San Francisco Archives
Processing Field Study Experiences
Aug 31, 2009
They'll be tears before bedtime.
After six weeks on the road, clocking up over 5,000 land-miles in China alone, it's time to head home. Flight UA 877 touches down LAX 10:20 tomorrow morning.
Every journey includes a moment of realisation that this small but significant life-event is over - a moment that might be marked by the jangle of a key ring outside a front door; or the familiar embrace of a loved one.
The intensity of the experience, our highly collaborative - all under the same roof style of working is designed to rapidly bond ~10 relative strangers into a compelling, effective field research team. Assistants and guides are carefully screened to bring on board people with enough confidence to hustle, enough humility to know how to listen, with an intellectual honesty that keeps ideas flowing. There's no room for freeloaders. As the time in the field progresses team members start to reveal their emotional selves, discussions about home, life, love and death can all make a look in. And the background is a study where (often) we're processing extraordinary stories teased out of 'ordinary people' - our study participants.
For many of our assistants (and I'm referring to years of field studies, not just the most recent, eh crew) the shared journey ends up being a significant rite of passage: we generally hire young, on occasion teens; and with the ground rules in place give people the direction and resources they need to outperform. There's nothing like sleep deprivation, a moral baseline, and a common purpose to warm the soul and deliver the data.
So it's no surprise that the parting of ways, the goodbyes, a group photo, hugs, and for at least one in the group - eyes welling with tears. Which in itself is a natural enough expression, but one which can intensify what happens next - the decompression into 'civilian life'. It takes time and a considerable amount of emotional energy to re-calibrate to normality: the daily commute; bills to pay; laundry; restocking the fridge; projects that should take a week but that stretch for months; renewing friendships; re-discovering why loved ones are so dearly loved.
One of the risks of intensive field studies is that of emotional burn-out - where, with the common purpose and context removed the motivation is gone. And if your research fix includes a continuos stream of adrenalin hits (hei) the come-down is all the more difficult.
Modern day corporate life doesn't exactly help the traveling researcher - try being in the field for more than a few months a year and focussing on the job at hand when that job is under threat from the latest in a series of re-organisations and the people who you need to have your back are 10 time zone away (no not talking about now, just take your pick from any of the last 8 years gone by). Networks trump skills when it comes to getting ahead in the corporate hierarchy, and networks need nurturing.
Spent the last three days on a company retreat in Monterey, morning walks on the Pacific coast beach a decompression of sorts, before heading back in the LA studio.
Warm thanks to the China/Malaysia/Indonesia ground crews for pulling it all together these past 6 weeks: Panthea; KK; Anita; Echo; Hilda; Lorriane; Robbie & Didi.
Four hours to sun-up.
Zzz's then taxi then flight then taxi then home.
GridSkipping
Aug 28, 2009
In San Francisco/Monterrey/tha' Valley until next Sunday. Don't be shy.
Yup, the SF dawn sho does take the edge off permaphuck.
Tags (Motivations for)
Nov 04, 2008
From SFO.
The Streetz R Mine (For a Little While)
Apr 13, 2008
One more night before shipping back to Tokyo. By co-incidence my first proper field study started less than a block away from tonight's hotel, here in downtown San Francisco. Looking back, 2002 was the year of the big break - another corporate re-organisation created a business unit with a brief to broaden the accessory offering and someone with a budget decided to invest in a bit of in-house qualitative field research: carry out a multi-cultural study to explore what people carry and why and use the results to inform and inspire the design process. Easy. And easily enough rope to hang ourselves.
The plan was to meet my then Swedish co-conspirator Per in San Francisco - before embarking on 10 days of interviews, home visits, shadowing and observations. We both had a loose background in user centered design but neither of us were 'qualified' in the academic sense of the word, so we planned the study to death, figures out a spread of data gathering techniques to collect what we wanted to know, did what we felt was right and got on with the job. Some things worked, some didn't, no-one died. The data and our figure-it-out-as-we-go-along way of working triggered a wave of new ideas - which in turn fed into the design process.
