale up, to offer mass-customisation?

One of my recent side-projects was to document the extreme mobile phone and nail customisation process for two Japanese teenagers, from preparing their phones - removing existing print club stickers and other adornments, sketching desired designs, interactions with the crafts-woman, and then following the customisation process in the shop up until delivery. The research material is not suitable for an academic paper but may put some material together here at a later date.

Working from the UK for the next couple of weeks. What new things to learn?

Posted by Jan at 09:38 PM | Comments (2)

January 29, 2006

The Value of You, Is That You Are Here

This photo was taken on the escalator transporting passengers from the Keio Line exit of Shibuya Station and disgorging them into Tokyo's busy Friday night streets. In close proximity to the foot of the escalator there are 11 people representing 5 organisations hawking free magazines. They are not there because they love to dress up in lime green and red uniforms they are there because someone pays them to be here, someone sees a business opportunity. You can see something similar in urban centers all over the world - but why? What are the properties that make these spaces so popular for targeting pedestrians?

Quantum physics aside, being physically located in one space implies that someone is not physically present somewhere else at the same time. The value to the hawkers is partly based on the rarity value of a physical presence being in that exact location at that time, and from the possibility that that persons consumption behaviour might be influenced by first taking a magazine, then browsing, sufficiently absorbing and using information within it. (I'll resist the urge to write about the level of sensory engagement though its probably relevant here).

At some point in the future automated or semi-automated devices will be moving around these urban environments carrying out everyday chores on our behalf. The first of these are likely to be extensions of today's personal vehicles - who needs valet parking when your car includes a self parking feature? But before long the range of tasks they can complete, and that we feel comfortable allowing them to carry out on our behalf will extend. The view from the escalator will include non-human hawkers and non-human ped-estrians.

If devices are moving around and negotiating spaces on our behalf, what is their value to the hawkers? What happens to a person's value when its based on rarity, when something is maintains a physical presence on their behalf?

And what will the future hawkers be hawking?

Posted by Jan at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2006

Steadying

The properties of the roll of gaffer tape (on the dashboard, click to enlarge photo) making it an ideal cup holder for this Tokyo delivery truck driver.

Posted by Jan at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2006

Exploratory User Research Presentation

Slides from last nights short Pecha Kucha presentation on Exploratory User Research at Super Deluxe can be downloaded from here [3MB].

Related research about what people carry where, why and how can be downloaded from here and here.

[Thanks BH for getting the material uploaded so swiftly]

Posted by Jan at 04:58 PM | Comments (5)

January 24, 2006

Postcards From The Future

Had the pleasure of cycling down to Shinagawa this morning and getting Japan entry-permits transferred to my new passport. The new permit design includes an unsettlingly unfriendly 2D-bar code a poor substitute to the rich and more human-readable tapestry that was previously used by the immigration services. Will this enable Japanese customs to process me more efficiently? Perhaps. But the travels of the last few months have made me appreciate the finer subtleties of the various visas. Mongolia is a personal favourite, partly because it has a hologram of what I think is a flying pegasus, but could equally be an emasculated yak, and partly because its, well, Mongolia. Applying for entry visas is a bit like sending one-line postcards to oneself.

Our team spends a lot of time working on concepts 3 to 5 years ahead of what appears on the market. I spent one year working on ideas up to 15 years ahead of where we are now - it's quite a tricky mental space to visit though fun when you get there. You know those wonderful visions of the future where everything is white an uncluttered? Trust me, the future will be messy, and wonderfully so. I'm reminded of these things because in everyday life it's rare to come across bridges between where we are now and 10 years in the future - and my new passport says it is valid until 2015 (I expect to fill it by 2009). But where will I be in 2015? Where will you be for that matter? What will the world be like? Will there be re-entry permits in 3D? 4D even? Maybe the whole idea of an entry permit will have changed, based on a lack of privacy (by today's standards) bought on by continuous and seemingly ambient data exchanges. It will be taken as a given that you know that you don't have the right to travel somewhere without having to apply because you have the information at your fingertips. And they know you're heading there before you arrive, before you even left home. In fact they calculated the probability of you traveling there soon after your friend bought you a travel guide for your birthday, cross referenced this data with your credit report (enough saved for a trip) the analysis of phone call logs (excited tone of voice when discussing destination keywords), and half a dozen related purchases (though the system missed an opportuntiy to remind you to take stronger sun block because its been a particularly hot summer). All these information exchanges and status updates happening in real time, naturally. Lets be thankful for those in-store loyalty cards shall we?

Tonight I'm finalising some thoughts for a short presentation on Exploratory User Research for a design orientated audience of Japanese and English speakers. The format is pretty simple - show 20 slides with 20 seconds for each slide, and up to 20 presenters in one night. No chance to waffle, or to hear other people waffle. I'll post a link to the slides when I'm done.

Outside the sun dips behind Mt Fuji. In 3 months or so it will be climbable again.

[And the sun is rising over Algiers - safe travels SC]

Posted by Jan at 05:44 PM | Comments (2)

January 22, 2006

The Value of Traces

How long do you want the digital traces of where you've been to last? Who should be able to see them?

To what extent does seeing traces of prior movement and interaction influence your own movement and interaction?

Posted by Jan at 12:52 AM | Comments (3)

Touch & Go Reservation, Payment

Advertisement in Harajuku station showing passenger of a Japan Railways Green Car (first class carriage) using mobile phone touch and go interaction to pay for a seat. Passengers normally have to queue to get a seat so one of the perceived benefits is in by-passing queueing. Mobile phone is equipped with Mobile Suica.

Posted by Jan at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2006

Appropriate Behaviours

A neon sign at the bottom of this stairwell commands people walking up to only use the far left lane. The recent addition of bright red and green lines acknowledges that commuters ignored the sign and provides additional guidelines for what appropriate behaviour. A less formal version of traffic lights perhaps, but with a degree of authority never-the-less. Attitudes to authority changes according to contexts and cultures (cultural differences are well covered in this book).

Today street signs show up-to-date status information for many things including the number of empty parking bays in car parks (Brighton+), the length of time left before the traffic lights change (Bangalore+), to which is the least congested route into the city (Tokyo+). How will the way we navigate spaces change as manufacturers find cost effective ways to embed status indicators into everything from fabrics to wall papers, hand-rails to stairwells, pavements and roads?

Posted by Jan at 11:51 PM | Comments (1)

Considered Consumption

Recycled ash tray + plant = plant pot.

Components from D & Department Tokyo Project's warehouse store, a purveyor of everyday household, surgical objects and contemporary Japanese furniture (though used furniture doesn't appear on their web site). They specialise in re-cycling, re-furbishment and re-use. They also make a rather fine English/Japanese bi-lingual hotel-lounge 'please turn off your cellphone' sign.

Posted by Jan at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2006

Homes & Offices

Today's office is an office.

Situated on the 17th floor of a modern building located in a fairly non-descript part of the city. The view of Mt Fuji lies straight ahead but is usually shrouded in clouds even if you can see it through the smog, to the left in the far distance Yokohama, far left the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo bay, and on the other side of the building a view towards the shopping meccas of Roppongi Hills, Shibuya and, in the near distance Shinjuku.

When I'm in town the places and spaces with emotional meaning start about 10 minutes bike ride from the research lab. So many strangers that are sufficiently familiar to not be strangers, but sufficiently unfamilar to be not friends or aquaintances. The anonymity of large cities.

Our research lab used to be located in Akasaka, an area known for its office complexes, being close to the Japanese parliament and packing a staggering amount of small bar and restaurants into an area about 500 m square and 6 stories high. If you happened to roll into work around 6 or 7am you would see very drunk salary men staggering out of the many drinking, singing and schmoozing bars looking for somewhere to freshen up, grab a bowl of stand-up ramen before heading to another day at the office. On a few occasions at that time of the day yakusa, or at least wanna-be-yakusa trying to walk four abreast on a narrow street, tattoos showing through open shirts under white vests, dodgy suit jackets slung over shoulders and on the arm of the wanna-be-boss, what most of you would probably describe as a moll. Yes I know - stereotypes, stereotypes based on experiences. Its hard to have serious attitude when you're very seriously wasted. I recall once being warned off trying to interview a yakusa gentleman for one of our user studies. (Sometimes during ad-hoc research studies team members like to interview the hardest looking person we can find - thus far its works out fine - you just need to pick the right starting conversation topic).

