Designing Mobile Solutions for Social & Economic Contexts

MORE THAN JUST
AN APP
Designing Mobile Solutions
for Social & Economic Contexts
Bangalore, India 9 October 2013
We’re from ThoughtWorks, and we’re here to talk about how mobile can solve unique problems in meaningful ways in different social
contexts.

A LITTLE ABOUT JONNY
Thinker. Designer. Doer.
Ten years working on software
products. Six in mobile.
I like to ship mobile products that work.

A BIT ABOUT NAG
VP Global South Strategy.
Involved in mobile since 2002,
starting with the Simputer project.

1. What is design?
2. Social context in the West.
3. Social context in the Global South.
4. The coming Ubi-Comp revolution.
5. Thinking like a designer.
WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT...

What is design, exactly?
Jonny, on
design.

A process of creating order
from chaos.
Combining disjointed parts into something complete and cohesive.
From disintegrated to integrated.
By doing this we enhance order, purpose and meaning of a thing.

A solution to a problem,
within a set of constraints.
Go beyond cohesive integration. It must be useful.
As a user, you have needs to be met.
A solution must meet those needs in context to my environment and it’s constraints.

• Architects design living environments within the
constraints of space and material
• Civil engineers design infrastructure within the
constraints of material
• Advertising graphic designers design
communication within the constraints of media
• City planners design public transport services
within the constraints of traﬃc and infrastructure
A FEW DIFFERENT FLAVOURS

Mobile product designers
solve problems for people
within the constraints of
business and technology.

User Centred
Design
(desirability)
Technology
(feasibility)
Business
(viability)
Product
Innovation
Consider ALL the parts
Where Business & Technology meet (like in big business), often the user experience suffers.
When Business & Design is the focus (like in advertising), solutions might not be feasible or efficient
With Design & Technology (as in startups), it’s often viability that suffers

TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS USER NEEDS CONVENTIONS
feasibility
hardware
browsers
network access
input methods
display
technology
bandwidth
viability
time
budget/cost
capabilities
revenue model
demand
resources
desirability
proposition
unmet needs
value
goals
design principles
guidelines
interaction
models
patterns
style guides
A snapshot of some constraints and
considerations

Embrace constraints
“When forced to work within a strict framework the
imagination is taxed to its utmost - and will produce
its richest ideas. Given total freedom the work is
likely to sprawl.” -T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot was an American publisher and playwright in the 1880’s
He understood the importance of embracing constraints.
He’s saying that without constraint, the work suffers, and with constraint, the mind is at it’s most creative.

Jugaad
Work it out yourself,
with whatever you’ve got.
The indian word Jugaad means an improvisation or work around, which is necessary because of lack of resources.
Improvisation ≠ design, but the same creativity that embraces constraint is necessary for good design.

Système D
This is a universal.
In France, this is called Système D

Jietinho
In Brazil, it’s Jietinho

Zizhu Chuangxin
And China has Zizhu Chuangxin

A few examples of overcoming constraints from the Global South...
Indian cappuccino machine made from a pressure cooker.

African mobile phone charger
...We will see a little later why this is such a big deal

Filipino light bulb.
That’s a water bottle refracting light through a hole in a tin roof.

Examples from the West. Yellow Pages Mobile, 2008
• tiny screens
• proprietary or weird browsers
(Obigo on old LGs; Nokia WebKit 419 on old Nokias; NetFront on Sony Ericsson, IE on WinMobile Palm devices)
• tedious input method (T9, keypad)
• low bandwidth connections
As a result, this required dozens of different versions of the interface, served up conditionally according to the client device’s capability to
render the interface. Messy and complicated, yet a solution to constraints.

NAB Mobile Banking apps, 2010-11
• 15 Year old infrastructure and systems
• No APIs
• very aggressive budgets
• Extremely high level of security required meant a lot of technical complexity
Quite a lot of improvisation required to create the perception of simplicity for users.

https://speakerdeck.com/jonnyschneider
Natural language banking prototype, 2012
‘Siri for banking’
• latency
• the nuance of human linguistics (machine understanding)
• multi-modal interactions
There’s an entire talk on this, if you want more detail on that

Social context awareness is as
important as technical ability.

