Hasta La Ideas

Reporting by Zach Hyman

Before beginning my Fulbright research in China, I had previously spent three years living and working in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). My time in Myanmar was formative: my firsthand observation of the extent that the country’s residents relied upon tuolaji, their flexible and powerful tractor-like vehicles, to perform many tasks provided inspiration for my present research.

However, not all of the inspiration for what drives my research today came from the Myanmar’s vehicles. During my time in such a resource-constrained context, I recognized the mixture of challenges and benefits that comes with relying upon many things to be handmade instead of mass-produced. While the Western world shifts toward coveting handmade objects as a sign of status and taste for craftsmanship, denizens of resource-constrained environments have no choice in the matter, and could benefit greatly from some of the very mass-produced goods that today’s design-minded individuals tend to eschew. Although I knew this fact in the abstract, confronting this apparent contradiction up close made it obvious how much more costly it is to dwell in both a resource- and choice-constrained environment, where hand-crafted items are the norm rather than the exception.

Consider the things you carry with you each day. In Jan Chipchase’s latest book, Hidden in Plain Sight, he identifies the most commonly carried objects around the world: keys, money and mobile phone. Besides these things, however, there is something else we always carry with us, whether consciously or unconsciously, and that is our identity. Most all of us are familiar with situations in which we must prove who we are, whether to obtain government services or benefits, gain access to a controlled area, verify identity in the case of legal sanction, and so on. While different contexts each have their own processes and differing degrees of formality for proving identity, the need remains nearly universal, and until technological solutions such as facial recognition are sufficiently widespread and accurate, identity will continue to take the form of a physical artifact—namely, a personal identification card.

The differences between identity cards—physical material, size, storage behavior, personal data, authentication mechanism, etc.—and the range of situations for which they must be shown comprises a common set of attributes to investigate across different contexts. Although an in-depth comparison of China and Myanmar’s respective identity cards (and surrounding behaviors) is beyond the scope of this article, residents of both countries share the perceived need to protect their cards, whether for fear of damaging the ability to read the embedded chip in the plastic card (China), or to protect one’s relatively flimsier paper identity card (Myanmar).

In Myanmar, individuals address the need of “How do I protect my important cards from being damaged?” with a custom solution. Plastic covers are individually crafted to each customer’s document sizes, made directly in front of the customer by a single individual’s hand, one at a time, using an elegantly simple, candle-powered tool. This solution is notable for both the amount of effort expended by the craftsman—which may seem excessive by an outsider’s standards—to achieve the result of successfully protecting a single card. In 2012, this vendor was charging 100 kyat (US $0.13) to protect a single card. Technically, the craftsman need not create a bespoke, sealed cover for each document as part of his job, as there are only so many distinct sizes of identity card in the Myanmar context that require protection. However, he has no choice, given the materials that are available to him.

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A research report on the dynamics of crowd-sourcing music at the frog SXSW Interactive Opening Party, by Bonnie Reese, Mike Herdzina and Shaina Donovan—see Parts 1 & 2 for more information.

Crowdsourcing Gives Everyone a Voice

The overall response to the Crowd Sourced DJ was overwhelmingly positive. It was described as “novel” and people loved that it allowed them to participate in the music selection. When we probed further about what made it attractive, party-goers were enthusiastic about the philosophy of crowdsourcing, noting that it is a vehicle that gives everyone a voice. We were struck by the passionate tone and language of the participants. Some of the comments included:

– “It’s for the community by the community,”
– “It’s democratic,”
– “You have a chance to have a say”

However, while people embraced the spirit of crowdsourcing, many openly acknowledged that it compromised the quality of the output. We heard comments like:

– “The masses have bad taste”
– “I don’t trust the public”

And yet those interviewed did not perceive the conflict between crowd selections and individual taste as an inherent negative. One music-savvy partygoer intimated that while the music being played did not align with his preferences, it still “fell within his range of acceptability.” In the context of a large social experience, like a party, the spirit of empowering the crowd reigns supreme. Many people acknowledged the party context and noted that there’s a time and place for everything. So while crowdsourcing is okay in one moment and social environment, it may not be appropriate for every situation.

Crowdsourcing Makes Everyone Think Like a DJ

So what were the biggest influencers when individuals had to make a music selection? First of all, people took into account the audience for the music as well as the party context. “Party music” was referenced almost as its own genre (although based on the range of musical styles we heard, we doubt that everyone would agree what the key characteristics of “party music” are). While many used the word “upbeat” to define “party music”, we didn’t see further alignment in the music played. One partygoer commented “What am I in the mood for? Something that will create the right environment. What will make the right environment? Upbeat music.”

Overall, the music that was selected could be described as more “upbeat” on the music scale. (Click to view full-size infographic)

People also mentioned that they overrode their own preferences to choose music for the crowd, noting music as a “shared experience.” One party-goer said, “I avoided a few songs that I wanted to play because I wanted to choose for the crowd,” while another person noted “I think it is more important that the crowd has fun.” People mentioned avoiding songs they liked that might bring “down” the mood. They continually referenced music’s role in creating the right social environment: “The music affects the vibe—it drives conversations and relationships.” These comments acknowledge the importance of music’s role in shaping the experience for individuals and the crowd as whole. They also point to a party environment as a scenario within which the greater good should come before personal preference.

