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

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.

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

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!

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.