All In the Name of Product Development

Okay, I've finally found the second best job in the world. (The first best job, of course, is being editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal and working for a great boss. That performance review season is just around the corner has nothing to do with my saying that.)

Unfortunately for me, Jan Chipchase already holds the second best job in the world, although at the pace he's been going, I just might have a shot at it one of these days. Jan is a principal engineer for Nokia Research where he splits his time between running user studies and developing new applications, services, and products. Chipchase specializes in what's called "consumer behavior research" where he leads teams of concept/industrial designers, psychologists, usability experts, sociologists, and ethnographers into the field--and hopefully gets them home safely.

I say "hopefully" because Chipchase doesn't necessarily hang out at your local Target or Best Buy store, polling consumers about what they like (or don't like) about cell phones. Instead, Chipchase goes to the end of the Earth--literally--to ask find out what, how, and why people do what they do when it comes to mobile phones. Places like Mongolia, Uganda, Tibet, and the like. He also visits run-of-the-mill places you'd expect--China, India, Latin America, and even the U.S. on occasion.

When there (wherever "there" happens to be at the time), Chipchase employs a variety of observation techniques, including: "shadowing" people as they come and go throughout the day (with their permission, of course), "wallet mapping" (where they divulge what's inside their wallet or purse), "contextual interviews" (where he walks around with them), and even conducting "expert interviews" (such as with blind people who explain how they use cell phones). Of particular interest to Chipchase are the nearly 800 million illiterate people of the world, who somehow need to be able to navigate the often less than intuitive user interfaces of mobile phones.

More often than not, what Chipchase and company discover is amazing even to them. Like rural Ugandan cell-phone owners who make a living by becoming virtual ATMs using pre-paid phone card credits, or street vendors in India who repair cell phones using nothing more than a screwdriver and toothbrush.

The end result of Chipchase chasing around the world like this is his coming back to Nokia product development teams with information that informs and inspires them to look at cell phones in new and different ways, and design products accordingly.

Walking around talking to people? Sounds okay to me. Checking out cell phone use in Mongolia? Sure, I can handle that. Just give me an interpreter and an unlimited American Express card and I'll be on the back of a yak heading that way. After all, the boss says that she likes it when I'm on the road. Of course, she didn't say where or how. Come to think about it, she didn't say anything about that unlimited American Express card either.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 06:39 AM  Permalink