It was also interesting that when asked to state their opinion about the quality of the music (on our scale from “it sucks” to “awesome”), a number of people said that “it’s like voting for myself,” showing an identification with the crowd. This leap from crowdsourcing to an identity alignment with the crowd was very interesting. Crowdsourcing went beyond simply being a method to create a shared playlist to creating a dynamic of communal identification. One person even said, “It’s democratic, so people will like the music,” voicing an assumption that music chosen by the crowd will automatically be embraced by the people within that crowd. It’s worth noting that there were no overall trends in perceptions about quality of the music from the data we gathered at our Music Perceptions Wall; where people placed their dots on the scale truly ran the gamut (and some partygoers just wanted to be clever about where they put their dot regardless of what they thought of the music).

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A research report on the dynamics of crowd-sourcing music at the frog SXSW Interactive Opening Party, by Bonnie Reese and Mike Herdzina

At frog, we often find ourselves conducting research in surprising places all over the world. Those of you familiar with our recent trip to Afghanistan will know that we conduct field research everywhere from private homes and businesses, to civic and social institutions, to very public spaces. When we’re in the field, we like to create “pop-up” studios to facilitate rapid synthesis, ideation, and prototyping. Last month in Austin, we created a unique pop-up studio very close to home, at the frog SXSW Interactive Opening Party.

For thousands of SXSW attendees, the frog party is the traditional kickoff for an intensely social and inspirational week at the conference. It’s their chance to blow off steam with friends and colleagues, and to get the creative juices flowing for the week ahead. By now people have come to expect that the frog event is not just an ordinary party, but a kind of social experiment, and a place to casually explore the meaning of technology in our lives. This year our theme was “The Other Singularity,” or what happens to social life when we embed massive computing power in unexpected places, from coffee table books to porta potties.

I’ve been going to the frog party for many years and have enjoyed the playful and provocative technology experiences we create for our guests. In the run up to 2013, I realized we had a rich opportunity to gather thoughts and feedback about applications of this new technology with an enthusiastic and tech-savvy crowd. The inspiration for the research focus sprung from the Crowd Sourced DJ, which used TouchTunes smart jukeboxes (designed by frog and the TouchTunes team) and the TouchTunes mobile app to allow party guests to create and curate the party playlist in real time.

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Is it possible to make a government services site useful for citizens seeking information? Ben Terrett, Head of Design at the Government Digital Service, not only thinks it’s possible, but believes it might be the world’s best brief. In 2011, the British government established the Government Digital Service (GDS) within the Cabinet Office. It was established as a direct response to a government-commissioned survey conducted by Martha Lane Fox that recommended that the government strategy be “Digital by Default,” along with key tenets to overhaul the public-facing websites that served as portals for government services and information.

The key concepts as outlined by Fox included:
– Establish a digital team in the Cabinet Office with absolute authority across all government online services.
– Fix Publishing – With over 2000 websites for citizen needs versus business links, departmental and public bodies with individual websites.
– Fix Transations – For people who pay for services online
– Go Wholesale – opening up APIs to third parties

By October 17th, 2012, the GDS launched GOV.UK, a single portal to access governmental information as a citizen or a business. A month later, the team began folding over 400 departmental agencies. To date, 14 out of 24 ministerial departments are live on gov.uk along with 17 of over 300+ public bodies within the department. In the video below, Ben Terrett chats with Willy Wong, Chief Cretive Officer of NYC & Company, New York City’s marketing, tourism and partnership organization. Ben shares about designing for user needs through simplification, the history of British public design as well as the GDS’ plans for opening up information to third parties.

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By Jan Chipchase

This article summarises the issues in conducting corporate ethnographic research in rural locations covering logistics to research dynamics. Rural communities are far from homogeneous.

Compared to more urban settings, rural dwellers tend to have a more polarised expectation of “outsiders” (The “outsider” label may be designated by any number of factors including nationality, skin colour, accent, place of birth, caste, the list goes on. (In Afghanistan “foreigners” can include anyone from outside their province). Interactions with locals will be framed by their touch points with outsiders—whether aid workers, missionaries, NGO staff, backpackers, television, and slowly but surely entrepreneurs. How might the dynamics of an interaction change if a local villager’s only experience with a blonde female came through Baywatch? For example, I’ve been in interviews where male perceptions of foreign women is shaped by their porn consumption. My principle is that the team only needs to find one person in a community to be able to build out a meaningful local network, so the only question is finding that one person. The research is rarely about finding statistically representative participants but rather people that that fit within relatively broad criteria. Leave room for interesting outliers. A good team knows how to turn the outsider status to their advantage (or at least minimise negativities) using this status to gain access.

Research doesn’t always flow well and it is natural course of events for interactions or requests for interview to be rejected. In urban centers there are plenty of opportunities to move the team to another location even in the same neighbourhood. In rural locations the ripples of rejection can spread tainting the team within the community, and forcing them to move on.

Rural locales tend to have lower levels of literacy and within this, females are generally less formally educated than males—if there is not enough money to educate all of children girls are the ones that receive less investment. Literacy can become an issue when it comes to data consent, since participants are being asked to sign something that is being communicated orally, putting a greater onus on the team to communicate appropriately. From experience this can seconds or take up to half an hour. By keeping the participant’s welfare a primary concern the team should devote whatever time is required to ensuring that the consent is understood to ensure consent is informed. My priority is participant’s first, team second, client third—and keeping to this eventually does the best by the client. Where a model release is being obtained (allowing external use of data including photos) the research team needs to exercise an additional moral pass to ensure that data (mostly photos) is used in the spirit in which the data was obtained.

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