Enabling Farming through
Mobile Devices - Nokia
Project Introduction and Goal:
Short Path, a division of Remote 3D Technologies Pvt. Ltd. conducted a significant project in collaboration with Symbiosis Institute of Design and Industrial Design Center (IIT-B). The project title was “Enabling Microtrade through Portable Communication Devices” and was sponsored by Nokia, for over a year (2007-2008).
The main goal of this project was to study Micro-Trade networks (for the purpose of this project, Farming was chosen as a Micro-trade) and how mobile technology can be used to enhance communication and facilitate Micro-trade practises through the use of a Portable Communication Enabled Device. It was decided that the "Portacomm" would be the device for the design of which, a need-gathering research would be conducted.
Please note: Click here to see Project strategy and plan document.
Short Path, a division of Remote 3D Technologies Pvt. Ltd. conducted a significant project in collaboration with Symbiosis Institute of Design and Industrial Design Center (IIT-B). The project title was “Enabling Microtrade through Portable Communication Devices” and was sponsored by Nokia, for over a year (2007-2008).
The main goal of this project was to study Micro-Trade networks (for the purpose of this project, Farming was chosen as a Micro-trade) and how mobile technology can be used to enhance communication and facilitate Micro-trade practises through the use of a Portable Communication Enabled Device. It was decided that the "Portacomm" would be the device for the design of which, a need-gathering research would be conducted.
Please note: Click here to see Project strategy and plan document.
User Research approach:
The Micro-trade to be studied was decided to be Agriculture/Farming in the rural and semi-urban sectors of the state of Maharashtra in India. The penetration of mobile phones in these sectors is tremendous in India and thus the potential of deploying a farmer-friendly device in these regions is also great. The team decided that we would study 18-20 farming families and their respective social networks in order to gather data that would help us to design the "Portacomm". Their social networks included several "nodes" (middlemen) that were integral parts of the agricultural trade. These nodes had their own networks around them and therefore a complex trading "web" became the subject of our study.
The Micro-trade to be studied was decided to be Agriculture/Farming in the rural and semi-urban sectors of the state of Maharashtra in India. The penetration of mobile phones in these sectors is tremendous in India and thus the potential of deploying a farmer-friendly device in these regions is also great. The team decided that we would study 18-20 farming families and their respective social networks in order to gather data that would help us to design the "Portacomm". Their social networks included several "nodes" (middlemen) that were integral parts of the agricultural trade. These nodes had their own networks around them and therefore a complex trading "web" became the subject of our study.
Research Methodology:
Interview process:
Farmers and middlemen were asked about their trading practises and their techno-savviness based on mobile phone tasks that they were asked to demonstrate. Please see Interview Questionnaire for details on questions and tasks given to subjects. They were probed about who they communicate with on a regular basis for their trading needs and what is the mode of communication. In rural India, apart from the mobile, coin boxes and PCOs are extensively used. Subjects were interviewed for 1 hour approximately.
Please note: Click here to see Research Questionnaire
Analysis Phase:
Data collected/recorded in all formats - Interview notes, Audio files and Video files was analysed individually by all core team members. Individual insights were written and kept ready for the Affinity Collation. All core team members came together for the Affinity which was formed by individual insights grouped together to form logical groups. Once they were categorised, higher level insights were formulated. Thus, we got an overall, broad perspective on the whole project and all the various data points. (Pictures from the Analysis are shown below). In Affinity, the data was analysed in the following way:
1) Specific subject’s comment was stated
2) Insight drawn from specific subject comment
3) Design Idea drawn from Insight
Farmers and middlemen were asked about their trading practises and their techno-savviness based on mobile phone tasks that they were asked to demonstrate. Please see Interview Questionnaire for details on questions and tasks given to subjects. They were probed about who they communicate with on a regular basis for their trading needs and what is the mode of communication. In rural India, apart from the mobile, coin boxes and PCOs are extensively used. Subjects were interviewed for 1 hour approximately.