One early summer's morning a salary man in a suit was lying fast asleep in a semi-fetal position on the pavement, his head snuggled up to his briefcase, shoes off his feet and placed perpendicular to the curb. I like living in a city where he perceives that sleeping on a curb is a safe enough thing to do. I like that the reality is close to the perception.

One more week at home before the next study begins.

Posted by Jan at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Custom Electricity Socket Layout

It's easy to get used to the default format of everyday objects such as electricity sockets. From where you are sitting take a moment to look around you... what objects are less than perfect? What level of skill, and what degree of motivation is required to customise these everyday objects to your individual requirements?

Photo of work shop bench taken in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City.

Posted by Jan at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2006

Drawing on User's Prior Experience?

Above, wireless ordering device from a restaurant in Beijing loosely based on mobile phone user interface. Below, push button fixed line phone spotted in Seoul adopts rotary dialler for key pad layout.

Lazy design or smart design?

Update: Reader Jeff Howards points to an article on the original AT&T TouchTone Keypad Layouts [PDF 632k]

Posted by Jan at 08:01 AM | Comments (3)

January 16, 2006

Perception of Weight

This Skype phone is on sale in Japan. The space which in a wireless phone would house a battery is filled by a removable metal weight - seen standing upright on the desk. In our smaller/faster/cheaper future we have the option of making today's objects lighter.

What is the ideal weight of a mobile phone? How will the perception of the ideal weight change over time? And what factors will affect that change? Should a gold coloured phone weigh more than silver coloured phone?

(And which will fall faster in a vacuum?)

Posted by Jan at 08:20 PM | Comments (2)

January 15, 2006

Textures

Posted by Jan at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2006

Tour Bus Ethnography

Looking at my travel schedule for the next few months I'm left wondering what can I expect to learn from the relatively short amounts of time spent the field in different countries? At what point does spending a few days in a culture become nothing more than tour bus ethnography? Hop off the bus, stick a microphone in someone's face, take a few photos and tell everyone back home what a wonderful time that had by all and boy didn't we learn a lot.

One conclusion from a 10 road trip user study in US last year was that almost everything we learned, or ended up using in a meaningful way was gathered in the first 4 or 5 days of the trip. Admittedly this study was a little unusual - 100+ interviews, driving Cleveland to New Orleans, flying to Salt Lake City then continuing the drive down to Los Angeles. Without sufficient time for reflection what could be meaningful data is just noise. So what are the techniques to support documentation and reflection? A proper answer to this question will eventually appear in a research paper. One minor technique is to take photos of local newspapers. These can become a mental time and location stamp and can later be used to communicate a local flavour and issues. As you might imagine the Sunday breakfast chatter in and around Cleveland was no doubt grappling wth the weighty issue of how casual is too casual (photo above).

Given the constraints - what is an optimal and what is a sufficient amount of time to spend in the field? And if your project involves cultural comparisons - how much time is enough to rest, reflect and analyse between field trips?

There are two techniques that enable me to stay on top of things. The first is to consistently process data as it comes in - not always an easy task given the large volumes that are collected from different sources in such a short space of time. In practical terms this means assigning a field data manager to be responsible for all incoming data, scrubbing data to remove overtly private information such as birth dates or phone numbers before the files are circulated within the team and before they start to appear in internal reports. (Field data processing would make a good short paper or workshop if anyone wants to recommend a suitable conference). Another technique is simply to have a naming strategy for all files to that documents, images videos can be identified without having to open an application. Well catalogued data will be usable and can maintain its relevance weeks, months or years after its collection.

My second technique? Don't worry about the social niceties of staying awake and make sure I get sufficient rest when the body dictates I need it. The alternative is living in a permanent state of jetlag - otherwise known as permalag, or if particularly nasty permaphuck. And that just leads to burn out.

