Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

I stumbled on a paper by R.J. Honicky, et al., called “A message oriented phone system for low cost connectivity” when I was on Nathan Eagle’s publication page.  Nathan Eagle is the PI for EPROM.

This paper excited me because it’s about an idea for a voice message based system for people living in developing countries.  The system it proposes is much more concerned with hardware and infrastructure than my Pigeon idea, but it a great point for helping me to continue generating questions about communication in developing countires and to begin more academic research.

I had been thinking about Pigeon more in terms of international calling, but domestic use could be useful also.  As I’ve been talking to people about mobile phone use in Belize, there are still hoops people will jump through to save their credit.  Something that could help them save money and communicate more easily would have a good chance of being adopted.

The paper mentions how a voice message system would effectively put people on the grid who live in areas where there is no mobile coverage but travel often to areas with coverage.  In this case, asynchronous communication may be beneficial since when a person will be avaliable is unknown.  Honicky’s proposed system would allow people to record when they are unconnected and then to upload when they are in a connected area.

I’m beginning to do a few informal interviews with people I’ve got to know in San Ignacio.  I’m focusing on international (/***edit 15 June) technologically facilitated communication.  I’m interested in what people are doing now to communicate with those abroad, what specific problems they see, and how they could see things being easier and better for them.  I’d appreciate any suggestions on questions you think could provoke interesting discussion or insights.

Rough questions to get me going in conversation (in no particular order):

• Do you own a cell phone?
• Do you have a land line?
• What phone do you use to call abroad?
• How often do you call the US or abroad?
• How often to you text (SMS) the US or abroad?
• Do you own a computer?
• Do you often us a computer?
• Do you use email?
• Do you use Hi5 or another social network?
• Do you contact people abroad with Hi5 or another network?
• How else do you contact people abroad?
• How long have you owned a cell phone?
• If you could either pay your cable bill or put credit on your cell phone, which would you choose?
• If you could either pay your land line bill or put credit on your cell phone which would you choose?
• How old are kids when they get their first mobile phone?
• When kids have a parent abroad, how do you think they communicate with them?
• Do you trust the phone company?

/***edit 15 June

• How do you generally communicate with people in Belize?
• Do you do anything to conserve your mobile credit?

/***edit 16 June

• Follow up “Why?” questions to all questions

• White African
• Google Africa
• Google.org
• Do Good Well
• Open Source Africa
• Poverty and Social Development: a Caribbean Perspective

Brown is having a Better World By Design Conference November 7-9.  Also, their Better X Design blog.

From a NYTimes article, 28 May 2008:

“Africa, where 29 percent of the population owns a cellphone, according to Gartner, is just one of several promising markets. In India, market penetration is 34 percent, well below the United States, at about 70 percent, and Western Europe, at more than 90 percent.”

Essentially, the room for mobile phone growth in emerging markets is huge, not to mention the fact that these markets are huge in comparison to existing markets (the US, Western Europe).  This is discussed and understood, but specific statistics are essential in making the argument of how creating an affordable communication system for those living in these markets can, beyond being extremely helpful to individual lives, be economically possible.

“Highly Qualified Small Print”

via Jan Chipchase

Google Design in Practice: the Challenge of Simplicity on iTunesU.

Adam Baker works for Gmail and specifically worked on Gchat.  He talks about things design (rapid prototyping, scoping, etc.) and how that work in a corporate, engineering environment (Google).

Available on iTunesU: Problems and dsolutions with interactive devices

In this talk, Harold Thimbleby, of FIT Lab, is arguing that design (and life) problems can be effectively exposed through telling good stories.  The story format Thimbleby advocates for is a “dstory,” a video under 2 minutes with still images and voice over.

Dstories have the ability to shine light on problems which are generally accepted or overlooked in daily operation.  They use a particular incident to highlight a particular design problem by connecting to people you want to take action.

The Dstory method could be interesting for prototyping.  Thimbleby’s talk also highlights how annoying it is to quickly create and store video files.

A Primer on Smart Cards, David Pouge

via Carrie Mae

I need to get my brain thining in prototype mode, so I made myself make a look-and-feel and a role prototype.  Here they are:

Look-and-feel prototype for an SMS hurricane/tropical storm alert system for Belize.  It could be a national system.  It could be law that when a person buys a cell phone they must enroll or be asked if they’d like to enroll in the alert system.

There are huge technical issues here, but for me one big issue is how this would be made sustainable for the long-term.  Would it survive politcal transition?  What would it take to have people trust this as a reliable source of information?  Perhaps, who should the SMS come from for it to be trusted?  An NGO or the government?

Role prototype for an imaginary SMS based system which helps streamline micro-business operations.

In work I’ve done with volunteer groups looking into micro-business management, business-owners have had very low skills with money managment and other basic busienss planning.  If such a system were to exist, what would be most useful?  If fincancial information was being transmitted, what would need to be done for business owners to be comfortable with using the system?

More generally: what are tasks that people use computers for that mobile phones could replace, allowing greater access to people living in poverty who can much more easily (financially and logistically) purchase a phone versus a computer?