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Mobile services for the rural/urban communities design research project internal report phase II - august-november 2011 Nokia Research Centre Studio TAO
Research Report Part II “mobile services for the rural/urban communities� Research and Design project researchers: Serena Pollastri Diego Dalia Francesca Valsecchi Lei Jiong
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Shanghai, January 31, 2012
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index
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Table of Contents
7
1. From personas to scenarios
20
2. Polarities & scenario mapping
23
3. Cases of scenarios solutions
29
4. Target definition. A given step from design research to design concepts
32
5. Evaluation & checklist of inaccesible target
35
6. Concepts introduction
43
7. Concepts developed by students
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8. Preliminary concept analysis
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9. Conclusions & future steps
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1. From personas to scenarios Persona design falls far short of its potential without scenario design and walkthroughs. Only putting the personas into action bridges the contexts of use and the implementation. The definition of a background in which the user acts and where he has the opportunity to interact with the product or a service, allows us to make sure solutions go where the problems are. A narrative descriptions is made to stimulate and guide the design process. It is used to identify needs, anticipate usability problems, and facilitate communication among different groups involved indesign and development. Scenarios start from several key elements to develop possible sketches of the future. First of all, the design team has to take care of the stakeholders involved in the particular situation they are going to describe. In order to have a more complete picture of the situation is important to understand the position of those who are in direct contact with the subject of the research, and the ones who might not be direct users, but whose lives are affected by various interactions (indirect stakeholders). The scenario acquires a higher value if presents a vision in which the product or the service are widespread, spanning various geographic regions, social positions and other contexts. In this way it is possible to explore the multi- dimensional interactions among technology, psychology, society, culture, and the environment as use of the product -service becomes pervasive over a period of years.
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Definition of Scenarios through Persona’s daily life analysis Structure of the Analysis
B - Persona’s daily journey: Time Wheel Time schedule 1
24
23
2
22
5
20
4
21
3
6
19
#4. WANG FANG
8
17
7
18
PERSONA X
9
16
#1. LU FU GUI
15
10 11
13
12
14
Places Time spent in a place
We analized the individual daily routine of each persona, estimating how much time they spend in a certain place during their day, doing some activities. This graph shows in a synthetic way the type of daily routine that can be associated to each persona, where do they go and how much time do they spend there
C - Persona’s daily journey : Places’ map
The following step is mapping the places in which they spend their time, tracing their movements and indicating the people with whom they interact in the specific site. Some personas spend their time in a very small area, moving from a place to another with their bike or through an electric scooter. Some others cover longer distances because of their work or other needs; they mainly use public transportation system.
D - Charts of Interactions
From these studies, we got enough information to define a chart that represents Personas’ daily interactions with several type of interlocutors. Moreover we show the type of communication theyperform, decribing the means they use to do it, and highlighting the depht and the frequency of these contacts.
Places DORM
#5. LIN GANG
CONSTR.SITE
#2. ZHANG FENG
friends coworkers coworkers
coworkers
#2. ZHANG FENG CONSTR.SITE
Scenario Building
#3. LIU FANG
This data will be useful to build up future scenarios. Each of them will describe a particular situation in which we can identify the several Personas. To narrate this stories we use as criterias:
coworkers
People with wich they interact
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• Activities
• Relations
#1. LU FU GUI / 陆富贵
A villager native from Chongming
• Means of Communication
Deepness and frequency of interactions
#2. ZHANG FENG / 张丰
A migrant who came in town from countryside to find job opportunities
FRIENDS
LEVEL OF INTERACTION
#3. LIU FANG / 刘芳
A migrant who moved from another rural area
VILLAGERS
This is the starting point to define scenarios. Analyzing personas’ daily activities and the geographic area in which they act, it is possible to understand their needs and figure out related design opportunities. At first we mapped the personas, distinguishing those who live in rural areas, from those one that live in a urban zone. Then we mapped their sphere of activity, in order to visualize in which way they are connected with they place where they live and the one where they come from.
Displacements
#4. WANG FANG / 王芳
A villager who just know her hometown
SHOP OWNER
A - Personas’ geo-mapping and sphere of activity
• Time
LOW
#5. LIN GANG / 林刚 A rural town inhabitant
MEDIUM
HIGH
The main aim is to delineate a general frame in which users act and behave in a particular way, in order to understand their needs, find new design opportunities, taking care of their problems and conditions.
People with wich they interact Means of communication
9
23
24
HOME
1
2 3
22
4
21
wife
Fields Commercial
20
Center
5
COOPERATIVE
FIELD
COMM. CENTER
6
19
A villager native from Chongming
Persona’s daily journey : Places’ map
PERSONA 1
7
Cooperative
villagers
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#1. LU FU GUI / 陆富贵
He is very busy during his day. He normally stays at home mainly at night time or few hours after lunch for his nap. Despite of his age, he is very active: he spends most of his time working and he is a real pillar of village’s community. He prefers to have a direct contact with persons with whom he interacts daily, even if he uses his mobile phone quite frequently to keep in contact with friends and, of course, for his small business. He moves around with his electric scooter, because he finds it is very comfortable to drive in the countryside’s small streets. although he is a clever person, he is not interested in learning how to use a computer or any other technological devices, but he finds that mobile phone is a very useful tools to communicate during his busy day.
Headquarter
Home
coworkers
friends
coworkers
8
17
FIELD
Daily journey Time Wheel 16 2
coworkers
14 4
21
13
12
3
22
11
1
15
24
10
23
9
villagers
Fields
Charts of Interactions
Center
5
20
Commercial
6
19
LEVEL OF INTERACTION
18
7
Headquarter
FRIENDS COWORKER A
9
16
8
17
Home
10
COWORKER B
Cooperative
WIFE
PERSONA 1
15 12
13
14
VILLAGERS
11
10
LOW
LEVEL OF INTERACTION
MEDIUM
HIGH
11
1
24
23
2 3
20
DORM
Construction Site
5
19
CONSTR.SITE
6
friends
7
18
PERSONAcoworkers 2 coworkers
Dormitory
coworkers
8
17 Construction Site 2
CONSTR.SITE
9
16
A migrant who came in town from countryside to find job opportunities
Persona’s daily journey : Places’ map
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He lives in Shanghai, where he work. He does not really enjoy his life in town and he spends the biggest part of his time working, in order to earn more money to send back to his family. In his daily routine he interacts with different kind of people, but their relationship are not very deep and frequent. His mobile phone is the linking bridge with his family that lives in his hometown. Whenever he can, he uses a computer to communicate with them, especially to talk with his daughter. He goes around the city using public transportation system. Sometimes he has some problems in communication with those people who does not understand his accent. He would like tofind a more interesting way to keep in touch with his family.
#2. ZHANG FENG / 张丰
21
22
10 coworkers
15 11
12
13
14
Daily journey Time Wheel
23
24
1
2
Charts of Interactions
3
LEVEL OF INTERACTION
FAMILY
5
20
4
21
22
FRIENDS
6
19
Construction Site
EMPLOYER
7
18
PERSONA 2
COWORKER A
8
17
Dormitory
10
15 11
12
13
14 12
COWORKER B
9
16
Construction Site 2
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
13
1
Persona’s daily journey : Places’ map
She does not have a lot of spare time and tries to use it in the best way, often staying with her son. She spends most of her time between the house and the factory where she works. Her mobile phone helps her keep in contact with her family, especially with her husband ,who lives in Chongming as well. Since she moved to Chongming, she tried to integrate in the local community, but is not easy if you do not speak properly the local dialect. In spite of this, she is very friendly. She would be more relaxed if she could keep in contact in a easier way with her child, especially when she is on the workplace.
2 3
22
21
HOME
friends
5
20
Factory
4 6 son
PERSONA 3
Market
8
17
market sellers
Home
7
villagers
FACTORY
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A migrant who moved from another rural area
24
19
#3. LIU FANG / 刘芳
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coworkers
15
14 2 3
Charts of Interactions 4
21
22
13
1
12
24
11
23
Factory
10
Daily journey Time Wheel
9
16
MARKET
PERSONA 3
HUBANDS
6
19
SON
5
20
LEVEL OF INTERACTION
GRANDMA
7
18
Home
FRIENDS
10
15
MARKET SELLERS
11
12
13
14 14
COWORKERS
9
16
8
17
Market
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
15
2
2
3
Persona’s daily journey : Places’ map 5
Grocery Store
6
19
Home HOME
18
PERSONA 4 7
friends
Friend’s House Garden
9
16
8
FRIEND’S HOME
17
A villager who just know her hometown
20
The village is her main stage: she never leaves from there and concetrates her life around it. When she does not have to take care of her green garden, she loves to spend her time going around, often visiting friends. She moves from a place to another just by walking and she really like to talk with whoever she meets. She has a land line phone at home, but is very hard to keep in contact with her expecially when she is in the garden or around the village. Her friends would like to have more opportunity to communicate with her and check her physical status, if they are not able to meet her.
