Research and Inspiration

Seamless mobility

4.0 Mobility
These works illustrate just the tip of the iceberg, showing how innovation can be produced by traditional cultures. Engagement with rich cultural domains creates advancement in user interface ideas. With respect to culture, against the background of globalization, the mobile technology designer must not assume that forms can be simply transplanted from Silicon Valley or Scandinavia to traditional cultures. Instead, designers will need to interact with cultural enviornments, learning from the cultural milieu, to create culturally reflective computing and product design.

Second, the richness of mobile interface concepts shows that true "mobility" is not information theory inspired, i.e. shipping bits wirelessly across space, but rather means shipping "culture", and connecting across time. Research needs to examine the relation between personal devices and people for their ergonomic as well as symbolic needs.

Next, the relationship between the individual and the group or the individual and the community needs to be examined in the context of collective rituals. Here the communal myths as seen through a traditional society's eyes come to play. True mobility happens when communication becomes richer, and devices provide people with access to multiple dimensions of experience. In essence, the technologies that would otherwise homogenize people can thrive being platforms for cultural expression.


Ranjit Makkuni
Visions of culture in the era of mobility
http://www.vodafone.com/flash/receiver/12/articles/index07.html