Thanks Ken for reminding me of the names we give to what we do, and to Raphael for reminding me how anti-social I am when sleep depri/aved.

Posted by Jan at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2006

The Power of Not Charging

Next to my desk at work I have a fine collection of photos of power sockets from homes and offices around the world - the result of rummaging around under desks, peering behind cabinets and following cables to their source. In user studies I'm always intrigued to see how people tackle the problem of keeping their mobile phone charged - after all a phone without power is largely useless as a tool for solving life's little emergencies, and above everything else this is the reason that people consider the phone a mobile essential.

It is possible that technologies such as bistable displays will means that devices will have functionality without power, but for now our daily/weekly rituals include remembering to charge, and once charged - remembering to take the object when next leaving home. But does it need to be this way?

In the near term usage patterns will change when the two or so hours it currently takes to charge your laptop/phone/iPod is shortened to 10 or 20 seconds. That's a sufficiently short time to be able to pause a conversation and top up power if it were applied to a communication device, for example using fuel cell or capacitive charging.

The challenge of keeping electrical devices powered up can be tackled from a number of different directions. It's possible to make a mobile phone which has sufficient power to last as long as the device itself. The obvious (but wrong) starting point is a massive battery/fuel cell pack - it would make the product impractical to carry and the consumer market impossibly small. The opposite approach has potential - shortening the lifetime of a mobile phone to last as long as today's battery life. This is not as far fetched as it may first seem considering use cases around mobile phones bought from vending machines, a method for storing personal data off the device, combined with a system for recycling and re-circulating 'used' products to new users. As with most tasks (except entertainment and bodily functions) delegation is another solution - simply delegate the act of remembering to charge a device to someone or something else. Asimo needs something to do whilst you're sleeping right?

Usage patterns are currently constrained (or in some ways anchored) by the need to leave a device in a fixed location for a length of time. As that length of time is drastically shortened, or indeed eliminated our current notions of how we charge objects will all seem rather quaint.

Posted by Jan at 02:50 AM | Comments (3)

January 11, 2006

Emotional Charging

When is the last time you smiled inserting a plug into a power socket? What would it take to make that happen?

Posted by Jan at 11:42 PM | Comments (5)

January 03, 2006

Information At The Tips Of Your Fingers

Today her finger nail is a means of expression, decoration, drawing attention.

Finger nail decoration machines already exist to allow a customer to choose a design, then automatically decorate and dry those nails. Embedding digital information on those nails would be a relatively trivial step (though generating a critical mass of device to read what is on the nails is non-trivial). If you could store and communicate information through your finger nails what would you want to store and what would you want communicate? Is one kind of infomration more suited to thumbs or particular fingers than others? The number of digits is one natural parameter, combined with issues such as biting nails, locations where finger tips can and will end up, and how long users would expect a finger nail design to last before being refurbished offer interesting user interface possibilities and forms of interaction.

The broader issue is - what is possible without going down the routes of embedding technology under the skin, personal area networks or alternatives like bone induction?

Posted by Jan at 09:18 PM | Comments (1)

December 31, 2005

Signing Off

Sitting on the flight back home, the lights are off in the cabin and like most of the passengers K is dozing in the seat next to me somewhat exhausted. We will touch down in Narita about 9pm new year's eve - so perhaps the rest of the passengers are saving their energies for parties that happen later on?

The laptop still has a bit of juice left and I have the relative luxury of a couple of hours with nothing to do but look at pictures from the last year and think. Life is fast, so its moments like these that serve as quality time for reflection. The sheer volume of photos from this last year is somewhat overwhelming - somewhere in the region of 30,000+ of my own, plus thousands more from my research team colleagues, user study participants (when keeping diaries) and subcontractors and scouts from different parts of the world. All of the photos trigger memories, and associations and in the user studies I'm continually struck by the extent to which every-day people lead extra-ordinary lives and the priviledge that I have in being allowed to witness and document.

To the people who made this research possible, and kept life so interesting, warm and ultimately human, thank-you.

