Younghee Jung » korea

Digital imaging entrepreneurs

Younghee Jung — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:22:16 +0000

Affordable digital photography equipments have given birth to numerous street entrepreneurs. It is surprising how many applications of photographs people can come up with, when I recall the use of photographs merely 20 years ago. While I still hear the occasional question of “why do you take the photo of that?” – a habit from the past where photographs were reserved for special occasion only – it seems clear that we are marching towards the creative world of photography in our everyday lives.

In India, digital imaging entrepreneurs are still taking advantage of the fact that they can set up the business cheaply and majority of the population still do not own cameras of their own. Heavily decorated photograph booths, with the essential prop of a motorcycle or printouts of bollywood stars are the basic requirement – to create the special occasion for the customers. Below images were taken at a local fair ground in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.

More advanced photo studios may offer digitally re-touched imaging options, thanks to the development of easy-to-use photo editing software. This reduces the physical space burden of setting up a photo studio, as the owner is able to photoshop in a “desirable” background to the photo. Below photos were taken & photoshopped by a photo studio owner near Erode, Tamil Nadu.

In South Korea where the rate of digital camera ownership is relatively much higher, local entrepreneurs have to bring something more than a camera and a printer can do. He was selling a mobile phone strap personalized with your photograph. He took the photo, edited immediately on a computer with custom-made photoshop template reflecting the customer’s opinion, printed it, and used the hair dryer to fit the printout onto a little trinket that the customer has chosen. The whole process took about 20min, which is still a long time – I am not sure how scalable his business will be.

One sure fact is that our own images semi-eternalized by the photographs are increasingly influencing our memory, attitude to real-time experiences, and relationship with others.

Obvious physical constraints

Younghee Jung — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:37:31 +0000

Many countries utilize RFID cards at high way tollgates, ranging from free passes with which cars can simply drive through the gates, to transportation or credit cards. Replacing cash transactions alone can speed up the process of passing through the tollgate.

This tollgate in Seoul, on the way to Incheon airport, had 3 card scanners each accommodating the different height of the driver seat. Designers must have gone through several options before deciding on this solution: A stronger scanner? Material and manufacturing cost of the machine? Off-the-shelf components available on the market? Ergonomics of the driver reach on different vehicle types? Maintenance cost? Variations in the usage contexts where the scanner should be installed and used?

Cash is an incredible medium that has lived through centuries in human lives to facilitate exchange of values. Any attempts to replace cash were accompanied by the heavy investment in the infrastructure over a long period of time, such as transaction terminals that suit various contextual and business requirements. Similar to any communication technology where the real value is in exchanges among people, it could move very slowly till the minimal size of ‘majority’ starts to get equipped with the tool and people get convinced that there is a clear benefit for conversion.

This slow change, in turn, could also result in intermediate technology solution in order to accommodate the existing human processes. For instance this signature pad has become a very common tool at the checkout using credit cards in South Korea. This replaces a printed receipt for getting the customer’s signature for the shop to keep. The credit card payer signs on the pad and gets the final receipt with the signature captured on the pad printed on it, typically in low resolution. This allows the shop to keep the transaction record electronically, which simplifies the process of bookkeeping. Is this working better than ‘Chip & Pin’, requiring a 4-digit personal code with IC chip embedded on the card as is widespread in UK? Advantages and disadvantages are different between the two methods, but I guess that’s beside the point. South Koreans opted for a technology solution that produces an equivalent outcome to an existing process: a printed receipt with personal signature, while being able to record the data digitally at the same time.

The signature pads I have tried invariably made me write my signature distorted or cut due to the inadequate feedback and lack of personal calibration (I was not exactly given a practice run either), or simply I started with the wrong size for the given space. So most of the times, I get a receipt with my signature printed too small, too big, unrecognizable, or incomplete. Does this matter? In theory yes, but in practice no. People have embraced the ineffectiveness, the defect of the technology tool because it still allows them to comply with the existing rule and process to a degree.