#4. WANG FANG / 王芳
4
21
22
friends
10
15
11
villagers
GROCERY’S
12
13
14
Shop owner
Daily journey Time Wheel
villagers
23
24
1
2 3
Charts of Interactions
5
20
4
21
22
Grocery Store
LEVEL OF INTERACTION
6
19
Home
FRIENDS
7
18
PERSONA 4
Friend’s House
VILLAGERS SHOP OWNER
9
16
8
17
Garden
10
15
MEDIUM
HIGH
11
12
13
14 16
LOW
17
2
2
3
Market
6
19
5
PERSONA 5 HOME
7
18
A rural town inhabitant
Persona’s daily journey : Places’ map
Home
Mahjiang House friends
8
17
#5. LIN GANG / 林刚
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He loves his work and he learnt from his granfather how to do it. He lives mainly between his house/ workshop and the market where sells his products. His interaction are mainly based on verbal contacts. His mobile phone is useful to communicate with his family, when he does not have time to visit them, and to keep in contact with his customers whenever he cannot meet them. He goes around with his trycicle, that is full of bamboo baskets when he goes to work. An external help would be useful to enlarge his business, that at the moment is concetrated just in his village.
4
21
22
9
16
villagers
10
15
MARKET
11
12
13
14 clients
Daily journey Time Wheel
23
24
1
villagers
2 3
4
21
22
Charts of Interactions
LEVEL OF INTERACTION
6
19
5
20
Market
17
SHOP OWNER
9
16
8
VILLAGERS
Home
Mahjiang House
10
15
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
11
12
13
14 18
FRIENDS
7
18
PERSONA 5
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Personal use
#4
#3
Social Networking Tool
Daily Life Facility
#2
Criteria for polarities definition Through ethnography research and the personas definition, we identified different behaviors and opportunities. From these information we set two couples of polarities to build a scenario matrix. One indicates the radius of the network of the user, from local to long distance. The other one identifies the kind of use that is made of the communication device, if it is for personal purpose or business.
#5
Long distance communication
#1
Business Bridging Service
Work Tool
Work
2. Polarities & scenario mapping
Local communication
Then in the four areas of the matrix, we identified four different basic scenarios, and mapped out where we expect our personas to be positioned. This matrix refers mainly to functions, and the situations in which the user would use the device, rather than shape and appearance. 20
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1
2
Daily Life Facility This Scenario frames a way to use mobile phones or other devices as communication mean to interact with people on a LOCAL SCALE and for PERSONAL/PRIVATE purposes. The users want to reach those persons who are close to them to keep in contact along their daily routine, to inform them about their activities and displacements. In many cases they adopt the tool to organize gathering or private meetings. The level of interaction is usually medium and differs by the persons whith whom the user enter in contact. Higher is the familiarity with technology and the level of education, wider are the possibilities to contact them: for istance, those users who can read and write, may have more opportunities to communicate, using callings and text messages.
3. Cases of scenarios solutions
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1.John’s Phone https://www. johnsphones.com/ 2. Came domotic system 3. Polaris robot-phone from KDDI 4. Hi Baby from Hi System
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Scenario Building
structure of the page 1
4
2
1. Scenario positioning area according to the scenario matrix
In the following pages we present the overview of the four scenarios detected in the previous matrix. Although not necessarily our final concept will be placed in one specific of these scenarios, such rapresentation is useful to visualize the characteristics of each one of them, understand the differences and have an idea of existing solutions that can be taken es examples.
2. Atmosphere: moodboard that represents the context and the interaction mode 3. Scenario description 3
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4. Inspiration: collection of interesting case studies
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Daily Life Facility This Scenario frames a way to use mobile phones or other devices as communication mean to interact with people on a LOCAL SCALE and for PERSONAL/PRIVATE purposes. Systems and devices in this scenarios allow the user to keep in touch with their contacts during their daily routine, to inform or meet up. The level of interaction is usually medium and differs by the persons with whom the user enters in contact. The higher is the familiarity with technology and the level of education, the wider are the possibilities to contact them: for istance, those users who can read and write, may have more opportunities to communicate, through calls and text messages
1.John’s Phone https://www. johnsphones.com/ 2. Came domotic system 3. Polaris robot-phone from KDDI 4. Hi Baby from Hi System
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Social Networking Tool
1
3
2
4
Living far from our relatives and friends is not always a choice. Keep in contact with them is often a problem, especially if the person we want to talk to is a “tech illiterate”. Sharing part of our life, sending pictures or videos would be an interesting way to inform someone about our best moments, feeling them closer and gaining upon distances. Technology could help to replace the missing physical contact and enhance relationship among people. The user can define on which scale he wants to spread his information and, at the same time, the level of interaction with other users.
