Last month, our office gang planned an offsite to Bangalore’s first and only eco resort, ‘Our Native Village’. It was a journey that took us back in time… to a place where time seemed to stand still…

The Green Activity

Inspired by the fundamental theme of the eco friendly resort ‘Our Native Village’, our team in the office planned this activity to revisit our roots of a simple and green lifestyle. The key goal was to ideate and surface out simple and effective ways to make our workplace greener and eco friendly. We found that, though most of us are usually aware of the simple ways to save energy and optimize the usage of non-recyclable stuff, we tend to ignore them in our daily lives.

This activity was very successful and teams came up with very interesting ideas, which most of us could easily apply in our homes or at the workplace and contribute towards a ‘Green’ environment.

Objectives

• Go back to the basics of rural life and get inspirations from the ‘Native Village Resort’
• Work in teams and come up with ideas on ‘How to make your workspace/home greener and close to nature’
• Share ideas with the teams and identify effective ideas
• Start applying the final ideas and observe the changes

Activity Details

Four teams were formed and asked to join in the complementary tour of the ‘village resort’. Teams took pictures and made notes on various ‘objects of inspiration’, such as Solar Panels, Windmill, Biogas for cooking, eco friendly swimming pool and many more. 

Individual teams then brainstormed on various potential ideas and concepts. We learned that though many concepts were common knowledge for most of us, novel ways of adopting this knowledge to today’s world proved to be an interesting challenge. We used paper sheets to write-down our ideas, a faux pas we later realized, given the theme for our activity, we should have gone for whiteboards instead! Nevertheless, each team came up with excellent and unique set of ideas.

The best part was the final session where we formed two fresh teams, the ‘Good’ team and the ‘Evil’ team. One representative each from the previous four teams formed the ‘Good’ team and the rest formed the ‘Evil’ group. Two people took over the roles of observers, diligently noting down the good ideas that were not dismissed by the ‘Evil’ team. The Goods were brave enough to share their ideas and face the criticism from evils. In the process of convincing Evils, the Goods came up with very good rationales on the ideas and their feasibility.

Outcomes

Many great ideas surfaced out and here is the list of many potential ideas. There are things one could apply on personal basis other are mainly applicable at office facilities level.

Lately, I came across an interesting blog called failblog.org.  As name suggests, it’s surely not a failed blog. Instead, it is very popular and contains fantastic videos and images of products, services, people, behaviors etc., which fails to do justice to their intended design. Not surprisingly, I did agree on the existence of most of the product on this blog. However, there was one specific video which made me to think more about it.

This video shows a person addressing people in a restaurant, using a wireless microphone. Sitting next to him, is an old lady enjoying her meal. This lady is very much engrossed in the meal, totally unaware of the person’s speech.  The person suddenly offers the microphone to the old lady for her comments. Surprisingly, at the very moment, the lady is expecting something else. It’s nothing else, but a Pepper Crusher.  Just imagine her rotating the upper part of the microphone to dispense black pepper.

Have a look at the video.

The situation is definitely funny and the lady was obviously embarrassed. But was this really her problem?

I don’t think so.

I have observed two mindsets for this kind of situation. Either blame the person (or rather make fun of them), or blame the product, like most designers or usability experts do always. I personally found this situation rather strange. I cannot directly blame the product, because I have never ever seen people getting confused between a pepper crusher and the microphone. Also, I didn’t see anything wrong in the way that old lady reacted to the microphone.

I see a major influence of the context in which the lady looked at the microphone. At the very moment she was offered the microphone, she was enjoying her meal. And being totally unaware of her surrounding, she could not expect more than someone offering something related to her ‘context’. In this particular situation, the perceived affordance of the microphone was changed due to the change in ‘context’.

This triggers a question. Can ‘context’ influence the perceived affordance of a well designed product? I do not have any specific research data to support my claim, but I strongly feel, ‘Yes’.  Here are some of my observations:

1. Imagine a person trying to kill you and you need to defend yourself. Most likely the affordance of a flowerpot or an ashtray near you will change to a weapon
2. You are travelling in a crowded bus, and suddenly driver decides to apply brakes. Your reflexes force you to grab the hand of a stranger next to you. In this ‘context’ the affordance a ‘hand’ becomes a ‘support handle’
3. You are walking on the road and it starts raining. You quickly look for cover and in most cases you might end up using your bag, books or a briefcase as an umbrella 

There are more examples like this for sure. Here is one more example of a person hurting himself by a hot electric iron while mistaking it for a mobile phone. Here, you must observe the ‘context’, which is more important.

This is a great learning for me personally, and I am convinced that having a deeper understanding of various contextual usage of a product would help me design products effectively.

Any comments?

Last month, I attended World Usability Day 2008 at Bangalore, which was organized by UPA Bangalore Chapter in association with Yahoo India R&D and Human Factors International. Apart from all the interesting talks’ on ‘Usability in Transportation’, I participated in an interesting design challenge. Around 20 teams were formed and unique problem statements were given to each team. Teams were supposed to brainstorm and propose solutions to improve Transportation Experiences in a given timeframe of forty-five minutes.

