Interactions - July/August 2009

demand the next new thing (you only have to look at how people buy and discard mobile technology) or how they want to buy new things all the time. Look at the cars people drive in HK: It’s rare to see anything older than the mid-1990s.

Patrick: This trend makes me wonder how quality is addressed. Indeed, we are all struggling to get people to recognize our work here. It all seems like an assembly line. The other day a friend from Europe was buying a leather bag in HK, and to her surprise the sales person said, “Miss, this is real leather! Don’t worry, it’ll last for at least a year.” My friend was rather confused, as she expects a leather bag to last at least 10 years ( regardless of her using it that long). In another case, while she was buying a mobile phone, the shop assistant said: “I change my mobile phone every six months.” I recall hearing this comment quite often in HK, while in Europe I quite often heard a different story: “I’d like a very simple to use yet good-quality phone that does phone calls and SMS well.” Although this is not shared by everyone in the respective cultures, this serves to make a point on the two extremes: new, fully featured products to be used for a few months versus simpler products doing what I need well.

Alexis: Users here always end up buying a cheap product that doesn’t necessarily meet their needs over a costlier product that is exactly what they want. That’s my take from discussions with business and marketing. However, my manager

would say, “Well, the thing is that we need to stick with the budget, we cannot get all the research that companies do in the U.S. or Europe...”

Sue: The story might be true, but not entirely. You might want to know that eye-track studies tell us that “the Chinese prefer a presentation if [it is] loaded with visual stimuli.” [ 1] The ads and other pop-ups are treated as information, while Westerners would see them as annoyances and bad design.

Kent: On the other hand, in the seminar organized by the HK Business of Design Week in 2008 in reply to the question, “How do we keep up with the speed to innovate before the competition,” Larry Keeley said that if we are working with tight deadlines, then most probably we are doing very similar products as the competition—no innovation at all—thus the need to rush [ 2]. By doing your own projects you will have some lead time to explore the concepts, try and test them, and develop without trying to launch before another company, because your proposition is more compelling and innovative.

James: That’s where research can help a lot. After all, if you don’t know about what you are going to design, you won’t find a good solution. I think we need to buy into the idea that research requires strategic movements and identification of implications to the design and user experience, and it ultimately adds value to the product. Besides finding new niches, one must identify needs that are not yet met.

Conclusion

In this highly challenging context, one can conclusively identify a tendency of companies wanting to jump straight into design without asking themselves if there really is a need for an endless number of products.

On the other hand, our consumer society seems to not question this, and is demanding more variety than ever. Nonetheless, Hong Kong is a vibrant market ready to try out new business. There is lot of action, but too little reflection. Maybe interaction design should be discussed around dim-sum tables more than in meeting rooms.

[ 1] Hotchkiss, G. “A Tale of Two Cultures.” http://searchengineland. com/a-tale-of-t wo- cultures-11356.

Acknowledgements I’d like to thank all the participants in our interaction design meetings. A special thanks to Jane Ngai and Paul Lee, who helped in framing this article and in collecting the input, and Alfreda Yu, Belle Liu, Daniel Szuc, Harry Llufrio, Nicolas Lassus, Nicole Schadewitz, and Sebastian Ho.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Pedro “Adler” Jorge is an interaction designer with a background in design, technology, and user research. He has designed

Web-based collaboration tools and led international workshops on interaction design and participatory design. Currently at Philips Design in Hong Kong, Adler is working on multimedia devices and desktop applications. In his role as a senior interaction designer, he also questions current design processes and the integration of design, business, and engineering to improve the company’s UX strategy. Time permitting, he would like to continue his research work on design processes for collaboration, as well as learn the piano.