1. Oz Mobile social networking solution 2. Panasonic “Pixi” cellphone picture dock 3. Leyio personal sharing device 4. LG YouTube Phone with Direct Upload
1
2
3
4
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As a Work Tool
Business Bridging Service
Description Daily tasks can be made easier through the use of some technology tools. Portability, simplicity of interaction and high usability (particularly related to the specific tasks) are relevant characteristics of devices that are mapped in this area of the diagram.
Description Devices and services that can help in reaching markets that are logistically hard to reach otherwise. These tookls allow connectivity, promote local business in a wider net and help exploring.
1: IPad 2: Nokia Life Tools 3: Fitbit, tracks fitness performances and sleep (fitbit. com) 4: Cloud Computer (http:// www.maximumpc.com/ article/features/back-_plan_ we_examine_5_cloud-based_ services)
1: Layar, Augmented reality software (http://www.layar. com) 2: Shopping through smartphone App 3: IPad 4: RFID enabled shopping cart (http://www.springwise.com/ telecom_mobile/grocery-storecoupons-delivered-real-timeshopping-cart-tablets/)
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4. Target Definition. A Given Step from Design Research to Design Concepts At this stage of the research a specific summary about the target we are focusing on is needed. In fact, the so called rural target, could include a variety of social type that extend further beyond the characteristics of the farmer. Through the interactive tools of ethnography we were able to better define this rural target and to clarify its role, to orientate next design steps. The data collected show a gap between the technical literacy of the city-based and the countryside based target that reflects also in the lack of information and data related to the rural segments. Ethnography helped us better defining what is generally conceived as rural target. Documenting their tools, tracking their uses of technological devices, exploring their ideas on needs and limits of technology, we identified an homogeneity in the behaviors of farmers, blue collars, temporary employees, street workers, migrants, low-educated young people. They commonly show communication networks that mainly involve their family, short ties relationships and small business-related networks. Very few cases of satisfactory culture or interests based communication have been reported. From the point of view of the technological literacy the main aspects emerged are a diffuse lack of self-confidence for a mature and aware use of technological communication devices; mainstream devices are considered “impossible to use� tools. 28
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Target Definition Guidelines
Education
The level of education affects people’s behavior and attitudes. The majority of people interviewed have a medium-low level of education. Many of them are totally illiterate, or they can just read, but not write.. From the interviews we elicited that some of our users are able to speak only the local dialect . The migrants who moved from other parts of China have a similar problem; in this case, as consequence, they have problem of intgration in local community, too.
Throughout the first research phase, we have interviewed several people from rural and urban areas to collect information about their lifestyles, their needs and problems. In the following step, some criteria have been defined in order to identify more precisely which users represent the target we are going to design for. Three main categories have been chosen to catalogue and position the several users along a scale of values through the analysis of their behaviors and attitudes. The level of inaccessibility of the target is so defined by the combination of the values of three macro-categories.
Age
Age helps to frame the target because represents needs related to lifestyle, and also cultural or immaterial constraints. Our target is represented by people with age between 50 and 70 years.
Personal Field
Health/physical conditions
In this category are reported information about private life, personal skills and peculiarities.
S oc
e Ag
Erg
rain s
ns
ical conditio
INACCESIBLE TARGET
TEC
D ai ly ro utin
E
Wealth
The range of users interviewed is very wide by the point of view of economical wealth, but in general we observed a common trend in preferring cheaper products. Nevertheless, the budget constraint is needed to take into account also because there is a low awareness about the market of mobile services along with the market products.
Technology Attitude
This category describes the relation between users and technology. It describes how much they use tech devices during the day and for which purpose.