In India, I sometimes have to hand over my credit card to my driver (yes, I have to rely on a driver to live in Bangalore) for transactions. First time I got the receipt with no signature, I asked him “Don’t I need to sign this?” His answer was clear and simple as he started the engine: “Anyone can sign.” A similar attitude, but a different behavioral solution from the South Korean example.

Will either of these solutions prevail in the future? I would say yes, until the evidences of failure becomes apparent to the majority. We are, after all, humans who embrace mistakes and learn from them. But still – can we really design for adoption, abuse, appropriation and degeneration? Is it a matter of trying, an attitude? This is an increasingly relevant topic for my work these days. If you are involved in designing an infrastructural service that will have to transcend time, space and a large body of population, the cost of ‘we will iterate the design after we deploy it and get the feedback’ can be huge, if not leading to the failure altogether. It becomes critical that the patch tests of contextual validation trigger a wide variety of scenarios to consider, for policy creation, changing the existing process (gradually), training personnels, and establishing the word-of-mouth concept propagation message – including the potential ‘myth’.

Bonus: The new equipment invested is a chance to add on other features. The highway tollgate receipt comes with advertisement and coupons; POS system with the signature pad often comes with a screen facing customers that play ad videos.

The Unknown, The Untried : A tutorial on design research

Younghee Jung — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:24:04 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed – there is a conference on design research in Seoul from tomorrow, October 20th, 2009. The online registration is already closed, but if you happen to be in Seoul – the onsite registration is still possible.

I will be running a full-day tutorial on the exploratory design research, with a special focus on how to involve people in the process. I will approach it like a participatory workshop: I plan to use my past projects as a way to let participants think about designing the design research methods.

A full-day tutorial means 5-6 hours on Sunday, so it’s only for the really dedicated (and those who are free from the real-world chores on weekend).

But it will be good to see you there: this is a very rare chance for me to look back at and share the various projects over the last decade in depth with you. Your opinions and feedback will be of great inspiration to me.

Conference website: http://www.iasdr2009.org/

service availability / discovery

Younghee Jung — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:59:33 +0000

By the entrance of a convenience store in Seoul, stickers indicating the service offerings available in the store are shown – all printed in a standardized size. The potential to make the service availability indication digital, making them searchable and discoverable remotely? Who would be the right organization / institution/corporation to take up the role to issue such a standardized service availability database?

Stickers are:
A brand of newspaper
A mobile phone charging service; Payment options called pre-p
Door-to-door delivery service; Bill payment
Cash receipt for taxation; Loyalty membership scheme
Cigarettes

Listing that, I realize how much I miss these always nearby, always available convenience stores in Korea and Japan…

shine a light

Younghee Jung — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:39:38 +0000

Korean Cultural Center is hosting an exhibition titled ‘Shine a Light‘ at the moment, till March 2009. The artist, Jeonghwa Choi is an unusual artist who is dedicated to observe and understand all forms of everyday life. The space he creates is memorable and touching, if you are in the resonant mood, without being pretentious; it leaves plenty of room for you to make the meaning and an experience out of it.

It is a bit of late notice, but together with the exhibition curators I will be co-mediating a casual panel discussion with the artist on February 5th, 2009 at KCC near Trafalga square, London. It starts at 3pm.

The exhibition will be on till March 21st, 2009. The exact address of Korean Cultural Center is Grand Buildings, 1-3 Strand, London WC2N 5BW.

About the exhibition at Art Rabbit

multiplex street business

Younghee Jung — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:19:28 +0000

I saw my grandfather only as a hand-painted portrait. Having a portrait painted was the only solution when people wanted to reconstruct a memorabilia of the family ancestor solely from recollection, or a fading photograph.

The street cobbler’s booth advertising the portrait painting service is also selling wooden birds: a sweet marriage of several high-skilled entrepreneurs. It is another example of sharing resources – probably through an informal homegrown transaction deal.

service efficiency – managing the wait

Younghee Jung — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:24:25 +0000

South Korean tourists are known to be impatient, represented by the well-known word ‘ppali-ppali’, meaning ‘fast, fast’. Waiting time does play a big role in making a service business a success or a failure. If you can’t make it shorter, you may as well look for other options to make it at least more enjoyable.