Our team was a good mix of students and professionals from design and technology domains. Debashish, Saurabh, Chitresh, Mahima and I teamed up to nail down the problem given to us.

The problem statement given to our team was as following: Considering the current traffic situation in Bangalore and usage of signage on the roads, propose a solution for the following;

1. Help daily commuters and new visitors to identify their way from point A to point B
2. Improve signage on the road to help commuters find the correct directions
3. Update commuters on road blocks , traffic congestions and other obstacles on their way

We named our solution as Treasure Hunt Model for Route Navigation. This solution was awarded as the winner of the design challenge. So here goes the solution;

Target Users

We considered daily commuters as well as new visitors to Bangalore city as our targeted users. Since part of this solution involved usage of basic mobile messaging service (SMS), we made an assumption that at least 80 percent of commuters use mobile phones. In India and specifically in Bangalore, the concentration of mobile phone is pretty high. This way we targeted our solution towards mobile users. However, there are few sub-elements of the solution which could benefit non-mobile users too.

Technology Considerations

1. Most mobile users in India are comfortable using basic messaging service on mobile phones (SMS)
2. Almost all the mobile phones in India and service providers offer SMS service
3. Here, SMS is cheapest in the world. Sometimes it is free.
4. Voice interface service over mobile phones. PVR cinemas in Bangalore are successfully running this service
5. Use of ‘roller desk’ signage at major traffic signals to provide dynamic content update.
6. A centralize software service to keep road signage data in sync. with the mobile queries data

Challenges of commuting in Bangalore

1. Paper maps are usually outdated
2. Traffic directions changes frequently due to ongoing road constructions
3. GPS systems are very expensive in India. Not everyone can afford it and moreover they are not being designed for Motorbikes and Manual Bikes
4. Not all major junctions have route information
5. Not all people can remember maps in their mind
6. It is vital to ask somebody for directions at major cross roads
7. Very limited ways to inform commuters about road blocks and other obstacles

Goals of the solution

1. Since most people cannot remember or read maps easily, provide a solution where they don’t need to remember directions
2. It is easy to remember major landmarks on the way from point A to point B. Use landmark information in the solution
3. 80 percent of people use mobile phones and SMS service. Design the solution around the same
4. New visitors usually ask for directions at every major junction and decide their way to the destination. Use similar phenomenon in the solution
5. Signboards only provide names of main areas and not for all the destinations. Design the signage where all the places could be highlighted in a particular direction
6. If there is a road block in the certain locality, inform all the commuters in the same locality as well as people coming towards that location

What is treasure hunt game?

This is a popular game, where the goal is to find the treasure by following a series of clues. The clues are hidden in different locations where each clue point to the next clue. This creates a trail which ultimately leads to the treasure. In this game, there are two major elements. First is the node and second is the pointer. A player is usually given the pointer to the first node and rest is left for him to explore.

Solution

We divided the solution in four modules.

Module 1:

Find the route between point A and B The solution is loosely based upon the ‘Treasure Hunt’ rules with few exceptions. In treasure hunt, player is given information about the first node only. In our solution, the commuter will be given information for all major nodes from point A to point B. A mobile service needs to be setup where commuters can call a specific toll-free number, choose their language and speak for directions. The voice recognition system would confirm for point A and point B. The commuter will receive an SMS with the information of all the major junction en-route.

 Module 2:

Following the trail, commuter will start from point A and try to reach the first node as given in the SMS. At node 1, a big dynamic display at the junction will display all major ‘nodes’ on the way. User will identify the next node in his mobile phone and continue in the respective direction. Repeat the same process at each node to finally reach the destination.  

Module 3:

Dynamic Display Most airports have a ‘roller desk’ display boards for flight information. It is an effective way to dynamically change information as required. We proposed to use similar boards at major ‘Nodes’. Here are few components of the display board

• Top section for information on traffic situation or other important updates
• Middle section will be divided in 3 or 4 columns, depending upon the number of ways ahead
• Each column will have an arrow sign on the top to show direction and color code for the traffic situation in that direction
• Each column will display all primary locations in that direction.
  • The location names (or node names) will be stacked one above another.
  • If there are more nodes in that directions, the roller desks will get updated every few seconds and cover all the locations
  • At the bottom of each column, major landmarks could be displayed in the form of icons
• The bottom region will display the service number in big bold letters to help user call and find the way

Module 4:

Notify commuters for road blocks and obstacles All mobile service operators will have a centralized system which will monitor any information regarding road blocks, traffic congestion, accidents and other obstacles. The information will be collected from traffic police as well as authorized agents. All mobile service provides can identify their users in that locality through tower registration data. An SMS with this information will be broadcasted to all the commuters in the problem area. Also, commuters who are following ‘Treasure Hunt’ trail to reach their destination via the problem route will be notified. Here is the detailed flow

Conclusion

We conclude that, there are possible solutions which could simplify the route navigation without the use of maps and GPS systems. The proposed solution is completely feasible using the current available technology and services. With this solution, it is possible to provide a cheaper service model which is most likely to be used by masses. There are advanced solutions available in the market such as GPS and mobile maps, but the affordability is still an issue. A robust solution which works the way people behave in normal circumstances could surely qualify for better adaptation amongst most people.