Category Archives: Cases

At the first there was drive-me-to card

2014-01-06 Jaewoo Joo Leave a comment

[dt_gap height=”10″ /]Using taxi is tough where its fare has been traditionally determined by negotiation (e.g., Tuk tuk in Thailand). Even when the taxi driver turns on the meter, foreigners sometimes arrive at a wrong destination because they cannot speak local language. In order to relieve these concerns from the international travelers, some Bangkok hotels provide an interesting concierge service.

When a traveler asks a hotel employee for taxi, the concierge asks where the traveler wants to go. Then he checks the destination on the list or writes it down in the bottom in English as well as in Thai. When a taxi arrives, he writes down the taxi plate number, speaks loudly to the driver the destination, and then passes the card to the traveler. Although the card plays nothing, many foreign travelers mentioned that simply keeping it with them while sitting in the taxi helps them feel safe and secure.

Alternatively, Uber now eliminates all these hassles. 🙂

Cases

Marketing in Chinese Language

2013-12-30 Jaewoo Joo Leave a comment

I have long believed that marketing is a unique business discipline because it cannot be translated into Chinese. Different from Marketing, other business disciplines have their own Chinese names: Accounting is 會計, Finance is 財務, Manufacturing is 生產, OB/HRM is 組織/人事, and Strategy is 戰略.

Interestingly, however, marketing department at the Window of the world (世界之窗) in Shenzhen, China, was written in market (市場) department. I wish Chinese marketers either accept the English name of marketing or invent a new name of it in Chinese because marketing, the activity through which people understand a given market or create a new market, clearly differs from market.

Cases

Helmet-shaped booth of an insurance company

2013-12-23 Jaewoo Joo Leave a comment

OOH (Out-Of-Home) advertising is any type of advertising that reaches the consumer while he or she is outside the home. Since this medium is in contrast with broadcast, print, and Internet advertising, it is focused on marketing to consumers when they are “on the go” in public places, in transit, waiting (such as in a medical office), and/or in specific commercial locations (such as in a retail venue) (see more in Wikipedia).

While staying in Bangkok, I met a creative OOH advertising made by AIA (Chinese: 友邦保險), a Hong Kong-based insurance company who has offices in many Asia-Pacific countries. I found many helmet-shaped booths standing on the street: some are used for bikers or cyclists to take some breaks and others are used for simple demonstration. Although the booths may not enhance the real security of the street, I felt safe when I saw them, which is similar to when I saw Starbucks or Tim Hortons on the street. More importantly, I inferred my psychological security from the real security; I considered AIA as a company who can protect me from a dangerous financial market. Nicely done! 🙂

Cases

TCDC, Design center at Bangkok, Thailand

2013-12-16 Jaewoo Joo Leave a comment

Bangkok is well-known for Kao San Road, Pad Thai, and foot massage. Like other Asian cities, however, it has an upscale design center. Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC) is located on the top floor in the Emporium shopping complex, a luxurious shopping mall in Bangkok. As this center is located at the heart of the city (Phrom Phong BTS station) and provides a wide variety of learning resources, it was crowded with young Thailand students who read books, discussed group projects, and participated in exhibitions about, for instance, 3D printing.

Interestingly, a huge red board stands in front of the TCDC and it contains many business cards. This board might play a role as a market; people who look for their partners or who need help, they can contact with other experts such as manufacturers, suppliers, traders, investors, consultants, etc.

Cases

Teaching design in the business school

2013-12-09 Jaewoo Joo Leave a comment

Some business schools offer design courses. The first business school that I introduce is the College of William & Mary’s Mason School of Business. According to the 2013 Bloomberg Businessweek Best Undergraduate Business-Schools ranking, it is the best in the nation for marketing (see the article here). In this school, undergraduate students learn and experience “design process” in their design courses such as “Creativity & Innovation,” “Sustainability Inspired Design,” or “Design as Strategy” led by two marketing professors, Scott Swan and Michael Luchs.