After assessing the findings from San Francisco we headed to Milan, Berlin and eventually Shanghai - our understanding deepening to the point where patterns were starting to emerge - similarities and differences across cultures, gender, age. It was the playground of choice for the inquisitive mind: shadowing an architect in a Berlin winter; putting up Christmas decorations at 5am with the employees of a Shanghai bar/brothel whilst listening to tales of business on the streets; unsuccessfully trying to track down graffiti artists in Milan; buying bicycles in Shanghai to negotiate the city. And figuring out that if, on our departure donated the project bikes it brought a hidden intent of our research full circle.
A few steps on a long and continuing journey.
Called to gate and after two weeks on the road looking forward to a place called home.
Nomads Digitised, Abuses Communicated
Apr 12, 2008 | 4 Comments
The Economist published a special report on digital nomads that includes contributions from colleagues and peers. The future perfectesque addition comes the form of a phone-in diary of life on the road (hosted on the economist site here) that spanned a week in Tokyo and Seattle.
In situations where we need to collect data, where it's inappropriate to be present in person we sometimes ask people to self-document their lives in the form of audio-visual diaries. From experience the results of self documentation can be a bit hit or miss, with participants often deciding to re-interpret the boundaries of the study on the fly, but when it works the results can be powerful. Whilst I prefer to be on the other side of the microphone/lens the use of Dropio to record voice mail messages was pretty painless and hei, its not as if I had to be asked to take photos. Is self-documentation appropriate for your study? Judge for yourself:
Abuses archived? Putting self documentation in the context this week's Global Philanthropy Forum take a look at Witness / The Hub - a participatory media site for bringing human rights abuses to a worldwide audience. And if there's any of our Ovi guys reading this ...
Passion Play
Apr 12, 2008
Struggling to ad-hoc recruit someone for a field study? Those little things that make it possible to identify members of the community you are after...
Related: personalisation from Japan, China and beyond.
Libre
Apr 12, 2008
Conversion Tools
Apr 12, 2008
How do you keep electronic objects charged with limited access to mains electricity?
In countries like Uganda we’ve seen solutions ranging from car batteries to street charging services and a relatively small amount of solar. One potential solution is the pull-cord charger - demonstrated by the Potenco team shortly after the Street Hacks talk - billed as generating enough power for 20 minutes of talk time from one minute of pulling. The design is still evolving - based on feedback from the field. In retrospect given the mechanical nature of the solution and the likely geography of its deployment perhaps it should have been part of the talk?
Street Hacks, Hacked
Apr 10, 2008The slides from tonights Street Hacks presentation with Duncan Burns are now available - download from here (PowerPoint, 7MB).
It's essentially an update to this essay including some slides relating to fakes, dual SIM card use and Remade - the phone concept literally made form nothing new. Related research lives here and sign up to receive notification of future research by sending an email to: subscribe @ janchipchase.com.
A fuller list of research contributers appears on the second slide. Thanks to Peter Merholz for hosting and for attendees for getting into the spirit of the discussion. It's a good sign when the 'presenters' leave knowing more than when we arrived. And on a personal note I don't think we've ever stood between a room full of people and boxes of fresh pizza and lived to tell the tale.
Slides from top to bottom: the prevelance of software and content on demand from the streets of Delhi to the local corner store in Cairo - but could equally be Shanghai or Tehran or ...; issues related to fake phones - in this case a 'Nokia' from the streets of Accra supporting dual SIM card slots - the phone shows two send and end keys; a digital repair manual hack showing how to switch frequency bands; and soliciting the opinions of market ladies on the streets of the Nima neighbourhood in Accra in new design concepts - a small part of the participatory design work that we've been doing.
Th Shrt Ww
Apr 09, 2008
Lest I forget or pass out from lack of sleep, the double on this bill will be Adaptive Path's Brandon Schauer presenting The Long Wow - delving into customer loyalty and seduceable moments. Two presentations for the price of none. Kick's of tomorrow at 6pm. Sign-up here.
Photo: SF last year.
We Envy You, We Do
Apr 09, 2008
Whilst in London I had the pleasure of catching up with two of the development team behind Dopplr - Matt’s Biddulph & Jones (it makes them sound like purveyors of fine leather saddles since 1860, and given the volume of facial hair they were sporting, they certainly look the part). Both exuded that warm glow that comes from knuckling down on something that they believe in, that has the opportunity to make a difference, and which is on track to, well, actually make a difference. For readers who haven’t come across it before Dopplr helps people who travel a lot connect with people they know who also travel a lot, with a reasonable pay-off for minimal effort. (It's free,sign up here).
