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)

February 07, 2006

Flexibility, Adaptability

Entry buzzers for businesses (Covent Garden, above) and domestic residences (Ho Chi Minh City, below). Both show signs of being updated. If you look closely at the wall above you can see drills holes showing that the intercom has been recently replaced.

How frequently do occupants change? Which solution is more elegant? More flexible? Cost effective?

In a world where everyone has access to a personal communication device what role does the buzzer play?

Posted by Jan at 09:41 PM | Comments (6)

January 19, 2006

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 12, 2006

Screen Polishing

One of those professions that I never knew existed - the hand polishing of CRT TV screens. How long before the shift to other display technologies kills this profession?

Have not yet come across a service for polishing mobile phone or iPod Nano screens, but why not?.

Posted by Jan at 10:05 PM | Comments (3)

January 07, 2006

Over Specification

Posted by Jan at 12:49 PM | Comments (2)

January 05, 2006

Gaming Services

Location based services will use proximity interaction to identify users, and in some cases the implications of being in a particular place at a particular time or with a particular frequency will lead to 'rewards'. To what extent will location based services that rely on proximity interaction be gamed? By whom? By 2010 proxy-proximity interaction services will be available to carrry out proximity interactions on your behalf, much like the developing and selling of characters in online worlds today.

Hmm, will these kinds of scenarios will be covered in this book?

In research into what people carry, I spent time interviewing people about so-called 'loyalty cards'. A summary of their comments is that they had a vague perception that using the card provided 'benefits' but were mostly unable to articulate what the benefits were. It highlighted how easy, and with relatively little cost it is possible to get a (branded) card into a person's wallet and for it to be carried at least for a few weeks.

Posted by Jan at 12:20 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)

December 30, 2005

Clues To What Goes On Inside

Start the day at 6am and cruise the city with motorbike driver looking trying to understand how the city wakes up. Yes, it is little late - early risers are mostly likely in the park Tai Chi-ing at 4am, but early enough to catch the rush hour. The driver is a strong silent type - over course of 5 hours he didn't speak one word, not that that was a problem with lots of non-verbal communication, smiles, a gentle squeeze on the shoulder and he would pull in to let me dismount. His charge? 20,000 Vietnamese Dong (1 Euro) per hour, plus breakfast and all the coffee he can drink.

Take a look over Ho Chi Minh City in particularly from one of the many raised bridges and you'll see row after row of aerials jutting up from the roof tops. Could aerials such as these be some form of interface between apartments and the surrounding environment? What level of effort would be required to reduce the total number of aerials and share from one source? What (social) tools required to to enable this assuming it is desireable. How will this change if its all arriving through an IP pipe?

Posted by Jan at 06:14 PM | Comments (3)

Game Availability

Most popular PC games are yours for 6,000 Vietnamese Dong (0.3 Euro) per CD. Catalogues in Vietnamese and English. Software compliations too.

Surprising number of people., four thus far, spotted playing N-Gage here - killing time lounging on motorbikes.

Posted by Jan at 04:45 PM | Comments (2)

Print Club

Local variation of print club. As with a number of the machines I've come across in China its basically a PC and a bubble jet printer. As with the DVD shop, customer browses catalog (in this case for choosing backdrop) notes down their preferences as a number on a scrap of paper.

Posted by Jan at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)

Clues To What Goes On Inside, Pre

Posted by Jan at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

This Is A Petrol Station

A petrol station stripped to its, ahem, pure essense. Fuel in jar, profile raised by placing on brick. Elegant and ubitquitous in HCMC. The fancy version, above, offers oil too.

The grandest petrol stations IMHO can be found in China - the massive and often brutal design of the physical structures dwarfing even the largest trucks that pull in.

Posted by Jan at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

Versatile Properties

What percentage of the world's population wears some form of flip-flop?

Posted by Jan at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

Technology Leap Frog

Posted by Jan at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2005

Adoption. Adaption?

Traditional (often black and white) physical prints are scanned and adapted in PhotoShop before being re-printed.

Came across something similar during a user study of the communication habits of low income manual workers in China - the liviing room/bedroom/study had a Photoshopped photo of the wall showing the couple dressed as bride and groom. The photo and backdrop taken years after the event because they did not have formal photos of the event.

