Younghee Jung

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to provide software update facilities in gas stations or convenience stores so that consumers do not become a victim of outdated map databases and map software on the road.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.

zurich in october

Younghee Jung — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:05:34 +0000

i just had a nice conversation about electrolux design lab 2008 with suzanne who has been managing electrolux’s annual design lab, which is a student design competition. this year’s theme is designing home appliances for internet generation. i am told that there were hundreds of high quality entries this year. belonging to the target user group myself for the submitted design concepts, i will serve the event as one of the 4 jury members.

having organized a lot of workshops & small-scale community design competitions as part of my research projects myself, i will be quite curious to know entrants’ thinking process that motivated ideas. Nokia Open Studios, which were organized so far as community design competition in Dharavi, Favela Jacarezinho, and Camp Buduburam were an immensely meaningful learning journey for me as an individual - apart from them being a good research guidance to understand the local culture and living.

unlike nokia open studios which encouraged entrants to design an ideal mobile phone for themeselves, i will have to put myself into the position of the target user in this event, which is a very unusual experience for me. perhaps i can compensate for the lack of my role as a researcher by interviewing the electrolux team about their experience in managing the design lab when i get a chance.

smalltalk on toilets - for interesting08

Younghee Jung — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:15:44 +0000

june 20th was the interesting day! thanks to russell, i got a 3-min talk slot in exchange for the ticket to the event. the day was full of inspiring and interesting talks, thanks to all speakers and participants who made the day shine bright. some video clips seem to be available through the Guardian, if you want to taste the flavour of the day. personally i was glad to get a chance to push myself to poke at some old piles of photos i randomly collected on toilets for the past couple of years.

why am i interested in toilets? my banal explanation is that toilets are the mirrors of culture with their prominence for everyone’s life in the society. the design of toilets can be a powerful element in providing anyone’s happiness, a sense of wellbeing, or even a feeling of small everyday achievement.

i am always shy about putting any work related slideshow on my weblog but as this is my hobby - the slideset from the day is downloadable in this page for anyone who’s interested in the topic & promises not to get offended by any part of the content. it’s a powerpoint file with brief explanation on each slide found in the ‘notes’ window.

download: small smalltalk on toilets (powerpoint, 2.2mb)

gradual dissemination: the usefulness of touch

Younghee Jung — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:53:42 +0000

going through some of my old photos, i noticed how SUICA system, initially rolled out as a public transportation card replacing paper tickets using nfc (near field communication) technology has been gradually introduced in japan.

the copy on the ad above is translated something in the line of “fun transformation of your mobile phone” (photo taken in april 2008).

around march 2006 when this picture was taken, i saw lots of advertisements and posters featuring this penguin character representing suica. all focused on the concept of how suica can be used to pay for the tickets, make small payments at shops instead of cash, and touch interface. for instance, this little penguin character would appear in the tv commercials accompanying a lady traveling alone passing through ticket gates with her, and drinking beer with her at a bar. it was going everywhere with the owner. the penguin also enjoyed the stardom through lots of character goods produced around it - flush toys, key chains, hats, whatever you can imagine.

suica is one of the brand names in japan that does more or less the same thing or using the same technology (like UK’s Oyster card)- which is essentially a cash top-up card. with japan rail behind it, suica had the power to educate the mass about the new interaction method as the benefits were quite clear: no need for queuing to get tickets, less hassle in passing through the crowded ticket gates, fewer reasons to carry coins. the clear benefit primarily as transportation tickets supported the mass adoption as well - though we are still talking about several years. the maturity of adoption brought a few variants as well: registration is now possible so that you can get your money back even though the card is lost; you can link it to your credit card so that it can be automatically charged once the balance goes below a certain point; commuter-pass registration is possible, as most japanese employers reimburse the commuting transportation cost based on the price of the monthly pass.

of course suica and its sister systems have become available on mobile phone for some time (under the name ‘mobile suica’). it seems about 60% of mobile phones in the market supports the function already. my tokyo colleague, Fumiko Ichikawa has a brief report on the current state of adoption in her blog. what is pleasing to observe is the gradual expansion of its use for other purposes than micro cash payments.

ana (all nippon airways) supports several methods for check-in. obviously mobile phone enabled with nfc like mobile suica is one of them.

