The Dilemma of the Shared
Mobile Phone — Culture
Strain and Product Design
in Emerging Economies
Apala Lahiri Chavan
Human Factors International | apala@humanfactors.com
Douglas Gorney
Human Factors International | gorney@california.com
Consider the cell phone. For us
it’s essential, and what’s more,
it’s everywhere. It is, in fact,
hard for people in developed
markets to remember what
it was like not to be available
24/7. The ability to reach anyone, anytime, from absolutely
anywhere has become a given.
Blue Toothed or iPhoned, the
connected yet very private (or
at least self-absorbed) world of
the cell phone could very well be
the quintessential expression of
Western culture.
Yet in much of the rest of the
world, where even clear, accessible landlines are more of a plan
than a reality, mobile telephony
is starting to have an impact.
Clearly, it’s a huge economic
opportunity for the industry. But
there’s more to entering these
markets than throwing up a network of towers. Before you get
the product in people’s hands,
it’s essential to understand the
culture.
Cultures are complex and
dynamic systems, moved by
often contradictory forces.
Looking only at the dominant
characteristics of a culture—as
more than a few companies have
done in failed attempts at cross-cultural marketing—is a bit like
the Indian story of several blind
men describing an elephant (“It’s
a wall!” “It’s a tree!” “No, it’s a
snake!”).
So when going from a cell-phone-rich environment to one
that is cell-phone poor, mobile
phone designers need to throw
out everything they thought
they knew about their product—
and about culture. Instead, they
have to look carefully at how
people actually use cell phones
in a particular emerging market. What they will find—as
will designers of every type of
product and service—are rich
opportunities for value-added
solutions that lie in the gaps
between cultural ideal and cultural practice.
To get a better idea of how
this sort of research works in the
cross-cultural design process,
let’s look at three scenarios from
an emerging market. In each
of these stories from India, a
Western product creates tension
and exposes tensions within
Indian culture itself.
An Indian Cell Phone
in Three Acts
I. Amar nudges his front door open
as quietly as he can—only to find
his parents sitting in the living
room, pretending to watch television.
They’d told him to be home from the
party by 10 p.m., and it’s midnight.
He’s in trouble, all right, but missing
his curfew is the least of the 17-year-
old’s worries right now.
Amar is his parents’ pride and
joy. They’ve already arranged a
“suitable” marriage for him. He
was allowed to go to the party only
on the condition that he bring his
father’s cell phone and make himself
available at all times. In his rush
to get home, he forgot to erase the
12 calls and nine text messages he
placed that evening—all of them
to one person, his secret girlfriend,
Leena.
The late hour may actually work
in Amar’s favor. His father might
just forget about the phone and ask
for it in the morning. It’s his only
hope. He can’t let his father find out
about their relationship...
