Glocal Design

A major difference between a physical product and a software

Bijan — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:01:18 +0000

In the previous posts, I had mentioned using Object Oriented paradigm as a way for designing “mass-cultural customized” products. You may remember that one of my friends, did a case study in Tehran, and investigated female users’ tendencies toward different components of a mobile device. However, an experiment showed us that users sometimes don’t consider these tendencies when they see the product as a whole. It reminds me the Gestalt’s theory: “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”
Design of a software can be broken down into static (Structural) and dynamic (Behavioral) design. But a physical product has a 3rd aspect too: the whole physical entity of a product, something that users will see at the end, and that’s a point which should be considered when we want to use ideas from computer science domains in product design.

Power of Visual Modeling

Bijan — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:57:24 +0000

I had an experience with Unified Modeling Language three years ago, and I used it as a tool for visualizing “logical design” of products. I had an idea that everything can be visualized, and sometimes there are interesting similarities between visual arts and science. A good example is the definition of abstraction in computer programming and painting. Today, a video brought back my old ideas about visualization. You can see that even mathematic functions can be visualized. This one is a simple function (multiply) but I think if we can visualize simple ones, we will be able to extend it to more complex ones too!

Womanliness Score!

Bijan — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:57:17 +0000

After 3 busy weeks, finally I have developed my simple method for “scoring” components of a mobile communication device based on cultural dimensions. And now I can say that Facebook really works, at least in my Iranian context. I had a major problem with my time management, and I really needed some one to help me with my new work. I posted an announcement in the Facebook through my 550 friends network, and I received lots of positive response from friends which I have never met! One of my friends in Tehran is going to do a “small” case study about this method, and our focus is on gender differences, or more precisely: femininity. This is how we do it:

1. I broke down the product into its components, and then I developed a “tree structure” of product.

2. We designed a “spectrum” questionnaire in which our target group (young Iranian female mobile users) will show how do they think about each component, is the pink color for a mobile device very feminine, average feminine, little feminine or even neutral?

3. Users will be asked also to choose a product from a specific brand and specific price range, based on its components.

4. Based on results in part 2, we will do a “paired comparison analyses” to define scores for components according to the femininity cultural dimension.

5. Now with numbers for each component, we can score products in part 3 based on their components, and we will have “Femininity” score of each! 6. We will compare our numbers with users’ real selection, to see how it works!

Any comment?

Abstraction and OO Paradigm

Bijan — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:25:12 +0000

I have found this example quite interesting, check it! The example is exactly what I was trying to do!

http://www.mymindleaks.com/blog/programming/object-oriented-programming-abstraction/

Culture in numbers … Clustering Cultures

Bijan — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:46:46 +0000

During last weeks I was searching for solutions to measure “culture”! Are you in doubt? Why not? Western culture tends to measure everything even the culture itself …

The most famous solution is Hofstede’s dimensions with numbers for different countries. However I have found other models for culture such as Hall and Trompenaars models as well. In my eyes, Hall’s model even without a database (such as Hofstede and Trompenaar) is a better model when you want to describe a user in a product design cycle. Other models are basically developed for management systems, so it’s hard to extend them to design. However there is a good research on defining cultural dimensions for User Interface design by Aaron Marcus (unfortunately) based on Hofstede’s model:

http://books.google.com/books?id=-MiG4X5ZYLAC&lpg=PP1&dq=Systems%2C%20Social%20and%20Internationalization%20Design%20Aspects%20of%20Human-Computer%20Interaction&pg=PA502#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Finally, I think that it’s better to adapt Hofstede’s model, it takes a lot of time to invent the wheel again
Another interesting finding was cultural clustering systems, mainly based on cultural models. Look at the clustering based on Hofstede’s model (I didn’t know that I belonged to a “near eastern” cluster!)

It seems that it’s hard to categorize countries such as Iran and India in these systems, as they are categorized in different clusters in different models:
(http://teaching.ust.hk/~mgto650p/meyer/readings/9c/RonenShenkar.pdf) or even described as individual cultures.

At the moment there is no data about Central Asia, I assume that Central Asia (or at least countries like Armenia and Azerbaijan) along with Iran and Turkey can be a cultural cluster, even history can attached them together. This area could be a good region for case studies, Central Asia is an unknown market, and both Iran and Turkey have a competition in this market in areas such as food or cars. So there are lots of connections… However this is a pop-up idea…I should wait to decide scientifically

Globalization empowers local identities

Bijan — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:44:37 +0000

My previous supervisor in University of Tehran believed that more virtual communications caused more physical transformations, however the main aim of extending the virtual communications, was omitting unnecessary physical movements. Now, people can find opportunities everywhere, not only in their local connections, so they will travel more and meet more people.
I’m going to say a similar statement: Globalization will not clear local identities, it can empower local identities. See this music video band Iranian band KIOSK, beautiful Armenian/Persian patterns in cloths, and feeling of traditional Persian music in voices and lyrics… Modern, but still pure Iranian. (with thanks to nice images from our Armenian friends in 1960s )

Object Oriented Product Customization

Bijan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:58:45 +0000

During a PhD course at SFI Norman (Trondheim) I have heard about the Danish way of thinking about product design. I was also searching for some methods or tools for product customization. I came across an interesting book by Lars Hvam , Niels Henrik Mortensen and Jesper Riis: Product Customization. However, it was not the main surprise…. the most impressive point was chapter 6: “Object-Oriented Modelling”

I had an experience about using Object Oriented thinking in design process before, but I didn’t expect to use it again in my PhD project, it was not logical to think about cultural differences and Object Oriented thinking at the same time!

This would be another step for shaping the details, I know what type of products I’m going to work on, and I know that I should select user-groups from emerging markets (yes it’s still very broad )… and now, I can say that for a feasible manufacturing in a global scale, I would work on using Object Oriented design process again, as it can be easily understoodby an Object Oriented manufacturing system. I’ll write about the advantages of Object Oriented thinking, but at the moment just remember that when you work with complex technologies and large manufacturing systems, it’s much easier to learn a common language to communicate, than learning about all of the details (like limiatrtions techniques, economica issues and etc.) in those systems. You can’t define the whole thing, sometimes there should be chance for others to modify your work, so they must be able to “read” your work.

Look at the book:

http://books.google.com/books?id=uJSSOH-3i4sC&dq=product+customization&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=kflmSqfnJNqE_AaK1qBf&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

Soul of the city, Shiraz

Bijan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:27:59 +0000

Well, I’m writing the first post in Shiraz, my hometown. When you look at a city, you will understand about the way that people think and live. In my idea, each city has a soul, and you can feel the soul of the city. To me, Shiraz is a happy and lazy city, somehow shy and also emotional, like its warm and sunny climate. In contrast, Trondheim is not much emotional, and also not happy (but not sad also, maybe I can call it calm ). However both cities are lazy at the same level, and that’s why I’m able to live in Trondheim without any problem. I should admit that Shiraz is a snob! just look at the facades, signs and variety of colors, each building says: I’m different, I’m not like others, I’m richer!!! :

Architecture and urban planning can be a good way to understand many things about people, sometimes you are able to see patterns of their social behaviour and their preferences, even in choosing colors and forms. Drawing scientific connections is not easy, but for me there are lots of clues there, even if I can not prove them scientifically!