The service recently introduced a carbon tracking feature that calculates the monthly and yearly footprint, and allows you to share this information with others. To what extent does publishing your carbon footprint change your travel intent?
Why we envy you? Becomes apparent when you first try out the carbon counting feature. More on transparency and the consumption of, say, very personal media here.
Format / Textual Literacy
Sep 28, 2007
A gentle reminder of human limitations during the drive up to SFO this morning - radio advertising urging listeners to "call 1-800-MEOW, thats 1-800-M-E-O-W", where meow was spelt out letter by letter. What level of literacy can be assumed? Why does 1-800-gonorrhea get so few callers? To what extent does the word act as an effective fllter for those in the know. Like? 1-800-Auberdine
Small Print / Large Print
Sep 28, 2007
"All occupants will be photographed" in a San Francisco taxi. The point at which you become aware you are under surveillance and at that point, what you can(not) do about it.
As a rentable public / private space - people get up to relatively interesting things in Taxis - and as societal attitudes to things like privacy evolve, is it ripe for change? For example? Taking the same 'small print' thinking in the taxi to other domains: "Conversations are monitored to provide better service" i.e. we record and sort-of anonymise your conversations using the taxi-ad-platform to serve up more relevant advertising.
Related: Taxis are interesting environments in that they are often treated as a temporary private space - in which people can relax and objects are likely to spread out within the natural boundaries of the environment. When combined with other parameters such as: people using taxi's whilst tired or impaired e.g. drunk/high; the likelihood of using the mobile phone in the taxi; placing objects on the seat/out of sight after use; and a pressured sequence of tasks at the end of the journey such as thinking what to do next on arrival at the destination and paying the driver, help explain why mobile phones are often left in taxis. Taken from this post on carrying behaviours.
Open Shut, Case For
Sep 27, 2007
In an age where passive consumers are increasingly becoming active producers - the extent that they value and use open platforms such as the N95 above? The extent that they merely value the idea of open? i.e. they don't exploit that openness. Where does the shifting line between open and closed stand? And for whom?
Now read the same paragraph loosly replacing open with democracy.
San Francisco's looking might fine this evening, and an early end to the day means for yours truly an unlimited potential to catch up on sleep.
Ideo Presentation Download
Mar 06, 2007
Yesterday's presentation at Ideo Palo Alto entitled Always On - An Introduction to the Design Research for Everyware can now be downloaded from here [Powerpoint, PDF 2MB]. It highlights the challenge of designing for everyware and that, if we are serious about minimising negative externalities, our ultimate need to understand the relationship between everyone and everything. In essense our challenge is to understand the sum of all human experiences - which is clearly impossible. The PowerPoint includes slide notes, which I'll expand on at some point.
Thanks to Jane Fulton Suri for the invite, and the lunch-time audience for, well, engaging between mouthfulls.
And the snowglobed city? The San Francisco view from my capsule hotel.
Mobile Essentials
Mar 22, 2006 | 1 Comment
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.
Where People Carry Mobile Phones
Nov 17, 2005 | 2 Comments
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.
Why do People Carry Mobile Phones?
Nov 11, 2005 | 1 Comment
Why do people carry phones?
Why do people carry what they carry?
And if we can understand why, how can we use this knowledge in the design of future products, applications and services?
Why people carry phones might seem like a rather basic question for someone who works for a mobile phone manufacturer, but the journey to try and understand the answer has been an interesting one.
A couple of years back I carried out a multi-cultural research project with Per Persson and a number of other colleagues to figure out what objects people consider to be essential when they leave home. We spent time studying 17 urban dwellers in San Francisco, Berlin and Shanghai and Tokyo with shadowing, home-interviews, plus 129 street interviews and numerous observation sessions. One of our screening criteria for in-depth subjects was that people had to own a mobile phone although during the screening process we made no assumptions about whether they considered the phone a necessity or not.
