Posts tagged ‘culture’
Oct
12
2010
Mapping European Stereotypes
Europe’s cultural, ethnic, religious, and political diversity naturally leads to its various nationalities developing stereotypes of the Others. Graphic designer Yanko Tsvetkov created a series of entertaining maps to give us an idea of a few countries’ perspectives of their neighbouring states.
It’s interesting to note how these stereotypes typically reveal more about the country (or our perception of the them) that is doing the criticizing.
Europe according to Britain
Europe according to France
Europe according to United States
Via FlowingData
Jul
29
2010
Colours in Culture
A visualization mapping of how different cultures across the globe attribute different meanings to colour. Not only is it interesting to compare the differences in how colours are perceived, but also how certain attributes or values carry meaning in a culture or not at all.
Source: Information is Beautiful
Oct
06
2009
Nuit Blanche ’09
Torontonians came out in droves last Saturday for the 4th annual “free all-night contemporary art thing” that ran from sunset to sunrise. It’s spectacular to see such an event bring out so much people and liveliness out to the streets during the wee hours of the night to experience city-wide art exhibits. Projects ranged from the playful and participatory to the haunting and mysterious.
Of course, this type of creative happening also brings out spontaneous activities unplanned by the city: buskers with fire and chainsaws, collectives encouraging group gatherings in the middle of the street, and my favourite, an awesome 8-bit musician by the name of deadbeatblast performing electronic music using the sounds from playing GameBoy and Nintendo games.
Unfortunately in the 6 hour span I was out, I didn’t get the chance to see all the exhibits on my must-see list and completely had to skip out on an entire zone. It’s become a victim of its own success — meaning huge lineups and massive crowding. Some projects had up to 75 minute waiting times, such as the fantastic Space Becomes the Instrument (but quite worth it in the end.) In total I probably waited around 2.5 hours in lineups, which was a horribly inefficient way to spend my time.
Below maps the highlights of my evening from 10pm to 4am.
Sep
30
2009
A Phone That’s More Than a Phone
The culture of cute is rampant in Japan, especially with the youth. One trend that remains ever so popular, and to which I myself have succumbed in my youthful days, is taking silly/cute/glamourous pictures with friends in pod-like photo booths. Back in the day, these pictures were printed out on wallet-sized cards or a page of stickers, but this time around I observed an interesting phenomenon of downloading the images to cellphones.
Considering the ubiquity and high-tech functions of the cellphone in Japan, it seems like a natural evolution of the “sticker booth” past time. Rather than printing out physical copies of pictures, you can now simply put your cellphone up to a screen at the side of the booth, and voilà, the images are available on your phone ready to be used as wallpaper or mass-mailed to your 100 closest friends.
Sep
28
2009
Tokyo Morning Commute
Experiencing a morning rush hour commute on Tokyo’s metro is a fascinating, albeit overwhelming ride. In a car stuffed with crushing bodies, just when I don’t think I can physically get any closer to a perfect stranger, more people take the plunge in at each new station stop.
In a city as dense as Tokyo, these cramped commutes are a daily fact of life. Imagine not even having the room to lift up your arm to hold on to a pole yet in the end not making any difference since the mass of bodies squishing against you seem to keep you in balance from falling.
A subway etiquette I appreciate over all of Japan is the restricted use of cell phones, which makes the ride unbelievably quiet. Unlike in Hong Kong, where everyone chats loudly on their mobiles, Japanese subways are filled with people busily texting or playing games on their cellphones. Just a tiny glimpse of everyday life in Japan.
