Apprentice

There were approximately 1.95 million mobile phone subscribers in India as of April 2000. The number of subscribers was tapped for constant growth. Although the penetration percent at the time—0.5 percent in early 2001—was low, note that 1 percent of population means 10 million people in India, which has about 1000 million citizens. Thus, even a small percentage of growth would be meaningful from the business point of view. Certainly, we recognized that the majority of Indians will not enter the information society in the short run. However, it is reasonable to believe that the next 2 to 5 percent of Indians will reach the living standard of current mobile phone users in the near future.

Government regulations and tax policy previously slowed the growth of the mobile phone business in India. Current regulations make the mobile phone owner responsible for charges from incoming as well as outgoing calls. This is expected to change in the near future. As a consequence, the number of company phones will probably increase, because employers will be able to control the bills better. Also, private use of mobile phones is expected to grow when “calling party pays” (CPP) charging is introduced. At the moment mobile calls are 5 to 6 times more expensive than landline calls.

The gray market for mobile phones is strong in India. Phones appear in the gray markets months before they’re officially sold by outlets and operators. In India, operators regularly receive queries about phones that are not yet launched. Prices in the gray market are cheap—approximately 50 to 60 percent of the official prices—so official dealers are hoping for reductions to the 40 percent taxes set for imported goods.

We had lots of numbers like this. The numbers can be used to construct a macro image of India as a mobile phone market, but they were far from sufficient to guide the design and localization of products for end users. Our project aimed at going from numerical abstractions to the concrete levels of users’ lives. We were there to explore culture-specific factors, which could potentially affect user interface design. The study consisted of three phases: analysis of background information, an interview study in New Delhi, and, as the primary objective, user observations in Mombai. We selected a qualitative research method for the project because of our previous experience with the utility of ethnographic research methods. Our end-user needs team has a strong expertise in them, and we trusted the approach.

The shift from place and time dependence to anytime/anywhere information access has set new requirements for developing personal devices.^[4] We have to understand the users’ physical, social, and cultural environments and how they are affected by other users’ activities, roles, and values. It is difficult to acquire this kind of understanding with quantitative market or usability research. Not even the questions are known when we begin. There are no hypotheses, and only some focus areas of interest can be defined. From these vague starting points, ethnographic research methods such as contextual inquiry^[3] provide a structured way to gather contextual information on users’ activities and related cultural aspects.

The core research team consisted of linguist Johanna Tiitola, usability specialist Dr. Minna Mäkäräinen, and the author, a psychologist. In India, local usability experts and translators joined the team. A multidisciplinary team is necessary in this type of research. Experts with different backgrounds and skill sets tend to focus on slightly different things, which helps in building a holistic and comprehensive view of the research topic. When design implications are drawn from the collected and analyzed data, a multidisciplinary team can consider solutions that might be implemented in different phases of product development.

Indian cities are noisy and crowded; you can hear traffic noise, car horns, and people talking, shouting, and selling everyday goods. People cover one of their ears with a hand so that they can hear when talking on a phone. Additionally, people need to use a hand in front of the mouth to cover the space between the mouth and the phone to protect from background noise.

Using local help is absolutely crucial when conducting cultural research, not only to translate between languages but also between cultures. We involved local human–computer interaction specialists with expertise in the field of mobile communications. However, company-internal employees are needed for conducting the research because they know their own company and its business objectives and products. Without such understanding it is difficult to sharpen focus because—as mentioned above—needs are product-related matters.

The research team was aware of the richness of India as a cultural region when choosing the two cities to be visited. New Delhi and Mombai were selected because both cities have a developed mobile communication culture on an Indian scale, and they can be seen as trendsetters for the rest of the country. Still, it has to be remembered that the study’s results are oriented to New Delhi and Mumbai. India is a vast area, and one needs to be careful with any generalizations.

We followed the basic rules of the contextual inquiry method:³

• Go where the user is and see an activity as it occurs.

• Cooperate with the user to comprehend his or her activities.

• Make interpretations to ferret out the design implications of the users’ behavior.

• Focus on the activities most relevant to the design.

In addition, we collected artifacts, that is, objects of interest telling about communication and personalization needs. Conducting this kind of user observation requires an open-minded attitude and adequate social skills. A researcher has to entertain new ideas, be communicative in turn, and willingly learn from the users who the experts are when it comes to their everyday lives. The researcher has to become the user’s apprentice.

^[4]H. Beyer, and K. Holtzblatt, Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.

^[3]S. Ruuska, “Mobile Communication Devices for International Use—Exploring Cultural Diversity through Contextual Inquiry,” in IWIPS Proceedings, USA, 1999.