In the cultures we studied 3 objects were considered essential across all participants, cultures and genders were keys, money and mobile phone. Whilst this may seem obvious the interesting part of the study was in understanding the reasons why people considered these objects essential (largely survival, safety & security), why they were not always present (forgetting, awareness, making a conscious decision to be out of touch) and strategies people adopted to help them remember to take these objects. A lot of times money will be carried in a wallet or purse, but when it comes down to it, the money (cash and notes) are considered the essential objects before the other objects that are also contained there.
Some of the material from this study was presented in the DUX 2005 paper - 'Mobile Essentials - Field Study and Concepting' (download paper, 0.4mb). The paper introduces three interrelated ways to understand human behaviour to explain what we learned, and at some point I'll use Future Perfect to expand on some of these issues.
Firstly the Center of Gravity describes the most likely place where you are likely to cluster and consequently find these objects. In the home the Center of Gravity is likely to be the edge of a desk, a chair and often in the case of women, a bag. Objects don't stay in the center of gravity but over time they gravitate there.
The second idea is the Point of Reflection - the moment when leaving a space when you pause current activities turn back into an environment and check you have the mobile essentials. Typically this involves looking at the Center of Gravity, sometimes tapping pockets, sometimes speaking aloud. Not seeing the objects where they are supposed to be (the Center of Gravity) can be a sign that they are already carried.
The last behavioural concept is something we call the Range of Distribution - essentially the degree to which essential objects are likely to stray from the person, or from the person's line of sight/range of touch. Range of distribution is largely based on perceived risk of theft - the higher the perceived risk the further away objects are likely to be placed be allowed to 'stray'. This way of thinking about objects is important because the more likely an object is to be out of sight the more likely it is to be forgotten, and a mobile essential that is forgotten has little use in solving emergencies. In addition as mobile phones that take on functions associated with other mobile essentials for example access/identity (key, smart-card) or payment (money) can affect where and how they are carried.
As a private, relatively safe environment the home has a large range of distribution, whilst spaces like cafes or public transport have a relatively low range of distribution. The lowest range of distribution we observed was bus commuting in Shanghai rush-hour. The most extreme example of range of distribution was given to us by a vice cop in Berlin who explained about a drug dealer that double wrapped his produce which was then stored it his mouth - if the cops tried to bust them swallowed. Waiting for the produce to clear the digestive system was often too much hassle for low level busts, and was presumably rather unpleasant and messy.
Taxis are interesting environments in that they are often treated as a temporary private space - in which people can relax and objects are likely to spread out within the natural boundaries of the environment. When combined with other parameters such as: people using taxi's whilst tired or impaired e.g. drunk/high; the likelihood of using the mobile phone in the taxi; placing objects on the seat/out of sight after use; and a pressured sequence of tasks at the end of the journey such as thinking what to do next on arrival at the destination and paying the driver, help explain why mobile phones are often left in taxis.
There are naturally many other reasons why people carry a mobile phones - for entertainment, projecting status, a sense of belonging, or capturing and communicating an experiences using a camera phone to name a few, but the commonality was essentially their ability to help us survive.
Most people consider other objects essential - driver's license (particularly in the US), medication, travel pass and lip-stick are just some that have been mentioned but these can change over the course of the day and according to context. I would argue that nearly all objects that people carry are essential, because the carrier has already gone through a conscious and subconscious selection process to select those objects from all the objects they own or have access to. Nobody carries stuff just for the hell of it. Well actually that's not strictly true - many people carry things that they are not aware they are carrying - phones increasingly have features that the owner considers useful, is not aware are on the device. In these instances the smart question is what situations trigger initial awareness of a feature, and many researchers are working on contextual understanding in part to present the user with the right feature/knowledge at exactly the right time that it is useful.
The exceptions to why people don't carry these objects are in some ways more interesting than the fact they do in the first place. Designing solutions that meet a user needs are relatively easy, but for a product to be adopted into the flow of someone's life takes a good understanding of exceptions. Mobile essentials are often forgotten, despite the strategies for remembering. Keys are not necessarily needed if you live in an extended family or in areas of high unemployment. Some people like to 'switch off' and talk about quality time without the interruption of the mobile phone (I expect there to be different attitudes towards constant connectivity with younger generations). There is also the issue of at what point in a person's life they are entrusted to carry these essentials and in the case of children, if they are lost, who is responsible to replace them?