This Call / Bill / Water button set is available on all tables in this cafe in Seoul (Shinsa-dong). Compared to the more typical model of just pressing the button to call the waiter, this eliminates one additional visit to inquire about what the customer wants.

The opposite example is also found at this self-service cafe chain called pascucci. Once you place your order, you are given this little pager. You go and sit at the table of your choice, instead of waiting around the busy counter. When your drinks are ready to be picked up, it will light up.

I would rate these two systems high because of their simplicity for use and implementation, requiring minimal modification in the existing infrastructure and workflow knowledge, hence lowering the barrier to the initial adoption. A contrasting example would be McDonalds’ ‘Touch Order’ trial together with SK Telecom. RFID reader was provided to be plugged into the mobile phone to enable ordering through touching the menu, with the bill to be topped up in the phone bill. When the order is ready, a text message is sent to the phone to alert the customer to pick the food up. One reviewer righteously complained: “Ordering was fast indeed. But no one paid attention to my order behind the counter so I ended up getting the food much later.” Managing the human skills and habits will still be the prevalent issue in deploying a service backed by new technology.

flexible sign board

Younghee Jung — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:19:11 +0000

Pictured is a truck covered with LED boards displaying ads on four sides (though one of them was experiencing a technical problem). It is an effective medium especially in cities where traffic jams are expected throughout the day. I can also see that it would be valuable for services that require on-the-spot advertising in context when/where people need it rather than relying on people to take the responsibility of remembering the brand or the phone number.

The service being advertised in the truck is offering a driver for taking you home in your car when you are drunk: You avoid drunk driving, and at the same time your car is back in your garage for your use the next morning. This is, again, a socially relevant service in a culture where involuntary and social drinking is prevalent.
With so much discussion on the ecologically sustainable solutions – flexible display infrastructure catches my attention nowadays.

Pictures taken in Seoul, South Korea, November 2008.

displaced/fabricated nature

Younghee Jung — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:31:36 +0000

plants growing in tokyo metro station

Living close to the nature is a privilege in many parts of the world. It is more so as cities become increasingly densely populated and expand. I grew up in a very human-constructed environment of South Korea’s former industrial hub, Busan, South Korea. Naturally, facing or getting too intimate with the real nature has always been a special, rare occasion to me. On the other hand I am very much familiar with the idea of miniaturized, sanitized, fake nature in the industrialized, completely made-up environment, simulating and sampling the idea of nature rather than providing the real experience of it [think a fake snow field in a department store window decoration rather than the deceivingly real artificial beach in Odaiba, Tokyo, Japan]. In doing so, we often mimic parts of the nature that takes minimal effort to maintain and is pleasing to our senses without unpleasant consequences.

a cafe in an underground passage in tokyo, japan

In Seoul’s smaller city airport, Gimpo, there’s a airy lounge area that looks like a garden. Perhaps it is the obvious contradiction that makes it more charming, or acceptable, depending on where you are coming from. As a city child I didn’t even notice the ubiquity of mimicked nature until I came back to Korea after living in other countries. They are sometimes cute, but more often than not, can be repulsive, cheap, and horrifying. Like most animal cages in the zoo are simply sad to look at.

lounge area in gimpo airport, seoul, south korea

As depicted by numerous well-known science fictions, we will soon see the day when it is no longer interior decorator’s musings to create the artificial parts of the nature, as they may be required for the purpose of making people familiarized with the concept.