Mainstream availability of the tools to re-write history? Who will re-write what (personal) history? Why?

Posted by Jan at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

Compound Security

Deposit box above with small and easily breakable lock. Two slips of paper with hand written signatures are folded and attached to the front and side of box making it easier to identify that the box has been tampered with.

Safe, below - the external battery hardly engenders trust.

Posted by Jan at 07:36 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2005

Recognise? Acknowledge?

Textures of a village stone mason workshop. Most of his work for head stones, but the odd clock mount and homage to Ho Chi Minh. Obvious pride in his work, including his carving of a topless flute player. Obvious level of skill shown in the detail of his work based on, um, close examination of his topless flute player.

With more of what is being produced and consumed being or becoming digital how do consumers (or peers) recognise and acknowledge the skills of digital craftmen and women? With the tools to publish, and easily re-publish work from others what is a suitable level of acknowledgement to associate what is produced with what is reproduced?

Posted by Jan at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

Specialist Tools

The humble ear scraper/cotton bud replaced by an array of dedicated tools.

Gentleman demonstrated how to make one particular tool. Cut up to 1 cm edge off a razor blade and insert into the tip of a metal handle to become a tiny shank - was used to take a fine layer of skin from inside the ear. The experience was not wholly unpleasant - somewhat like being under local anesthetic and feeling the odd tug or pull on the skin, but not really knowing what is going on.

Somewhat surprising to see head torch join the range of electrical equipment.

Posted by Jan at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

Dual Properties

Posted by Jan at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

National Priorities

Every culture has an equivilent to this, its just a matter of figuring out what it is.

Above, Bird Flu street sign in Hue, Vietnam.
Below North Korean spy hotline on subway in Seoul, South Korea.

Posted by Jan at 01:15 PM | Comments (2)

December 25, 2005

Icon, Iconic

Posted by Jan at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

What You See When You Travel Where You Travel

A street of sign makers in Ho Chi Minh City, 30,000 VND (2.6 Euro) and a couple of hours wait you can have pretty much any sign made to order. The shop itself offers insights into local (design) tastes, brands and concerns. Warning signs in particular highlight popular problem issues - based on the signs prepared for customers to this shop I'd say the top two issues are theft, and risk of electrocution from exposed power lines.

Posted by Jan at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)

Adapted Design

A logical progression from the number of motorbikes on the streets of HCMC. Workshop bench in a metal workshop made from motorcycle seat, somewhere in the suburbs close to the Chinese market. The pleasure of getting lost.

Posted by Jan at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)

Suggested Parameters Of Use

Size very much based on local norms.

Ever wondered why business class seats are so wide?

Posted by Jan at 12:35 PM | Comments (4)

December 24, 2005

Identity

Public interface identifying apartment person and/or family. Hints of corrective design

Posted by Jan at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

What You See, When You're Looking Up

'

I'm standing in a doorway and looking out on the street - this neighbourhood is getting a side-swipe from a typhoon that's seriously ravaging more northerly parts of the country. There is some time to kill before the rain lets up enough to hop on the back of a motorcycle taxi and head back to the hotel. It's a doorway to a barber, masseur and hair-dressers, so why not? 30 minutes later the stubble is all gone, I'm totally relaxed, and in between drifting in and out of sleep I spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling (and trying not to look into the eyes of the rather attentive attendant).

A few years ago had the pleasure of lying flat on my back on a trolley being pushed around an Italian hospital. The time spent there involved a fair bit of anxiety - the result of a mountain, a snowboard too much speed and not enough skill. The medical staff were acting beyond the call of their volunteer duty (not even someone in full protective chemical gear should have had to unlace my old boarding boots after a day on the mountain. For the record RG - I've got new boots). After a lengthy drive down the mountain, the time spent in the hospital was being wheeled along corridors, from waiting rooms to x-ray room and back again, and again. Minor complications delayed my release so I had a lot of time to kill and incidentally it was the first time in my life that I actually felt I needed a mobile phone. Given the number of people lying horizontal for extended periods of time in this space, how can the ceiing be used to practically and/or spiritually re-assure, or even entertain patients?

Posted by Jan at 12:23 PM | Comments (1)