suipo (suica poster) is launched last summer - it is an advertising platform using mobile suica as interface. people can touch the indicated spot on the advertisement to get the ad on the mobile. or you can use the normal suica card to get the 2-d bar code displayed, a technology that has been around longer in the market. if the boss canned coffee ad does not tempt you as a smart usage of nfc, you can also read about navita, the public maps using the same information distribution system as suipo. as with 2-d bar code, i am not sure how widely this is used at the moment.

from penguins to mobile micro payment to touch-based information distribution: it is a nice example of how a new technology is disseminated in incremental steps, which was a long journey.

i had a chance to probe how chinese people think about touch or near-touch interface a couple of weeks ago. while the metro ticket system in shanghai is same as oyster or suica, most people could not think of any other use of a similar system beyond that. on the other hand, their understanding of bluetooth wireless technology seemed to confuse many people about possibilities and benefits of near field interaction. a remote indication to think about the adoption curve and mass-market education of new technology - with or without a cute penguin’s involvement.

stimulus

Younghee Jung — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:41:01 +0000

what types of stimulus allow for maximum imagination of viewers’? and when does the maximum imagination become just too much to make any sense?

it is certainly an important question in designing products for which people’s opinions matter but the present lifestyle and environment does not provide sufficient experiential references to the subject. as for the experience of a researcher/designer, this phase is the most tricky part because it is all about a game of stimulus-interpretation-linkage process, for the researchers, the facilitator, and people participating in the research as opinion givers. personally this phase can be also less fun compared to the exploration phase because of the pressure of making decisions and conclusions. no pain, no gain.

spent last week in these rooms, first time to be back since 2004. it was most refreshing to see once again how vulnerable this method is to numerous factors - the stimulus material, facilitator’s cultural/domain knowledge and ability to improvise, tone of the voice, translation, recruitment, group dynamics, and whatnot.

leaving the packed lunch, caffeine overdose, lack of natural light, and midnight dinners behind, happily landed in singapore for a couple of days.

* top photo: ‘welcome - OL (office lady) or beach girl’, osaka, 2008
* second photo: signage for a strip club, tokyo, 2008

entry stamps

Younghee Jung — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:09:57 +0000

i sent my passport to chinese embassy to get a visa - knowing that there are only 4 clean pages left, i am trying to push for multiple entry visa.

frequent travelers may understand very well the stressful moment when you find out your passport is expiring in less than 6 months or there’re not enough pages left for visa shortly before your trip. luckily korean government allows adding new pages to the passport once - my 3.5-yo passport got one extension already so running out of pages now means a new passport. and getting a new passport means carrying two passports or going through several embassies to transfer your valid visas to a new passport, not to mention being grounded in the country you live in without being able to travel for a while.

it is natural that i get quite picky at the passport control as to which page the entry stamp should be on. i try to instruct the inspector not to use a new page but try to find a used page to fit the stamp in. but considering that in many countries the border control inspectors seem to demand the ultimate respect from travelers, it does not always work to advise them on how to do their job. considering that some countries require looking up the last entry/departure stamps from that country, it is not a trivial matter to arrange a good spot for the entry stamp.

the design of the entry stamps vary a lot: my favorite ones are from south korea and japan. obviously these two countries not only have smallest stamps of all, but also clearly differentiate the color and the shape stamps between the entry and the departure.

european union countries have very clear design based on pictograms, probably because they had to be used by many countries. a page of the tidy array of stamps like this makes me smile.

the worst design for me is UK’s simply because it is so big with the bit that does not give any useful information to the traveler: it is impossible for the inspector to fit two stamps in a row. i hope there will be an opportunity for the talented designers to work on this soon. and if you ever wondered where these stamps are used anyway: i was asked to submit photocopies of all the entry stamps to UK from my passport to apply for tax payer identification number in UK.