In one sense the easiest way never to ever forget anything ever again is to have nothing to remember. This is not as glib as it first sounds - it is possible to delegate responsibility to remembering to other people or indeed to technology. (The concept of delegating can be considered as a solution to many problems except entertainment and bodily functions).
A number of interesting avenues have come out of this research:
Why people make a conscious effort to leave mobile essentials behind and in the case of their mobile phone - switched off. This loosely comes under the heading connecting people, dis-connecting people, and re-connecting people.
My colleagues have initated a study of where people in Helsinki carry their phones and whether they notice incoming communication. A paper, drawing on data from follow up studies in Milan and New York will be presented at the Mobility Conference 2005 in Guangzhou China. (I'll post it when its available)
Another theme is the role of the phone in supporting and on occasion triggering personal crisis. Not life threatening events but things like being locked out of home, being lost late at night, breaking up with boyfriend/girlfriend and yes, mobile phone theft and loss. Notice the overlap between mobile essentials and personal crisis?.
Where You Can Expect People to Sit First
Nov 07, 2005
The properties and infrastructure in a space influencing where people choose to sit.
Waiting lounge for the San Fran - Tokyo flight the 3 males on the far left and right of the photo were clustered close to the power sockets (2 x laptop, 1 x dedicated DVD player), the couple reading - situated close to the check in gate with their backs to natural light.
I'm surprised no-one has tried to brand power sockets in locations like this - this socket sponsored by 'T-Mobile Wi-Fi access'. Micro targeted advertising should get interesting when it collides with the widespread adoption of IPv6.
Observed power socket clustering to charge mobile phones in a variety of cultures including Hangzhou train station and JFK Airport, below.
Search Engine
Nov 07, 2005 | 0 Comments
Flexible and appropriate use suggested through design of (bi-directional) search mats at airport security screening.
Had a pleasant discussion with a friendly TSA staffer before taking this photo. Their previous rules forbid the taking of photos in the searching area, though I presume someone has challenged this because now the rules are 'it's a public space so the taking of photos is ok'. What of the rights of the TSA workers not to appear in the photos?
Where To Stay When You Run a User Study
Nov 07, 2005 | 4 Comments
The location of where we stay on exploratory user studies can have a big impact on what we learn, the effectiveness of the team working together and being able to gather data we need to get. The preferred options are not as obvious as might first seem.
Pre-trip, one of the first tasks is to figure out what the optimum location will be to run user studies. If the study participants are likely to be traveling around by subway, in what part of the city are they located and where is a good axis point? Personally I prefer to be situated in a pedestrian-friendly location since it makes ad-hoc capturing of observational data that much easier. One method we use to find suitable ad-hoc study participants is to ride a bicycle around the city. Hotels usually allow bike parking near to the staff entrance and getting there is a good excuse to interact with and interview hotel staff members. (try and take a peek inside the security office if you get a chance - they are often located around the back of the building and security people can have interesting perspectives on human behaviour). From recent memory, the Hudson is particularly bike unfriendly.
Booking the flights my travel agent by default books a company recommended hotel usually located to be near to local company offices, airports or manufacturing sites and whilst comfortable are usually pretty lousy as a base for conducting user research (a pleasant exception is the Nikko Hotel here in San Francisco).
The research team tends to spend a lot of time coming and going from the hotel so the difference between a five minute walk and a 15 minute walk to where you do what you got to do - like breakfast meetings or other working space, can result in unproductive hour every day. Sometimes the walk time is good for gathering data, and getting a bit of exercise but I prefer to be given the choice of when and where. If you are hiring assistants paying their hotel even if they live in the city that you are researching has a number of benefits, not least of which is that they can sync and work to the rhythm of the rest of the research crew.
Wi-Fi and high speed internet access is not a necessity given the alternatives that are available, and I would argue that internet access is a distraction. One of the reasons for traveling to a location is to submerge ourselves in the local culture and going online to read up on what is happening back home can take you away from that mind-space.