Technology literacy
We found out diversified answers, depending on user age and lifestyle. young people are able to use computers and mobile phones. Middle age people (40-55) can do it too, but are limited to simple basic functions and don’t use them frequently. The oldest ones are just able to use the landline phone.
e
Users interviewed have a low interest in technology. Many of them find think it is something superfluous that could not improve their lives. Their habits and lifestyles don’t make them feel the necessity to discover in which way they could use technology and, at the moment they don’t have any specific need that could be satisfied by technology assistance. The opportunity to have “usability friendly” product will enhance their interest and improve their activities.
Device owned
l gy ol o y rac ite
technology
Dev ice
UD
in local Integration Community
n ch Te
ow ned
n
Curiosity on
u Ed
t io ca
H N O L O G Y A TTIT
r wo et
e Siz k-
So
SO
D
AVIOUR BEH AL CI
Health/Phys
con st
ln cia
PERSON AL FIE L
ono mic
Even if many products are designed according to ergonomic principles, many users find hard to use those with small sizes or advanced features. These issues could come from their physical condition ) and their relation with technology.
Curiosity on Technology
ial n et w o rk
Budget
- De nsit
y
Although our focus is not design for disabilities, we learnt during the ethnography research that some of our users might have some phisical impediments due to their age. Some of the users interviewed have health problems like difficulty with eyesight or impairment of hearing. Small parts and tiny keyboards might also be difficult to manipulate.
Ergonomic Constrains
Because of the scarce interest in technology, many users own just few basic devices, such as landline phone or mobile phones. The quantity and typology of devices owned is also influenced by their budget.
Density of Social Network
The more a user is connected to the others, the more his social network is dense. This information indicates how “social” a person is; in this case, most of the people we interviewed do not isolate themlselves, but are in good relationship with neighbours, families (even if they are far away), friends and coworkers.
Social Network - Size
The size of a personal social network is defined by the distances between the main user and his contacts. To different sizes correspond different needs. Some users interviewed had moved from other parts of China and need to keep in contact with far relatives and friends. Some others just need to communicate with people that live relatively far from them, like in rural areas/ urban districts. Most of them, though, have a very localized social network, and very seldomly contact someone who lives far away, especially if it is not a relative.
Integration in local community
The integration in the local community might be difficult for migrant workers, who don’t speak the local dialect and do not have much spare time to get to know the new environment. On the other end, some of our users have been living their whole life in the same place (this is normally true for farmers and people we interviewed in Chongming); in this case there are no problems of integration; people living in the same village normally all know each other, and rely on the community for most of their needs.
Daily routine
Finally we should take care about their daily lives, in order to understand how much they are active and try to figure out how technology could bear on their routine, may be improving it. Most of the people we interviewed keep a relatively active daily routine, even the ones that are retired.
Social Behaviour
In this section we evaluated social relations and roles in order to understand the networks in which people are involved, and the kind of communication and information they produce. 30
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Inaccessible target definition Checklist
5. Evaluation & checklist of inaccesible target The initial assignment, as expressed in the research plan as proposed by Nokia was “Design communication devices for inaccessible target”. One part of the research work has been dedicated to define, understand and explain what do we mean by “inaccessible target”, and which criteria did we use to evaluate inaccessibility. Design Harvests’ aim is to find ways to bridge rural and urban communities through design actions. Our focus is mainly on social factors rather than physical ones. At the end of the ethnographic research process, we reviewed the transcripts and videos from the interviews to verify which characteristics can provide a coherent description of the target group in the rural community. This helped us create a checklist that clarifies the criteria that can be used to map the target, using selected classifiers to describe inaccessibility. The first step has been to determine the macroareas that have been explored in our research: personal sphere, technological behavior and social behavior. Then, for each area, we specified different parameters, that we used to describe our target. This has been done by choosing relevant sub-categories, create a polarity axis for each of them, and visually representing the distribution of the target along the axis. To provide an even more synthetic evaluation of the inaccessibility of the target, one more axis has been created, that collects on one line the previous parameters. The far-left extreme of the axis represents a totally inaccessible 32
Personal Field
target (from the physical, social and technological literacy point of view), and the far-right extremity is where the main stream one is located. The evaluation of the distribution of the target along the bar, shows how people interviewed are typically not to be considered “totally inaccessible”. This step has been preliminary to the concept definition. The main reason for providing an accurate description of the concept has been to understand which kind of product-service systems can be designed for the expected users. Knowing that we are not going to design specifically for high disability, extreme levels of social isolation, or complete technological illiteracy, we can focus on engaging the user in some sort of collaborative systems. The Inaccessible Target Definition Checklist can be used also at the end of the design process, to map real users and their characteristics, to test and evaluate prototypes.