Posted by Jan at 11:59 AM | Comments (5)

December 23, 2005

Tickets, Stubs Of Tickets

In most cultures airlines take the body of the ticket and leave you to board with the ticket stub. I was trying to figure out why Sichuan Airlines does the opposite - keeping the stub and leaving the passenger with the body? Is it because as a newish airline they have more landing slots further away from the gates requiring bus transfer to the plane, (from experience) increasing the potential for passenger mix-ups and the larger ticket body is more suited as an additional check. It is possible to rip off part of the ticket body (the UI equivalent of a one way switch) and still retain the necessary information for boarding and seat allocation.

E-tickets particularly from low cost airlines such as Ryan Air have changed mainstream perception of what makes an (airline) ticket. What is essence of a ticket? How will this change as the tools to read and scan information digitally are in more and more hands?

Posted by Jan at 12:20 PM | Comments (1)

December 13, 2005

Sole

Street cleaners bicycle. Plus minus link.

Posted by Jan at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2005

Custom No. Super Custom Yes

The photo above from a customer of Bowery Kitchen, Komazawa.

The super-customisation of mobile phones is gaining some traction here in Tokyo. Various shops in Shibuya will adorn your mobile phone (or iPod or digital camera) with rhinestones charging anything from 7,000 yen (50 Euro) for a pre-designed P900i cover to around 50,000 yen (350 Euro) for the full front and back design-to-order bling. Mostly but not exclusively for female clientel - men are starting to order quite gothic designs.

Jewel encrusting services can be found as an annex of some phone shops in popular shopping areas of Tokyo. Now nail shops are extending their offering to include mobile phone customisation - it's possible to order matching nail and phone designs.

(In my mind this is somehow all a logical progression from an analysis of 6447 used mobile phone covers and quick and dirty customisation)

I started out a sceptic but I have to admit some of the funkier pixel-art designs have started to grow on me.

Posted by Jan at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2005

Space & Learning

36 hours to go before the next trip - almost a full month on the road, in the skies and if things work out according to current loose plans - spending time at altitude in cold climes.

It all starts this week with a day of street research in Beijing. To be followed up by a couple of workshops - opportunities to catch up with colleagues, discuss past collaborations, learn, share, debate and then plan activites for next year. Maybe write the framework to a paper or two, or maybe something more.

After that it's anyone's guess. A ton of stuff to read, ideas to filter, write, spending time in places with people with strange faces, and along the way pushing to see what gives.

The interesting part will be to see what gives.

Posted by Jan at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2005

Learning to Push, Learning to Talk

Drumming up interest in the new push to talk services outside the teen girls shopping mecca - the 109 Building Shibuya. Step into a booth and have a pushing and talking walkthrough.

I'm intrigued to see how push to talk takes off in Japan and for that matter other new markets where it is rolled out. How use and perception of the service differs from the established service in the US? The push to talk use case is relatively easy to understand, but mainstream consumers will have relatively little cultural reference points other than movies, cop shows or occasionally from mountain rescue teams (Japan is covered in mountains so if you've ever been up one coming across walky-talky outfitted mountain-guides is not wholly uncommon). But this is a culture where people spend more time on crowded trains than in cars and where talking on the train is (still) largely socially unacceptable.

From a point of view of a foreigner the DoCoMo 902 series handsets are remarkable in their un-push-to-talk-esque - pretty much looking like every other handset out there. No chunky hand grips to support pushing and well, talking.

These forms are not following this function. What does that tell us?

When you're selling products into a global marketplace - how best to demonstrate new products, services and features to markets with relatively few cultural reference points?

Posted by Jan at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2005

Wayfinding

Mobile with GPS and map application. So you want to make a map reference in a hurry?

"It's easier to just ask someone"

In many instances so it is.

Posted by Jan at 08:32 PM | Comments (3)

November 22, 2005

Enriching the Purchasing Experience

Beyond practicality - the role of the calculator plays in enriching the purchasing experience - visualising the variations of cost, allowing the discount (or perceived discount) to be presented with a flourish. Is there room for this in the relatively sterile digital realm?

Posted by Jan at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)

Registered Personalisation

Personalisation of cash register, snowboard shop, Kanda.

