Nokia's Cellphone Anthropologist

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist have an interview with a Nokia researcher who uses anthropological methods to study how people use their phones. His work currently focuses on watching how people in emerging markets like Africa use their devices to inform designs. For example, after finding that in Uganda many people use one handset, they shipped a version with multiple separate address books. There's also a slideshow of Chipchase's research images."

TEDTalk

[JustinOpinion]

For those of you who prefer video, here's Jan Chipchase's TED talk [youtube.com], which covers similar topics.

Re:multiple separate address books

[srothroc]

I think it's a common feature; it's not really touted as being "multiple address books", but rather as the ability to separate contacts into groups.

I don't actually remember if any of my US cell phones had it, though I feel like they did. My cell phones here in Japan certainly do, though.

Re:multiple separate address books

[merreborn]

being able to separate work contacts, from social contacts and from old school contacts would be great.

I picked up a $40 LG phone [huddler.com] at AT&T with their "pay as you go" plan a couple of months ago, and it has this feature. And not much else.

Re:multiple separate address books

[maxume]

My $30 junker phone has categories. I think it will do an arbitrary amount of phone numbers for each contact, but I don't know that many people with 2 cell phones...

Re:TEDTalk

[vrmlguy]

And here's the NY Times article from two months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13anthropology-t.html [nytimes.com]. Covers a lot of the same material, but in greater detail.

Re:multiple separate address books

[maxume]

My $30 phone is an LG. I can go into the entry for a contact, select a number and then edit the category associated with that number. It would seem like a smart phone would have a similar capability.

Re:Cellphones as "enablers"

[infaustus]

Completely right. Actually, the Dacia Logan the GP uses as an example is actually becoming very popular in France, not just the less developed markets it was designed for.

Re:Cellphones as "enablers"

[sznupi]

Then you might be surpised that Nokia does design new "cheap" phones. And it seems it pays off, the first one is both world's best selling phone and best selling consumer electronics device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1110 [wikipedia.org]