Education Illiterate
Health/phisical conditions bad Ergonomic Constrains high Age old
Technology Attitude
Budget low
high educ. good low
young
high
Technological literacy low
high
Curiosity on technology low
Social Behaviour
high
Device owned none
many
Social network - size local
broad
Daily routine inactive
active
Social network - density low Integration in local community low
high
high
Target Positioning 33
Social Networking
Daily Life Facility Personal use
Tools
6
2 Local communication
7
1
Long distance communication
4
6. Concepts introduction
3
Work
5
Work Tools
Business Bridging Services
34
At the moment of writing, the research team has produced several device and service concepts. The evaluation and discussion of the concepts among the whole team and the Nokia partners is still ongoing, so we are unable to anticipate future comments and improvements. We split the activity within two main generation task: an analytic way, developed internally by the research group; and a more envisioning and explorative one, developed with a wider design group through didactic workshops. In the following pages you will find the description of the concepts. 35
Concept 1- Smart Food SupplyDemand interaction
Concept 2 - 2buttons phone
*
Local producers of food and crafts do not normally consider expanding their market, because they do not know how to reach new customers, and how to keep the relationship. In this system, producers can subscribe to a professional service, have their profile uploaded on a website, and receives a device with a screen, a button and a gear. When a product is ready he just select it with the gear, and then push the button. The subscriber in the city receives a notification, and the electronic card of the farmer, that he keeps on his desk, lightens up. Both business card and device include a Poken sensor, so when the urban user visits the coutryside (or specialized events), he can add subscriptions to new producers just touching with his card their devices.
Device with just two functions: call or write. The interface is a touch screen and two buttons for pick up and hang up calls. the user can write on the screen characters with his finger, so there is no need to use pinyin. In this way short notes can be sent easily.
glowing light
NFC Sensor (Poken A)
ring 产品名字
Screen
Enter Position: Scenario #3 Business Bridging Service
Position: Scenario #1 Business Bridging Service
NFC Sensor (Poken B)
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Concept 4 - Remote Urban Gardening Alert
Concept 3 - Digital Community Card Members of the village cooperative have a personal digital card on which they can write short messages, that will appear on a board located in the cooperative common space. This board also includes information on price of vegetables at the market, weather forecasts and public announcements. The common space is where weekly meetings take place, and it is situated in the local government center.
This device is high technology based. It can be used both from rural and urban citizens to control the state of their garden / field when it is not possible for them to do it in person. The device is installed directly in the ground and, through a sensors, it provides information about conditions of soil and plants. It is connected to user’s mobile phone and automatically sends updates and pictures, whenever your field needs your attention.
Position: Scenario #3 Working Tools
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Position: Scenario #3 Business Bridging Service
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Concept 5 - Online CSA
Concept 6 - Smart Dock Phone
It is a system built around a community supported agriculture that includes three different devices and a web platform. Those citizens who are interested in buying organic products and farm, but do not have space or time to do it, can rent a part of the CSA’s fields to grow their plants. when they do not have time for farming, they can manage it using a web platform (1). The three devices allow farmers to improve their work making their communication easier. The chief of the village will manage the whole system using a tablet(2). through this device he can control the conditions of the fields and send messages to the farmers, giving instructions about the work they should do. The farmers can reply through their device (3) in real time and take care of citizens’ fields and of those reserved to the massive production. Those farmers who are “technophobes” instead of having a personal device, can follow all the activites from a big screen (4) located in the community centre. Every month, city farmers receive a part of the harvest quantified on the time they invested in CSA activities.
Young generation are more tech-friendly, unlike their parents that are not able to use some basic devices. Simplifying the interaction, improving the usability and extending the functions are the goal to design a product that can be easily used by any kind of user. The “smart dock” works as a receiver that allows technophobe users to make video-callings and receive pictures easily. A basic mobile phone is combined to the dock and can be used to make simple calls or text sms.
farmer
Position: Scenario #3 Business Bridging Service
Position: Scenario 2 Social Networking Tool
remraf
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Concept 7 - Garden City Market This device allows enhance the communication between citizens and farmers and it is based on a service for selling healthy food. Farmers can send a timely message to citizens to inform through pictures, hand-writing or voice massage about the harvest and manage their orders. Those information would be send to the web platform for transpotation arrangement. It can be also used as normal phone.
rice 50kg rice 30kg rice 100kg
rice 50kg rice 30kg rice 100kg
online selling platform
farms
Position: Scenario #3 Business Bridging Service
One of the partners in the research project is Tongji University in Shanghai; for this reason it has been possible for us to involve students in a more explorative concept generation activity.
