April 23, 2006

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)

March 26, 2006

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)

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)

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 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)

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 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)

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 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 02, 2005

Tokyo Graffiti

Decent pop-ethnography magazine covering ordinary Japanese, what they carry, what they think and sometimes running features like documenting everything a person has in their bedroom, or bag. Very accessible and good if you want tips on how to present research material.

Posted by Jan at 07:52 PM | Comments (4)

October 23, 2005

Listening Station

Very busy saturday afternoon in Shibuya's HMV. User creates a comfortable and private bubble for listening to music. By squatting her bag just touches the ground taking most of the weight off her shoulder.

Posted by Jan at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2005

Value From Appreciation of the Process

The walls around Parco Shibuya are updated every two weeks or so with a newly painted mural. You often see the mural crew working late on a friday night, presumably on a deadline to get the material up in time for the saturday shoppers. The last part of the painting process is the detail in the faces - so in adverts containing lots of people you become witness to ghostly versions of what appears in print. The images are quite compelling. Tokyo is full of big screen outdoor displays, garish neon and bright lights which makes hiring mural painters all the more perculiar. What additional value does commissioning advertising in this way bring? There are undoubtedly cheaper and more efficient alternatives in this area of prime real estate and premium advertising space.

My guess that part of the equation of choosing mural painters over JumboTrons is that the audience - in this case the passing shoppers of Shibuya will be at least somewhat interested by the process. Seeing a mural unfold over a period of time like a work of art taking shape, and seeing the end result - close replicas of the print advertsing and appreciating the effort that went into the process.

In a world where things seem to be forever becoming faster, smaller, cheaper, and mass produced one thing we can (mostly) all appreciate is the perceived time and effort it takes to do something. Skill is another factor, but it is more subjective. Effort is admittedly a little fuzzy. But time is absolute.

Have you ever received an E-Card? What was the value of that card to you? Now compare it to the value of a digital photo or a hand-written postcard. Receiving an e-card, digital photo or physical postcard you may or may not like the design but can appreciated the time, effort, and sometimes skill that goes into the process of sending it to you. In the case of an E-Card the value is mostly close to zero because that card is available for just about anyone to send.

In the distant future it may be possible to measure the level of sensory engagement that is involved in creating and consuming content and media*. I know you liked that birthday card because it told me how much time you spent handling it, gazing at it and displaying it in your home. Part of the reason you like it so much is that you know I put so much effort into obtaining its composite parts, how long ago I first thought of the idea - 'six months!', and the number of design iterations it went through before it reached you. You know because it told you so. Or at least it told you about the aspects that I let it tell you.

* Of course the way this plays out is that we create agents to simulate the level of sensory engagement on our behalf - to make it appear that we appreciated your gift to me, to make it appear that I spent sleepless months working on my gift to you. Whole side-industries beavering away to create the perception of underlying value. Which sounds like extrapolations of what happens already.

Posted by Jan at 09:45 AM | Comments (4)