will international mobility increase in the future? certainly people who recently have taken advantage in using services like dopplr probably started to think about it. traveling overseas has become easier in terms of getting to know the destinations beforehand and making reservations in advance, but very little progress has been made over past decades in the area where governments are involved. of course new technologies like retina scan are employed in making the in-out procedure easier but mostly for the country’s own citizens only. visa procedures and passport controls as foreigner are still slow - or have become more difficult since 2001. the more entry stamps my passport accumulates, the longer it takes for me to go through the passport control desk as the inspector flips through pages in search for suspicious traces, the last entry stamp, or purely out of his/her curiosity amongst the randomly placed stamps from around the world. missing flight connections because of long passport control queues happened twice in airports in USA last year, a queue that most people become equal with no privilege unless you are james bond from 007 movies or a diplomat. my colleague experienced a lost/damaged/stolen passport disaster which happened right before his joining our field research in ghana - it took him a travel to finland and france to get his passport and US visa back at least.

passport becomes such an important piece of document for anyone travel internationally. but changing the interaction design around it is so deeply tied to the complex forest of politics and international governments that do not work together that it seems almost a mission impossible. what technological solutions and design thinking could support people who are global trotters, or nomads?

to lighten up my sunday mood - i dug up photos of my favorite passport graphics design from iceland. it has a bright blue cover and all pages feature different patterns each incorporating a story.

mobile call manners

Younghee Jung — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:59:18 +0000

being in a country where i am sufficiently fluent with the local language, i get to overhear conversations regardless of my intention. my everyday 30-min bus ride in london always bring such an opportunity: unfortunately it is not possible to drop out of it. some people do force others to get to know bits of their daily life details whether they want it or not. the benefit of anonymity in a big city? perhaps. i wonder how they perceive privacy in the internet.

one useful tactic to talk on the phone in public is to use your free hand to cover your mouth and possibly the microphone on the mobile phone. benefits are clear for those who consider them as benefits:

- reducing the noise from your surroundings thus more pleasant for your calling partner and clearer hearing for you
- preventing others from overhearing your conversation

it is quite common to spot people doing this in japan and south korea but less as you move to west from there. one speculation is that certain cultures enforce the notion of desirable behaviors more clearly than others.

an indonesian-german girl living in tokyo who quickly adopted the locals’ norm to take a call at a dinner table so that her call does not disturb others.

a korean girl blocking the noise from the street for a conference call

an argentinian gentleman who believes that he can hear the voice from the caller better by blocking the microphone on the mobile phone

amsterdam in september

Younghee Jung — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:51:41 +0000

i have two - probably three - reasons to visit amsterdam in september this year.
one is mobile hci 2008 where i will be presenting my last project done while i was in helsinki back in 2005 in the industrial case study track: the evolution of mobile phonebook design. the study was not just creating a design concept, but building a prototype for a month-long field trial and generating further insights for design direction and details. the final version of the super-short paper is posted here which is a truly condensed version of the whole study. i hope i can make time to write up a full paper later as i still strongly believe in the importance of contacts/ points of contacts/ interface to communication. akseli, rob, jan, and panu were all part of the project team.

on thursday, september 4th - i will be also joining the crowd at social strategy talk event organized by creative crowds.

hope to see some of you in amsterdam!

soylent green (1973)

Younghee Jung — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:54:58 +0000

happen to watch a movie soylent green (1973). its based on harry harrison’s novel. an interesting & grim depiction of the future urban living, but quite accurately pointing out many of the problems that are becoming increasingly substantial - overpopulation, food shortage, and environmental devastation. stop reading my post here if you plan to watch the movie yourself as it is a spoiler.

a couple of intriguing concepts were:

- a woman offered as ‘furniture’ with every house / flat: it is obviously an idea you’d call sexist’s, but nevertheless i fully enjoyed the social ripple effect that this proposition triggered me to imagine - like longevity of a property and a human? inheritance?

- imaginary home service: it is a place where people can go to when they want to die. for the final ceremony (of the death), the person gets to choose the ambient lighting color and music. the space design and other people’s involvement leaves a very interesting design challenge - though the movie’s focus shifts to a spam factory from here on.

visual examples

Younghee Jung — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:58:23 +0000

as we all know - some messages are delivered much more efficiently by the accompanying visual examples, though they may not be an exhaustive set.

a restaurant/bar in rio putting up a sign saying that they have the right to reject those with inappropriate or ‘minimal’ clothes.

at the domestic airport in osaka, this post gives a pre-warning that certain types of shoes will be subjected to security inspection before passengers are entering the security check area.