On a recent road-trip study in the US $19.99 motels were fine for what essentially amounted to a decent night's sleep and a shower. Different rest stops have different demographics and are a possible source of ad-hoc participants.
Booking a suite in the major hotels or is usually cost effective - since longer studies require a space that can function as a mobile office. It's not uncommon for cleaning staff to be freaked out by furniture re-arranging and the removal of what ever was hanging on the walls to be replaced by maps of the city and participant profiles. The space afforded by a suite is good for generating a data wall as the study progresses. The data wall is useful for sharing incoming data with the team, highlighting particular aspects, and noting down and sharing ideas and concepts. I recommend the Canon i90 mobile printer with Bluetooth adapter - wireless printing saves a lot of hassle.
At this point you might be thinking that it's better to stay in the home of the study participants. We've done home stay its good for certain studies. However I wouldn't recommend entering into this arrangement lightly. It can be tricky when you factor in the modern moral, legal, ethical, professional requirements, the need be awake from before participants get up to after they go to bed. A colleague rightly reminded me that anthropologists have been living amongst the people they study for months or even years at a time - it's true, but I'm not sure they had to jump through the legal hoops we do. I once had to excuse myself from an overnight stay due a combination of the inability to stay awake (severe jetlag) and the home sleeping arrangements (guest-researchers get to sleep on the living room sofa). Even if you stay with participants, double book a hotel room - its useful for storing equipment and as an emergency backup for team members.
My final recommendation is to consider the short stay hotels if you are looking for a place for a couple of nights. They are often conveniently located next to stations, check-in is pared down to a bare minimum - great when you are tired, they often have an emphasis on good bathing facilities and they tend to be quite functional. In Korea I stayed in one for a couple of nights which included high-speed internet access - I'm not sure what the most likely use cases were but imagine it was to play Star Craft or something similar. Minor downsides to short stay hotels include no hanging space for clothes, dim lighting, can't walk around the building with recording equipment (the whole hotel is considered a private space), and can be noisy early mornings and at weekends. They don't come with breakfast. And because they are often cash businesses you have to remember to request a receipt. Processing the expense claim is fun.
I'm aware of the relative luxury of having these options and if it comes down to it - its possible to run user research by kipping on the floor of a friend (thanks SB).
Communication Over Time
Nov 07, 2005 | 4 Comments
Sprayed to presumably guide anyone taking off the cover to return it in the correct orientation. A number of covers up and down the street were sprayed in a similar same way. A simple, relevant and robust way to communicate information from one maintenance person to another.
With one exception - replaced the 'wrong' way. Or was it placed the 'wrong' way when it was originally sprayed? Or does it not matter which way it is replaced? And if multiple covers were removed and stacked together before being replaced would there be another marking?
It's the little things.
Cabin Announcements as Airplane User Interface
Nov 05, 2005 | 6 Comments
With the cockpit off-limits to passengers the only direct communication that most passengers have with the pilot of a plane is his or her voice through the plane intercom. (The way the plane is flown could also be interpreted as a form of indirect communication). In some ways that voice is the user interface to all the aspects of the plane that we associate with the pilot and co-pilot - in particular our trust in them getting us to our destination safely.
I've been wondering about the pitch and accent of the pilot's voice, and the difference between these and the announcements made by cabin crew. My observation, which of course I have no way of validating, is that announcements made by male and female cabin crew are higher pitched than those made by the pilot.
My observation has its biases. I tend to fly planes with Japanese air stewardesses, and when Japanese females talk formally they tend to talk in higher pitched voices. It could also be that cabin crew tends to be female and pilots male, refelecting then natural differences between males and females. Or it could be the content of announcement lends itself to being spoken in a different manner. Is there a implicit hierarchy of tonality in an airplane once the role of steward/stewardess/pilot is assumed, people adopt a stereotypical voices associated with those roles?
What studies have airlines done on passenger announcements by pilots and cabin crew, both in terms of what is said, and how it is delivered? How do individuals change their pitch in order to communciate a particular piece of information or instruction? And if future technologies enable on-the-fly changes to voice pitch and accents could (and should) announcements be optimized to meet user expectations for those roles?
Writing this sitting on a flight to San Francisco. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to give a short talk at 4am Tokyo time - should be fun.
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