Do
RIGHT
Things
Build
Things
RIGHT
Build
RIGHT
things
You are probably
great at this part
This requires enquiry,
insight and vision
Building the right thing not just building the thing right.
Software quality. Engineering excellence. Performant architecture.
None of those things mean anything if no one uses your product.

Focus on proposition
(don’t be a hammer looking
for a nail)
Ask yourself:
• What problem is being solved?
• How will technology help to solve the problem?
• How will it maintain business viability?

HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
usable
reliable
functional
desirable
‘Designing for Emotion’, Aarron Walter, A Book Apart.
A remap of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, for products and services.
The goal (for the west) is often ‘desirable’. I don’t need it, but I want it.
We can do this by making an emotional connection with customers, to elicit a choice or preference to use the product.
It’s more than just getting a task done.

DESIRABLE: MORE THAN JUST ‘USABLE’
An example if clever emotional design. Any.do
Ostensibly, it’s just like every other task manager - It has a list of tasks, some are done, some aren’t.
Then it gets personal. It knows my name...
‘Any.do Moment’ helps me every morning to reduce the noise dozens of items down to 2-3 most important things
This makes me feel better about my day

THE WORLD ECONOMIC PYRAMID
Annual income Tier Population
$20,000+
($60/day)
1 0.10 Billion
$1,500-20,000 2 + 3 1.5-1.75 Billion
< $1,500
($4.10/day)
4 4 Billion
For now, just remember the top of the pyramid.
More than $20,000 income per year
One tenth of a billion people (only 1.4% of global population, 7 Billion)

Social context in the West
Jonny, on social context in developed
economies.

Pew Research, 2012. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Digital-diﬀerences/Main-Report/Internet-adoption-over-time.aspx
0
20
40
60
80
‘95 ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11
Internet adoption over time (percentage American adults)
Most people have access to the
internet.

The Australian Online Consumer Landscape Report, Nielsen 2012.
0
20
40
60
80
‘95 ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11
Internet adoption over time (percentage American adults)
82% of Australian adults
are online in 2012
It’s the same in
Australia.

Pew Research Center, 2012. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Digital-diﬀerences/Main-Report/The-power-of-mobile.aspx
0
15
30
45
60
75
90
Apr ‘06 Apr ‘08 Sep ‘09 Sep ‘10 Aug ‘11 Feb ‘12
Desktop PC
Laptop
Mobile Phone
Tablet
Adult gadget ownership over time
This isn’t a new story.
Mobile ownership is approaching saturation.
Tablet ownership on the rise.

Australia - Understanding the Mobile Consumer. Australian Bureau of Statistics. May, 2012. http://bit.ly/MKj8dq
Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index. 2011. http://www.aimia.com.au/ampli
The Australian Online Consumer Landscape Report, Nielsen 2012.
0
15
30
45
60
75
90
Apr ‘06 Apr ‘08 Sep ‘09 Sep ‘10 Aug ‘11 Feb ‘12
Desktop PC
Laptop
Mobile Phone
Tablet
In Australia...
★110% mobile device penetration
★52% of those are smartphones
★18 % tablet ownership
More phones than there are people.
Half of them are smartphones.
Strong tablet ownership.

Data: http://isc.org; http://amta.org.au; http://wikipedia.org and various websites
‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11
AMPS
Analogue
GSM
2G/WAP/WML/i-mode
3G UMTS
NextG
total number
of internet
destinations
A brief history lesson on the where, when and how of internet access.
• Voice Era - all about voice
• Feature Phone Era - starting to use the web
• Smartphone Era - using the web a lot

‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11
AMPS
Analogue
GSM
2G/WAP/WML/i-mode
3G UMTS
NextG
Telecom ‘Walkabout’
Motorola
Brick
SMS is born

‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11
AMPS
Analogue
GSM
2G/WAP/WML/i-mode
3G UMTS
NextG
Motorola
Brick
SMS is born
Nokia 5110
Motorola
RAZR
Palm Treo
1st mobile
web browsers
1st WebKit
browser
Predicti
ve
Text
VOICE ERA

‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11
AMPS
Analogue
GSM
2G/WAP/WML/i-mode
3G UMTS
NextG
Motorola
Brick
SMS is born
iPhone 3
HTC Dream
(1st
Android)
iPad 1
Nokia 5110
Motorola
RAZR
Palm Treo
1st mobile
web browsers
1st WebKit
browser
Predicti
ve
Text
VOICE ERA
FEATURE
PHONE ERA

‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11
AMPS
Analogue
GSM
2G/WAP/WML/i-mode
3G UMTS
NextG
Motorola
Brick
SMS is born
iPhone 3
HTC Dream
(1st
Android)
iPad 1
Nokia 5110
Motorola
RAZR
Palm Treo
1st mobile
web browsers
1st WebKit
browser
Predicti
ve
Text
VOICE ERA
FEATURE
PHONE ERA
SMART-
PHONE
ERA

The mobile device landscape
is now homogenised.
• Windows Mobile is gone (replaced with Windows Phone)
• Nokia is now Microsoft
• BlackBerry now has WebKit
• Android OEMs produce standardised(ish) hardware
• Android + iOS + Windows is generally enough for native app
• Samsung and iPhone dominate
• High-end devices are affordable for most people

Devices are part an
ecosystem of screens and
physical interfaces.
‘The future of mobile is the end of the term “mobile”’. Andrew Keen.
http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/21/what-is-the-future-of-mobile/
Mobile devices exist as part of an ecosystem.
High expectations for seamless integration.

1
2 + 3
4
usable
reliable
functional
desirable
Aﬄuent people in a saturated
market.
NEEDS ECONOMICS
The social context in the West is characterised by the two pyramids.
• high usage
• high expectations
• highly competitive...(sometimes) *monopolies or duopolies are common in Australia, but that’s another story.

‘Name of referenced work’, Author/source/URL, date.
Mobile must go beyond just ‘mobile’.
People expect integrated and seamless services, and there is usually a choice of product.
An example from Australia’s leading real estate website:
Search, browse and create a shortlist of properties in your lunch hour.

AirPlay or stream to SmartTV in the evening to discuss with your buying
partner.

Plan your day with the mobile app to help you get around on weekend property
inspections

Social context in the Global South
Nag, on the Global South.

What mobile apps would be
helpful for the base of the
pyramid?
During a social outreach program, we met a few fisherwomen.
We asked if technology could do anything for them. They asked for a device which did two things:
• find fish in the ocean - competitive advantage against big company trawlers.
• warn against tsunamis and other extreme conditions
Interesting problem, isn’t it?
The components (sensors etc.) clearly existed. But we were stumped. How to go about designing and making the device? Our eyes were
opened to a new dimension of mobility. We went on a journey to discover this dimension. Let me tell you that story...

Bradesco Bank:
Mobile banking on the
Amazon
How many of you have used Mobile banking?
Here’s what Mobile banking means to a bank in Brasil.
A Boat goes around the Amazon river with an ATM on board.
If they can’t come to the bank, the bank goes to them.

$15,000
portable
$300,000
immobile
GE China: Vscan
GE China’s Vscan is perfect for rural Global South
$300M in revenue in 5 years. In the end, exported to the west.

MOBILE CRM FOR INDIA
‘Missed call’ in India. This is at Bangalore airport.
When we think of CRM, we’re usually thinking of Salesforce or similar.
Missed call get’s the job done!

Nokia:
Long battery,
ﬂashlight,
FM Radio
This low cost Nokia device has FM, torchlight and runs for a week on one charge.
Can your smartphone say that?
Flashlight is highly functional, and useful, given that electricity and therefore lighting is never guaranteed.

WHAT SHOULD WE FOCUS ON?
Technically
Interesting
Socially
Important
Games
Social media
Advertising
eHealth
eLearning
eAgriculture
eGov
We realised that the Mobile industry was largely focussed on the wrong problems.
Games.

THE WORLD ECONOMIC PYRAMID
Annual income Tier Population
$20,000+
($60/day)
1 0.10 Billion
$1,500-20,000 2 + 3 1.5-1.75 Billion
< $1,500
($4.10/day)
4 4 Billion
Most of the Global South is at the bottom of the World Economic
Pyramid

usable
reliable
functional
desirable
NEEDS
In that environment, functionality is inevitably a more important need than desirability.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081005.html
ACCESS TO
ELECTRICITY
Only about 4% of the population has access to grid power in
Africa

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081005.html
GSM NETWORK
COVERAGE
Around 98% of the population has access to mobile coverage

A MOBILE CHARGING STATION IN AFRICA

We looked at examples of a broader definition of mobility. We discovered a number of companies in other industries working on to the
problem of how to make mobility relevant to the Global South.
Here are some examples...

Simpa: Pay As You
Go solar energy
Founded 2010 in San Francisco as a for-profit social enterprise with a vision to bring clean and sustainable energy to nearly billion people
living off the grid in the developing world. Their mission was to make clean solar energy affordable.
Total expenditure for off-the-grid energy sources—such as kerosene or batteries—is quite high. Over a 10-year period, households spend
$750- $1,500 on kerosene, candles, batteries, and phone charging—enough to pay for multiple high quality solar energy systems. But low-
income families cannot afford to pay the entire $400 up-front cost of a high quality SES, and traditional lenders won’t lend to households
without a dependable and steady income.

Total Cost of
Ownership
Flexibility of
Payments
Initial
Purchase
Price
Progressive purchase
Modeled on the familiar pay-as-you-go pricing model for prepaid mobile phone service.
Customers pre-pay, in cash, to “recharge” at local agents. Agents use SMS to communicate purchases to Simpa, where the core revenue
management software debits their account and sends back a usage code. The consumer later keys the code into their unit to receive the
amount of power that was purchased.
Top-ups also pay down the cost of the SES itself. When the cost is fully paid off, the SES unit is permanently unlocked and the energy
generated is free.

Lean, java and...
Open source WAP
and SMS gateway
Twelve weeks to Pilot and launch.
Kannel is free open source software that works as an SMS gateway for GSM networks.
The revenue management software had to be tested with the SES hardware and the text-messaging gateway.

mPedigree:
ﬁghting counterfeit drugs
67% of medicine sold is counterfeit
SMS code to get response if medicine is counterfeit or not is a good enough solution
Experts believe the counterfeit trade is worth about $700 billion a year. But it is the trade in fake medicines, in particular, that has raised the
greatest alarm: nearly 2,000 people are estimated to die from falsified and sub-standard medicines yearly.

The coming UbiComp revolution
Nag, on ubiquitous
computing

Android mini PC,
Arduino, Raspberry Pi

Arduino board,
connected to hand-wash
tap and GPRS unit
Aggregated usage reports
Monitoring usage of sanitation
A prototype project for ThoughtWorks in collaboration with a global health organisation.

Pulse sensor with battery
powered Arduino

• Agile/Lean Methods
• Multi-disciplinary engineering
• Being frugal and systems thinking
• Ecosystems
• Empathy and design
SKILLS FOR RADICAL MOBILITY

Thinking like a designer
Jonny, on thinking like a
designer.

RL +
Analytical
Fact-driven
Logical
Good at planning
Linear
Management
Planning
Visual
Intuitive
Lateral
Creative
Visionary
User Research
Empathy
People often think about Left OR Right brain thinking.
Left AND Right brain is much more powerful.
It’s a collaboration.
Analytical & Intuitive
Logical & Lateral
Factual & Creative

DESIGN IS MORE THAN
ABRACADABRA
You don’t need to a magician to do design.
Harness the power of the intelligence of others.

AND IT’S MORE THAN JUST DON DRAPER
And it’s not about being a design hero
either.

Everyone is a designer.
Listen.
Ask the right questions.
Empathise.
Synthesise meaning from insight.
Interpret. Find a vision. Be a communicator.

User Centred
Design
(desirability)
Technology
(feasibility)
Business
(viability)
Product
Innovation
A vision should encompass business, technology and users.
Don’t settle for your first ‘good idea’
understand the problem to be solved more fully, generate lots of ideas and solutions.
Work together to find the most robust and meaningful solutions.

You are a designer.
Engineering is design.
You are already doing design, even if you don’t know it.

Think about social and
economic context for the
products you make.

@jonnyschneider
au.linkedin.com/in/jonnyschneider/
jschneider@thoughtworks.com
@knagarjun
in.linkedin.com/in/knagarjun/
nag@thoughtworks.com

Designing Mobile Solutions for Social & Economic Contexts

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