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7. Concepts developed by students
The first experience has been a Summer Camp, organized during the Summer of 2011, that involved, together with Tongji, international Universities that offer social innovation related courses and are partners in the DESIS network. We asked students to design mobile services for rural users to enhance the communication between the rural and urban areas. In a relatively short time, the group involved in this topic developed a conceptual prototype for a device and the related interface that can translate local dialect in mandarin or english, facilitating the communication between locals and visitors.
From October 2011 to January 2012, then a second group of students has been involved in the research project. During the Product-service system design course in Tongji University, an international class was assigned the design of a “comunication system for the inaccessible target�. In this case we allowed them to define themselves their target, without necessarily concentrating on the rural-urban topic. One of the group chose to investigate the daily life of migrant workers in construction sites, and developed a platform to facilitate the communication between them and their children, living far away. Another group explored old Shanghaiese lane-houses, where mainly old people live, and proposed some inexpensive, easy way for communication and community building in the evolving city. The third group had the chance to enter a school for deaf kids, and focused on the problem of translating sign language in every-day conversations. Their concept is a necklace with a camera that can read movements of the hands and arms and translate signs into words. The workshops have specific design outcomes, but beside the finalization of fully-reliable design concepts, what is mainly important in short term research based activity is the possibility to involve critique numbers of creative minds and enlarge the perspective on consolidated, fully explored, documented contexts, to catch breakthrough solutions that are not inspired by daily immersive work, and could rather be inspired by local-global contamination. 43
Concept 8 - Keep in Touch
Concept 9 - Hearo
Target: Migrant workers and their families Aim of the project is to find alternative ways than the classic phone call, to create a daily connection between miogrant workers and their kids. “Keep in Touch” is a platform that encourages the kids to share with their parents that live far away drawings, pictures, messages. The interface, that is customized on kids’ and parents’ needs and habits is optimized both for computer and mobile phone.
Target: Deaf kids and schools. After a research phase in which students involved deaf kids from a special school in Shanghai in several activities, the team decided to solve the communication problems between deaf kids and teachers, relatives and friends who do not understand sign language. A camera in the necklace can read hand gesture, and convert them into voice or text written on a wristband. A website helps parents and teacher with some translations and a database of signs.
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Concept 10 - BeeConnected
Concept 11 - Wei
Target: Elders living in “shikumen” houses An interactive platform that makes it easy to call friends and relatives is designed to be used on TV and controlled with a remote, tools that elder people are familiar with. A system of subscription allows users to create group activity amongst members of the community.
Target: elders living in “Shikumen” houses This PSS is made to enable users of an inaccesible target to communicate easily. Simple devices allow Shikumens inhabitants to interact with each others and to organize the internal life of the community. Moreover, a service connected and based on Groupon strategy permits users with a low accessibility to purchase products at a convenient price, improving, at the same time, the business of the shopkeepers around the area of the Shikumen.
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Concept 12 - Blaslator The goal of this concept is to permit tourist to communicate with Chonming Island inhabitants. The gap between people who speak different language can be easily solved through a Vocal translator that reports the meaning of their speaking. This product is part of a larger system made up to improve tourism in less visited areas; visitor can rent the product on site and receive information about the place like maps, sightseeing and other connected services.
8. Preliminary concept analysis In this final paragraph we describe the preliminary analysis we are making to prepare the discussion about the concept and future directions. In this way we expect to clarify the purpose of this prototype oriented design action. As we anticipated the aim of our research is to find solutions that can impact not only on the daily life of the single user, but that can modify and improve in a creative way, the communication in and among different communities, and across already existing information needs; the analysis takes into account these factors.
Technology models
Concepts are diverse by the technology adopted and implemented, and present different models of type of connection and information diffusion. Following a list of possible technological structures within the concepts. › automatic transmisson of context-based information // proximity sensors + rfid
› personal communication channel // gsm network and messaging › broadcasting information channel // traditional gsm network + 3g network › prosumership behaviour // web-based platforms › solution for physcal and intellectual costraints, inclusive design artifacts // physical sensors and automatic information gate collector
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› enterteinment // contents based services, apps, etc.