As a side story – in a Japanese manga series called ‘Five Star Stories’, the humanoid girls ‘Fatima’ who are specifically created for controlling the war robots are described. Their skin can only accommodate clothes made of real cotton, which in itself is an extreme luxury at the time. I was reminded of the story when I was shopping in India looking for a traditional cotton lungi in a local neighborhood: I tried almost 10 shops, and none of them had a single lungi made of pure cotton as it was too expensive.

internet etiquette education in Korea

Younghee Jung — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:11:25 +0000

i enjoy reading korean news online whenever i have leisurely time at home, though it happens rather sporadically nowadays. what caught my attention today was an article (in korean) about the new morality class text book content for elementary schools.

with the majority of its citizens having embraced lifestyles which internet is an indispensable part of, korean government’s march on adjusting its policy and legislation for the digital era is quite thought-provoking, to say the least. when camera phones came out, it was quick to mandate all camera phones’ shutter sound to be at least 65db years ago. more recently it is considering making it mandatory for GPS navigation device manufacturers to provide software update facilities in gas stations or convenience stores so that consumers do not become a victim of outdated map databases and map software on the road. not long time ago, a government organization, IAPC (internet addiction prevention center) also started running the bootcamps for internet addicts, a program to help serious internet/computer game addicts rehabilitate. the program made participants totally disconnected from the internet but instead engage in several physical and social activities in the real world. this organization was established in 2002 and has been doing research on koreans’ internet addiction. according to their website, it also conducted research on students’ mobile phone addiction and resulting behavioral changes as well.

it is not surprising to see the government’s effort to educate children about the right and wrong in the digital world early on, as the age when people first start to use internet is getting younger. morality classes start in the first school year for everyone in korea. according to the article, the current morality class text book has the following internet-related content:

4th grade (age 9)
danger and harm of hacking
immorality of illegal content downloading
5th grade (age 10)
respecting others in the internet
6th grade (age 11)
harm of cracking (malicious hacking)
telecommunication etiquette

the new text book proposal will have more pages dedicated to internet behaviors:
2nd grade (age 7)
preventing internet addiction
using polite and appropriate language in internet
4th grade (age 9)
moral problems children experience in internet
problems caused by improper netiquette
what netiquette is and how to behave accordingly
5th grade (age 10)
understanding the danger of computer game addiction
reflection of my own computer game usage behavior
desirable way of enjoying computer game

i believe these topics were chosen reflecting what has been researched well and emerged as patterns of problems like online gaming. It may have been that the article simply did not mention it, but I hope they would touch on identity related topics as well. many children including myself go through the phase when they relate their identity to imaginary or fictional characters. i am no expert in this area so i do wonder how future children would discover and exploit the fact that they can be the imaginary character to a certain extent if they want to, aided by other ‘people’ in the digital world, not just by their own imagination while they are going through the blossoming age of developing their social perception and individual identity. it is up to whether the child will be able to master the delicate skill set of constructing and maintaining the perception of a world in a non-physical form. there was an incident in korea last month that a girl in her early teens left her home for a few days trying to find her ‘virtual husband’, a 30 something years old guy she got to know through online chatting months ago. he had told her that he cannot be ‘with’ her anymore. heartbroken, she wanted to go and look for him even though she had never met him before as the real life form. even for adults, it is not easy to define what is real and what is not nowadays. more embarrassingly, we may have to be in the position to explain to younger people whether what is not real is good or bad.

while i am being a novice fascinated by the potential of education here, i am curious how much of korea’s move is shared by other countries. as far as i have experienced, most mobile / internet cultural norms people tend to be aware of are mostly based on or affected by the immediate communities they belong to. korea has always been a patrimonial society so their approach of institutionalized education and preventive legislation against mishaps and misbehaviors in the internet era seems appropriate.

considering the internet can be catalyst for globalization, how will we come to terms in establishing the desirable behavioral norms in years to come, and from what motivation? if we look a bit farther into the future, internet globalization will be advanced and hence we will have to come up with desirable norms.

there is a downside of authorities acting too fast without the reliable foresight: because korean government’s legislation on the internet banking security was made such a long time ago when there were only a few internet browsers were around, korean online banking systems do not allow access via newer internet browsers, according to a friend working for mozilla.

lastly, there was a very good talk at the new yorker conference in 2007 on morality by Jonathan Haidt, if you want to continue pondering on the topic.

the first picture was taken in tokyo underground in 2006; the second picture is my 3yo nephew watching the animation ‘cars’ on my sister’s laptop.