Mar
03
2009
Analyzing Vending Machine Interaction
We focused our analysis on the drink machines we found on the HK PolyU campus and examined the current task scenario of buying a drink. James documents his experience as follows:
After walking through the scenario we documented the problems we encountered:
Transaction
- requires preselecting monetary amount for desired drink
- narrow coin slot is quite cumbersome and time-consuming
- requires adequate control of manual dexterity
- using the Octopus card
- close proximity to the card reader will inadvertently process the transaction automatically when selecting a deduction amount
- confusion between product interface and associated transaction interface
Information and Selection
- pressing wrong button accidentally
- not realizing desired drink is sold out
Accessibility
- physically bend down, flip up flap, reach into machine to pick up drink
- problematic for those with physical limitations
- not enjoyable or hygenic to stick hand in the dark, unclean slot
User Experience
Source: http://www.uselog.com/2007/11/please-do-not-hump-vending-machine.html
We encountered a lot of interaction points that provide an experience that is not enjoyable nor delightful. If we look at the vending machine with goals of convenience offering quick, self-service for purchasing small snacks and refreshments, we can liken them to convenience stores like 7-11. Let us consider the advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages Customers have visual information of the actual drinks and availability. They can use the physical action of picking up a drink, read the information, re-select, etc. before making a decision. Payment is easy and natural via cash (bills and coins) or Octopus. Additionally, going to a store is a sociable activity; people tend to go as a group eat together afterward.
Disadvantages Stores are located in certain locations and only open only during particular hours, so people are limited to location and time. Another problem customers encounter are long lineups during busy hours.
Social and Cultural Dimensions
An interesting side observation we noted was the role of communication and cultural dimensions that played into people’s decisions and behaviours in relation to the use of the vending machine. In a collectivist society such as Hong Kong, people tend to look to others for decision-making cues; that is, people are influenced by what they see others doing. In our studio, there have been “trends” of popular drinks that everyone will start drinking. Once somebody has started to drink melon soy milk and continue that pattern, others will notice and subsequently try out the drink as well. And now, the melon soy milk will often be sold out!
Feb
23
2009
Taipei aka Japan Lite?
On a recent weekend trip to Taipei I discovered the city to be quite an interesting mix of mainland China and Japan. On the one hand, roads are much winder and space seems more abundant allowing for more green space and parks (something I don’t see much of in Hong Kong). In the denser shopping/entertainment districts, the streets begin to look more like Japan’s urban landscape with vertical shop signs and the familiar ubiquitous Japanese shops like Family Mart and Mister Donut.
Apart from the streetscape, many buildings in Taipei are built with a Japanese architectural style and Japanese-style teahouses are dotted throughout the city. Additionally, Taiwan boasts having the world’s highest number of Japanese restaurants outside of Japan. Of course, besides trying the famous local dishes of beed noodles, shaved ice, Taiwanese breakfast hamburger, one must also enjoy some Japanese food (“kareh raisu,” anyone?), which tastes just as good as any authentic version in Japan.
Taiwan is also big on tea culture, especially milk tea. Walking into any 7-11 store, you can have any choice from an entire fridge of teas, ranging from black to green or milk teas in various flavours. Bubble tea also originated from Taiwan, so it is no wonder why the locals love their teas in all styles and flavours with tapioca or jelly (and again, either flavoured on non!)
Nov
17
2008
Sai Yeung Choi Street
Setting out to Sai Yeung Choi Street South in Mong Kok to conduct field observations can be quite overwhelming. Being in the heart of one of the most dense areas on the entire planet, one’s senses can be completely inundated by glowing cantilevered signs, wafting smells of street food, blaring sounds of music and voices through loudspeakers, and the pushing of bodies in the moving crowds.
Hong Kong’s tourism board touts the street as “Electronics Street” so we decided to map the street layout to include the store category types lining the street. We also studied the sidewalk and vehicular road space along with the directional traffic routes.
With the implementation of a pedestrian scheme, we realized it made sense that the street employs ever-changing one-way directions to discourage vehicular traffic. During the evenings and weekends pedestrians take over and the street comes alive with spontaneous performances and informal activities and social gatherings.
After observing street activity during the daytime and evening on both weekdays and weekends, we analyzed the various spaces, uses, and activities present on Sai Yeung Choi and mapped them along private/public and informal/formal axes. From this point we decided to focus our field research to address our hypothesis: enabling pedestrian activity facilitates new interactions and functions on Sai Yeung Choi Street South, defining its unique character in the context of Mong Kok’s themed streets and making it a good public place for youth.
