chads, Brazilians were submitting their votes electronically via their own homegrown
system, UE2000. Developed
to perform even in the 90 percent humidity of the Amazon
region, the system has been
a success around the country
and has since been deployed in
Argentina and Mexico [ 11].
[ 11] Smith, C. E. Design
for the Other 90%. Paris:
Editions Assouline,
2007.
time design staff dedicated to
studying the practices of users
at work and at play. Recent
Nokia models have featured a
multiple phonebook to support
phone sharing—common among
emerging-market families—
as well as dust resistance and
a user interface in up to 80
languages. The phone is also
equipped with a prepaid tracker
that lets the vast majority of
emerging-market users, who
use prepaid service plans, keep
track of their usage and call
expenses.
As Desai points out, “The
need is to develop products that
are appropriate rather than
merely cheap. Nokia created a
mobile phone with a flashlight;
no technological miracle, but an
innovation that understood the
rural Indian’s needs [ 10].”
[ 12] “Mobile Phones,
the New Currency.”
Indiatimes Infotech, 25
April 2007.<http://info-
tech.indiatimes.com/
Technology/Mobile_
phones_the_new_cur-rency/articleshow/
msid-1954845,curpg- 1.
cms>
Hydro Rollers and Wallet
Phones—the Infrastructure
Question
The extent to which well-designed mobile phones have
become the telecommunications standard in emerging
markets brings to mind assumptions about the technological
infrastructure so easily made
by designers from outside the
target—as well as the ways in
which contextually appropriate
design can help markets leapfrog generations of technology
entirely.
In thinking about emerging
markets, Web designers and ASP
engineers cannot take robust
broadband for granted. Product
designers also cannot assume
that a power grid is as reliable
as it might be in developed markets. That said, well-meaning
Western designs for the other
90 percent feature a dispropor-
tionate share of low-technology
solutions like cycle-powered,
low-bandwidth B&W screens,
hydro-rollers, and foot-operated
water pumps [ 11]. These are
great solutions for populations
in which high technology is not
yet part of daily life, but newer
mobile technologies not requiring an extensive infrastructure
or other dependencies are rapidly making their way into even
the least developed regions of
the world, and reaching “the
bottom of the pyramid.”
In fact, the less developed
the market, the better an incubator it can be for innovative
ways of thinking about design.
Unencumbered by “hardwired”
networks and established patterns for product usage, new
designs can far more quickly
establish themselves as the
standard in developed countries.
As in many developing markets, the terrestrial telephone
grid in much of Africa and
South Asia is not well established, and the financial services system has left many people
without banks. Consequently,
mobile phones have emerged
not only as the communications
standard, but also as a preferred financial instrument. By
providing a range of near-field
communications features not
generally available in the West,
including money transfers and
an e-cash feature, mobile phone
providers like the Philippines’
Globe Telecom have become a
kind of shadow banking system.
A new term, “wallet phones,”
has sprung up to describe how
the currency-free future is
dawning in these “developing
countries” [ 12].
In 2000, while the U.S. was
still wrangling over hanging
In Search of Emotional Data,
the Bollywood Method
As designers survey the range
of factors that influence product adoption—infrastructures,
culture, language and dialect,
purchasing power, literacy,
urbanism, and terrain—
entering an emerging market can
seem like traipsing through a
minefield. It’s not an inept analogy if one approaches design
in the same old way. If the failure to understand the target
market is the cardinal sin that
causes so many other emerging
design missteps, it is using traditional methods of design that
causes designers to misunderstand their target market in the
first place.
Conventional design methods are fine for conventional
markets. Founded on familiar
use patterns, cultural values,
and market expectations, the
processes and techniques keep
designers well within their
comfort zone. Successful design
for emerging markets, on the
other hand, requires radical
innovation. It demands culturally sensitive and sometimes
unorthodox approaches that can
throw a designer off balance.
But it’s only when designers
transcend conventional thinking
about product design that they
come to really understand their
target market and users and