Posted by Jan at 08:27 PM | Comments (1)

November 19, 2005

Balanced

Scissors and material used to wrap purchases used together, stored together. The properties of the funnel condusive to being a scissor holder.

From behind the check-out of one of Tokyo's more interesting furniture stores.

Posted by Jan at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

Summary Spaces

In cultures where people remove shoes at the entrance to the building the shoe removing space provides an easy to digest visual snapshot of the people that are already there. In environments where the people who inhabit the space are largely known - at home for example, not seeing a particular pair of shoes implies the person is not present. It also implies how the space can or cannot be used - 'mother is not yet home so I can get away with using the PlayStation a while'.

Incidentally my old kick-boxing dojo had a wonderful collection of shoes and boots at its entrance. There were usually one or two pairs of dainty high-heels whose owner's somehow transformed from petite Daikanyama shopperholics to grunting gladiators.

The shoes above were from a restaurant off the back of Shinjuku - construction workers on their lunch break.

Posted by Jan at 05:49 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2005

Where People Carry Mobile Phones

Where do you carry your mobile phone? And how will this change if the phone were to adopt some of the functionality associated with other objects that you carry such as money and personal identity? (Both payment and ticketing are already available on handsets in Japan).

We've been conducting a series of studies to understand where people carry mobile phones and other mobile essentials. The original research was driven by a need to know to what extent people notice incoming communication and to what extent this was affected by where the device was carried. After all - the usefulness of a mobile phone is diminished if the user fails to notice that someone is calling. (For the record, we assume that the user wants control over whether or not to be notified in the first place - 24/7 connectivity is a discussion topic for later perhaps?) If you observe customers in a cafe for an hour one of the most frequent behaviours related to mobile phones, especially for women, is checking whether they have missed any incoming communication. User data on device location can support product designers for example helping them decide defaults speaker volume or lanyard placement.

My colleague Fumiko Ichikawa is today presenting the first fruit of this research in a paper entitled Where's the Phone - a Study of Mobile Phone Location in Public Spaces (download pdf) at the Mobility 2005 conference in Guangzhou, China. This paper draws on data from the first 3 studies - Helsinki, New York and Milan. Whilst I was not present in the original study in Helsinki I managed to take part in the follow-ups studies including cultures as diverse as the US, Italy, South Korea, Japan, China and India. In the future we'll be publishing data for these other cultures and explore the issues related to the full range of mobile essentials (the paper above focusses on the mobile phone).

Where people carry things today is interesting enough. The ultimate goal of this design research is to predict how the primary carrying location might change according to issues like new features and form factors. (New form factors will be enabled by technologlical advances such as minaturisation, flexible components or new charging methods). The fun part is figuring how this will collide with and influence future social and cultural trends.

And finally, if you're wondering whether I travel the world just to run these studies the answer is no - the team tends to run the street surveys in conjunction with more in-depth user studies that are already going on - its a good way to utilize assistant down time, meet hundreds of local mobile phone users and get a feel for a culture.

Posted by Jan at 09:19 AM | Comments (2)

November 15, 2005

Counter Intiuitive Experiences

The frame of these Swans goggles forms a perfect seal with the face, doing away with the need for rubber padding. Very comfortable, counter-intuitively so since the padding should make it more comfortable, right?

Any other examples of counter-intuitive experiences you can think of?

An hour to kill before my next meeting starts in the vicinity of Daikanyama pool. What to do?

Posted by Jan at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2005

Exploratory Exposed

KDDI, the number two carrier here in Japan has obviously invested a large sum of money on their KDDI Designing Studio in Harajuku to show off all things KDDI. The 5 story cylindrical building devotes space to their product line-up, a creation space, a stage for live events, a collaboration studio and on the 5th floor a 'relaxation studio' which is, um, another branch of Wired Cafe. It's unfair to judge from one visit but it was notable how empty the space was, and how little interaction it had and invited from the otherwise teeming Harajuku.

The building devotes some space to future technologies from KDDI R&D Laboratories most memorable of which is the break-dance robot. No that's not it's official name, but the demo from the studio staffer could have come straight out of my highschool playground - only needing a cardboard mat and cheering onlookers to complete the authentic break-dance experience.