This business school has many top-notch marketing researchers, has a close relationship with other institutions and firms in Virginia, and has a brand new building. However, what truly makes this school stands out among a long list of US business schools includes its interdisciplinary courses and a unique space called Design Studio.

With Jim Olver, Scott Swan and Michael Luchs spent enormous effort in redesigning a relatively detached, corner space in this building. They flattened the floor, made the moving boards by fastening the plates and metals with ropes, purchased square black cushions, and placed the table tops on top of the carts for moving carts.

Their hard work paid off. When they run design courses in this Design Studio, students have lively brainstorming discussions, instantly review new concepts, and actually build the mock-ups of their outcomes.

Cases

Teaching design to high school students

2013-12-02 Jaewoo Joo Leave a comment

Martin Linder, Industrial Design Professor at San Francisco State University, gave a speech at Yonsei University on his unique program called iDo. iDo started in 1993 with 6 mentors; now it runs with more than 25 mentors for 40 weeks of five-weekly classes. According to the webpage:

Industrial Design Outreach (iDo) promotes the field of industrial design and uses its methodologies to enhance the education of both high school and university students. Through hands-on interdisciplinary design projects, iDo provides high school students with experiences that foster curiosity, promote creativity, and build self-confidence. By developing and delivering design curriculum to high school students, university students gain experiences that promote teamwork; enhance communication, organization, and improve presentation skills; and provide a forum for participants to give back to their community.

The Industrial Design Outreach institute is an educational enrichment program that introduces students to a number of educational opportunities in areas of industrial and graphic design, computer software tools, and traditional and modern manufacturing systems. The mission of iDo is to promote the field of industrial design and use its methodologies to enhance education. iDo provides high school participants with a no-cost introduction to design. Participants and San Francisco State University (SF State) students majoring in design collaborate on developing and delivering hands-on interdisciplinary design projects. These experiences foster curiosity in youth participants, promote creativity, build self-confidence, and allow participants to develop valuable vocational and college skills. In turn, college students learn to build and deliver curriculum, which enhances their communication, organization, presentation, team building, and design skills.

University students involved in this project visit high schools and teach design basics such as tools and materials and design process such as research, ideation, and prototyping. In most cases, they work together with high school students and create tangible products such as pencil boxes, clocks, and even kites.

Cases

Ground level traffic lights help pedestrians be safe

2013-11-18 Jaewoo Joo 1 Comment

Tactile paving is a system of textured ground surface indicators. It aims to assist pedestrians who are blind or visually impaired (see Wikipedia) and is also called truncated domes, detectable warnings, Tactile Ground Surface Indicators, or detectable warning surface. In Seoul, Korea, some of the tactile pavings light up at night. Interestingly, its color turns the same color with the traffic light; it turns red when the traffic light is red, and it is green when the traffic light is green.

This lighting system will not only benefit visually impaired pedestrians; it will also enhance the safety of the pedestrians who are distracted by their own tasks (e.g., listening music by earphones or sending text messages by their smart phones)!

Cases

How can we learn and acquire skills?

2013-11-11 Jaewoo Joo Leave a comment

Stellan Ohlsson, Professor in Psychology at University of Illinois at Chicago visited COGENG (Cognitive Engineering Lab) at SKKU and gave a speech on skill acquisition. He introduced his own work of learning from errors in which he argues that, in order to acquire or specializes in a certain skill (e.g., changing a lane to the left while driving), people should not only perform a certain task (e.g., turning the steering wheel to the left) but also detect and correct errors (e.g., turning the steering wheel to the left only when a car behind approaches). According to his constraint based approach, a skill is acquired only when a certain action with a negative outcome is unlearned (e.g., turning the steering wheel to the left slowly so that being hit by the car behind).

Certainly, there are many more ways to acquire skills. According to his review paper published in 2008, there are at least nine different ways of how people acquire skills.