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If we focus the priority output of design intervention to foster the bridging between the rural communities and the urban ones, then it becomes particularly relevant to intervene in the direction of small-scale local business enhancement; main contribution will be to make visible the hidden values of countryside activities and resources, to give strenght to local markets and short distances between supplier and clients.
We evaluate that the major communication gaps occur within long distance communication. Local communication within neighborhood, villages community centres, working cooperative is assured and provided by a complex system of immaterial networks that refer to tacit knowledge, traditional habits, sharing spontaneous attitudes, reference persons, roles in the community, short distances and easy-to-solve communication gaps. These not-designed communication processes currently represent the strongest tightness within social ties, and, as a local key asset, have eventually to be improved through cultural actions more than technological interventions. Instead, on the long distance communication more design opportunities emerge because no existing device could really satisfy our target’s needs. We evaluated design limits in current mobile technology for people that have simple structured communication tasks, as well the lack of interaction systems based on spontaneous emotion and real scale visual communication (personal communication); also, existing solutions can effectively manage complex networks based on generic sharing of personal information and news, but are too difficult and not adaptable to our target’s needs (public communication). The concepts we are designing cover both the area of social networking and business bridging services. Both these scenarios involve the user in a more direct and self-engaging communication, to revitalize the user’s network and find new opportunities. Users are involved in easy personal relational processes, that solves distance barrier making emotion pass through. Designed solutions are meant to cover the lack of personal value and satisfaction that is currently perceived in daily-based communication and contribute to the development of small business local initiatives by improving existing communication networks. In this final section follows an analysis of the concepts provided, according to factors previously considered. tools for personal communication and networks
Communication ability Concepts enable different typologies of users to interact differently. Some of them improve existing communication (generally personal), others enhance new type of interaction with previously not existing interlocutors, some are devoted to collective users within heterogeneous community more then a strictly personal use. We depict some of these features in the following diagrams.
communication among homogeneous group of users // function based
extension of communication network capacity and variety // contents based
Interaction models Besides the specificity of the technology adopted in each single concept, the devices provide to users different kind of interaction according to their capabilities, information background and communication attitudes. Therefore some of the concepts require multiple devices within the same service solutions, that differs in ergonomics, interfaces and uses; moreover we are interest to underline that these devices represent different users behaves and interaction models and take into account the users capability. In the diagram we represented the correspondance between reduced, simplified interaction devices for the inaccessible target on one side of the communication process, and devices that allow more rich, contents based and complex interaction for the urban segment of the target.
monofunction tools
wider extension of communication abilities
improved management of communication networks
multifunction tools
inaccessible target segment
tools for personal communication and networks
urban target segment
tools for community and shared networks
information space
multiple devices + asymmetrical users interface tools for community and shared networks
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Daily Life Facility
Social Networking Personal use
Tools
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9. Conclusions & future steps
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Design 1 Direction 7
Local communication
Long distance communication
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Business Work Tools
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Work
In this intermediate report we wanted to mainly discuss the methodology and finalize the efforts of the first research phases into more accurate service design tools. The main effort of the research has been to create a strategic use of tools and methodologies to understand a target group and its internal variations of technology literacy, interaction requirements and knowledge capability. Moreover, the purpose of our design is to connect different groups through reciprocal effective and positive communication activities that are not isolated, but inserted in an already existing framework of information and communication networks. In this sense we believe that a relevant contribution in apply intense methodology of ethnographic studies is in the capacity to understand and return the complexity of processes and transformations within the given context. Working with locals, we learnt once more that this deep knowledge is needed, to generate design interventions (that by definition are systemic) that are not disruptive. Reducing the scale of intervention can also give better localized tangible benefits. For these reasons, we work closely with the villagers of the island, respecting existing social ties, without relying too much on our capacity of a full understanding, and reflecting on the impact of our design act on the local context. This knowledge, learnt in the research process is the first content to be disseminated. The main future outcomes will be the technological and design details of a chosen device concept, a prototype, user interaction assessment, and a roadmap for mobile based services.
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Bridging Services
Concepts
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interaction
information space
information space
service
interaction
devices
sp of ace pr fo od r t uc he t a ex nd ch va an lu ge es
sp of ace pr fo od r t uc he t a ex nd ch va an lu ge es
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design of users interfaces
design of information architecture
design of service platform
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next step: concept development
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