This document examines business anthropology's contributions to the design and products/services and how people adapt technologies to suit their own priorities and values.
Lecture 5: Designing Everyday Life
Overview: How business anthropology contributes to the design and
products/services and how people adapt technologies to suit their own priorities and
values
Understanding technological change:
Toilet in Japan took off due to cultural preoccupation with electronic gadgetry
combined with filth, gender and clean body = good health
Gershon shows that text messaging was valued in terms of what it meant
socially
Gershon interviewed young people, people preferred to break up by phone call –
more intimate compared to texting – older people viewed phone calls as
impersonal
SMS slow in US – price = voice calls were cheap/ free – SMS cheaper in the UK
as phone calls tended to be priced per minute
India, SMS cheaper than voice calls, but due to Hindi literacy, easier to talk over
the phone, more popular even though more expensive
Mobile phones often used for religious purposes (e.g. Islamic countries) with
calls to prayer and apps pointing in the direction of Mecca
Designing appropriation:
Anthropologists and designers increasingly work together – predicting directions
of cultural and technological change – spot new opportunities for services and
products
Jan Chipchase works for Frog Design – track adaptation of technologies by users
and observe how people use everyday products – use ethnographic research
Participatory design – involves getting potential users to interact with
products/ideas from the process of conceptualisation – might energy from
ethnographic research
Thinking about users:
The user incorporates technology into themselves
People use technology to enhance their capacities to do things in the world
Wasson, Ethnography in the field of design:
Ethnography - breakthrough for design as a practice, moved away from
individual psychology
Ideas of the user come to be important
Business based on ethnography and innovation aim to differentiate their brands
The anthropology of technology change:
Jamaica – LIC – high levels of mobile phone ownership and use – owning a
mobile phone depends on the values people have and the way in which phones
become important in everyday life
Phone ownership – accelerated by an innovative phone company offering
charging by the second – use of phones important for staying connected –
childcare arrangements
Horst and Miller – district gender patterns – women who were not financially
independent – likely to keep a wider range of potential male contacts – provide
support perhaps in a relationship
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