1. Internalize direct instructions

2. Generalize from specific examples

3. Analogize to prior skill knowledge

4. Reason from prior declarative knowledge

5. Encode results of heuristic search

6. Strengthen positive outcomes

7. Unlearn actions with negative outcomes

8. Discover short cuts in execution histories

9. Accumulate statistical information

Cases

Behavior change requires time

2013-10-21 Jaewoo Joo 2 Comments

Changing behavior is important but challenging. Thus, it attracts huge attention among practitioners as well as researchers. For instance, Charles Duhigg introduced various examples in his book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Professor BJ Fogg at Stanford University proposed a behavior change model at the Persuasive Technology Lab. Designers graduating from the ID, Illinois Institute of Technology summarized the mechanisms and tools on their website, Brains Behavior and Design Group. Most recently, Professor Dilip Soman at University of Toronto teaches Behavioral Economics in Action at his online course.

For me, I have long wished to be ambidextrous. In Asia, however, using left hand to do something (e.g., eating, writing, pointing, etc.) is not viewed appropriate and I had no chance to practice my left hand. Therefore, I have experimented myself since when I left for Canada whether I can practice my left hand so that it performs as well as my right hand does.

Brushing teeth with my left hand was relatively easy at night. However, doing so in the morning was extremely challenging. Although I have brushed teeth with my left hand for the past 10 years, I often find myself brushing teeth with my right hand when I am sleepy or tired, which is often the case in the morning. Indeed, ten-year is not sufficient to master brushing teeth with my left hand probably because I did not stop brushing teeth with my right hand.

I had different experience regarding controlling the computer mouse. Certainly, using mouse with my left hand was very challenging in the first couple of years. However, 3-year of intensive practice paid me off. I could click, drag, and drop icons using my left hand without noticing that I did so with my left hand. This habit relieves the shoulder pain and I can work longer than before. Three-year was sufficient to master using the mouse with my left hand probably because I completely stopped using the mouse with my right hand.

I plan to start sketching/drawing with my left hand this year. Different from brushing teeth or controlling computer mouse, I have not drawn before. In other words, I have no habit to unlearn but need to develop a new habit only. I hope skipping the unlearning stage takes me less time/effort to master sketching with my left hand.

Cases

Hand print for escalator safety

2013-09-23 Jaewoo Joo 1 Comment

Jenny Xie wrote A Potentially Brilliant Idea to Keep Escalator Obstructors to the Right at the Atlantic Cities. In her article, a London-based designer called Yoni Alter made an interesting proposal to signal “stand on right, walk on left.” Although his idea has not been implemented yet, he proposed to paint two different foot prints on the escalator so that people standing in the right side stay and those standing in the left side walk.

Jenny Xie @ The Atlantic Cities_20130917 — By Jenny Xie, The Atlantic Cities, September 17, 2013

Recently, I have met another brilliant idea about escalator. Escalator users are supposed to hold the handrail while using the escalator because, although rarely happens, it might go in reverse, injuring them seriously. This safety instruction, however, is often ignored.

As escalator accidents increase recently, someone who is not identified but works at the Seoul subway system came up with a brilliant idea: painting hand prints on the handrail. These visible cues nudge people to, at least, place their hands on the handrail.

Besides improving the safety for public transit, visual cues are used for improving store traffic. When a store is crowded, store visitors are often recommended to enter and leave in a specific way. One store manager painted foot prints to nudge the visitors follow them.

Designmarketinglab

Category Archives: Cases

At the first there was drive-me-to card

Marketing in Chinese Language

Helmet-shaped booth of an insurance company

TCDC, Design center at Bangkok, Thailand

Teaching design in the business school

Teaching design to high school students

Ground level traffic lights help pedestrians be safe

How can we learn and acquire skills?

Behavior change requires time

Hand print for escalator safety

Jaewoo Joo | design thinking, behavioral economics, field experiment, customer experience