Please note: Click here to see Research Questionnaire
Analysis Phase:
Data collected/recorded in all formats - Interview notes, Audio files and Video files was analysed individually by all core team members. Individual insights were written and kept ready for the Affinity Collation. All core team members came together for the Affinity which was formed by individual insights grouped together to form logical groups. Once they were categorised, higher level insights were formulated. Thus, we got an overall, broad perspective on the whole project and all the various data points. (Pictures from the Analysis are shown below). In Affinity, the data was analysed in the following way:
1) Specific subject’s comment was stated
2) Insight drawn from specific subject comment
3) Design Idea drawn from Insight
A number of such insights were drawn which formed the Affinity Diagram.
In addition, context models diagrams were created to show the network around each farmer or middleman in the trading practise. These models gave us a quick overview of the subjects' usage of devices and communication circle.
Final Insights:
The final insights were formed using the technique described above. We found that as far as techno-savviness was concerned, the subjects studied demonstrated a mid-to-high level of proficiency in tasks related to mobile phone usage. Record-keeping emerged as the single most important task that they carried out with relation to their trading practises and which could become a potential function in the Portacomm. Several such insights were drawn from the research which were collated in a presentation format for presentation to Nokia. Some of them are shown below.
In addition, context models diagrams were created to show the network around each farmer or middleman in the trading practise. These models gave us a quick overview of the subjects' usage of devices and communication circle.
Final Insights:
The final insights were formed using the technique described above. We found that as far as techno-savviness was concerned, the subjects studied demonstrated a mid-to-high level of proficiency in tasks related to mobile phone usage. Record-keeping emerged as the single most important task that they carried out with relation to their trading practises and which could become a potential function in the Portacomm. Several such insights were drawn from the research which were collated in a presentation format for presentation to Nokia. Some of them are shown below.
My role and responsibilities:
I was involved in this project as one of the Consultants guiding the students in their various activities for the project. As an Ethnography Lead, I was involved in the project right from deciding its strategy, and I enjoyed working on it on all its aspects. After meeting with subject matter experts I created a project plan (Please see link to this document) along with another consultant's inputs. Therefore I had to exercise my planning and managing skills. When the project kicked off, I was given the responsibility to train the students (SID) in research techniques, like conducting an in-depth interview with subjects/users. I was at the forefront of this activity with able guidance from senior consultants wherever needed. In the second phase of the project, that is the Analysis phase, along with the other consultants, I worked on deriving insights from the data gathered. This was a challenging phase as there was a lot of data to be analysed. Summing up, the following were my responsibilities:
• Training students in basic Research methods and techniques like interview, note-taking.
• Preparing questionnaire for field research
• Participation in field research and data gathering
• Supervising data logging and report creation
• Participation in data analysis
• Final report creation for presentation
VIEW FILES:
KEY EARLY INSIGHTS
INSIGHTS
I was involved in this project as one of the Consultants guiding the students in their various activities for the project. As an Ethnography Lead, I was involved in the project right from deciding its strategy, and I enjoyed working on it on all its aspects. After meeting with subject matter experts I created a project plan (Please see link to this document) along with another consultant's inputs. Therefore I had to exercise my planning and managing skills. When the project kicked off, I was given the responsibility to train the students (SID) in research techniques, like conducting an in-depth interview with subjects/users. I was at the forefront of this activity with able guidance from senior consultants wherever needed. In the second phase of the project, that is the Analysis phase, along with the other consultants, I worked on deriving insights from the data gathered. This was a challenging phase as there was a lot of data to be analysed. Summing up, the following were my responsibilities:
• Training students in basic Research methods and techniques like interview, note-taking.
• Preparing questionnaire for field research
• Participation in field research and data gathering
• Supervising data logging and report creation
• Participation in data analysis
• Final report creation for presentation
VIEW FILES:
KEY EARLY INSIGHTS
INSIGHTS
Pictures from the pilot study at Wardha
Pictures from the field research at Junnar and Pune:
Context models of Famers/farming families of their lives revolving around media and mobile usage:
Some pictures from the Analysis phase. Core team members worked on the Affinity diagram.
Some insights from the research:
