Notes Design

BusinessWeek covers Nokia's recent Open Studio initiative in three slums on three continents where participants were encouraged to come in and draw their dream phones using materials and space provided by Nokia. Jan Chipchase writes on his blog,

One of the research methods Younghee and the research team have been experimenting with in the past year of working in shanty towns is setting up Open Studios in an attempt to engage a broad cross section of the community whist offering people different ways to articulate their wants and needs. We used a competition to design your ideal future phone as a vehicle for collecting data and the photos here show three of the 200+ entries from Buduburam near Accra, Favela Jacarezihno in Rio de Janeiro and Dharavi in Mumbai. It's easy to fixate! on! design! sketches! but bear in mind these are but a small part of the Open Studio - a lot of the research value comes through follow up interaction to help understand why participants chose these designs and how their design decisions are relevant in their context.

BusinessWeek slideshow featuring 15 phones including the 'Paz' which emits a sound wave that brings peace to any argument, fight or even war.