Star icon to indicate updates At a glance

Writings and musings on the latest web trends and life, advertising, design, projects, and news from an avid and prolific web designer.
Up and about since 2003.

Click here for the RSS 2.0 feed Follow me on Twitter Pictures from my Flickr account

website »
Is your web design hurting your search engine rankings? Teknicks is a professional web design agency and SEO agency.

Instagram feed updated 16 hours ago.


Mat Kearney

Most commented posts Most commented

Interesting Defunct United States Airlines
What I learned from the Boston Career Forum
Install Android 2.2 Froyo on iPhone 3G on Windows with pics and video
Getting FancyUpload to Work
Google Plus bar color changer extension
Home Sweet American Culture
An Engineer's Nightmare - Ocean Tower, South Padre Island
Python on the iPad
6 sensational unsolved missing persons cases
The Kite Runner and Atonement Compared




Jan 26 | Design for the other 90%: Cell phones

The calibre of these Wednesday HCI lunches is pretty high up there from the beginning of this year, and today was no exception, with a fantastic talk by South Africa's IndabaMobile CEO Ken Venn talking about how his company is trying to improve digital access via cell phones to the market in South Africa. It's a humbling experience, really, to think about how much we take for granted here in Silicon Valley for the cellphones and the tools we have at our disposal. Consider these numbers:

  • In 2010, 76% of the 50 million South Africans owned a cellphone [source].
  • There are more cellphones in the country than there are people (some people own more than one phone). [source]
  • The average cell phone bill is 3% of their income (AMPS 2005), with figures from 95 rand (about $12) for prepaid and 390 rand for contract based plans ($50). (source1 source2). This is higher than the $3 quoted by Ken, but I suspect it's harder to get a good image of the true distribution of costs.
  • According to Nielsen, more African have access to a cellphone than they do to water


No you won't see Apple on that chart (source)

Anectdotally:

  • When South African taxi and bus drivers went on strike, IndabaMobile expected cellphone traffic to rise, but the opposite was true, because most individuals charged their phones at work, and they couldn't get to work.
  • Many South Africans want to join Facebook, but won't do so through the cell phones because of high internet meterage fees.
  • The cellphone ends up being a digital hub for music, photos and communication, though that content rarely makes it off the cellphone.
  • Many South Africans will top up the airtime for their SIM cards at a Spaza (convenience) shop. Alternatively they can go to the South African equivalent to Sears, PEP, and IndabaMobile partnered with them to provide subsidies for users of their IndabaMobile app
  • Some will have multiple cell phones or multiple SIM cards in order to save money on provider-specific calling arrangements. Similarly, individuals would by multiple small increments of top-up airtime in order to limit spending at any given time.
  • A free cross-carrier callback service called "Please Call Me" will let users send very brief messages that can be used to communicate (like "Please Call Me bread" as an indicator to get bread, instead of calling me back). See also the paper on "beeping", the practice of calling and hanging up after a ring or two.

Design considerations

Given these points it's interesting to think about possible design opportunities in this area, as there is clearly a demonstrated demand for cellphone-based communication, and existing infrastructure clearly shows that people can adopt it and use it to suit their needs. Here are some off the cuff thoughts:

  1. How might we... construct cheap cell phones that are rugged and with good enough battery life, but with a higher resolution screen so that individuals might enjoy their content more? Similarly, how might one add wi-fi support to a basic Nokia or clamshell cellphone so that people might be able to access the Internet in designated spots for free?
  2. How might we... encourage individuals to overcome a fear of the expenses associated with the Internet? Is the only way to do so to encourage carriers to bring down cost, or are there other methods? Can products in the market provide free vouchers for Internet access on the cell phone? Alternatively, can the Spaza shops or PEP be a central point for letting people explore what can be done using a cellphone's internet access?
  3. How might we... let the means of communication also open up other means for access to education or health? (A lot of work already explores this area, but worth noting)
  4. How might one... develop the infrastructure to ensure that individuals can retain their own cellphone based content while providing access to newer phones? Or is the "new phone" never a necessity, simply a desire?

Clearly there are many questions and few answers that I feel competent enough to provide without having some grounding in the field, but it's exciting to hear from those who are exploring these questions and trying to address a real, tangible need.


More recent posts


Jan 21 | A reflection on Stanford’s AI-class, DB-class

Last quarter I had the opportunity to participate in one of Stanford's newest education initiatives, db-class and ai-class.

Jan 19 | In search of serendipity and soulful data

Every Wednesday I get the privilege to attend HCI lunches here at Stanford where a mishmash of scholars, professors, and students meet over lunch to watch someone's presentation on research (and proceed to tear it apart).

Jan 6 | The new urban landscape

I had the opportunity to visit the Design With The Other 90% exhibit at the United Nations lobby today and it was a stark reminder about how so much is happening around the world that I must not to lose touch with, and I think one of the more powerful insights I gained was how so many cities around the world are making successful transitions to more efficient people transportation in ways that have so much positive ripple effects.

Jan 4 | Help me test out Haptico!

Haptico is a little app that I made over Christmas break that lets your phone tell you if you're headed in the right direction without having to take out the phone.

Jan 2 | Predictions for 2012

It's taken me a week to get my thoughts together about what 2012 may bring us, but here's to a ritual that I've kept up for the better part of a decade.

Dec 30 | Goodbye GoDaddy

On January 13, 2005, I purchased chronicled.org from Globat.com, and it entered registration 3 days later.

Recently read

Updated 3 days ago.

» Are expensive batteries worth it? Maybe not

» 10 things to do with Hostess Twinkies

» He’s eaten at 362 pizza joints in New York City and has reviewed each one on an 8-slice scale.

» If you’re going to destroy your reputation as a PR person, better do it in an epic way

» Beijing pollution meter goes off the charts, literally

» Photoshop orgasm takes the shape of deblurring blurry images.

» The psychology and profile of the average Angry Birds addict

» Don’t worry, this column was written by a human.

» A ripoff Apple Store in Kunming looks just like the real deal

» Visualizing how the US would be if we colored it by the likelihood of calling within that area

» One book, many readings. Choose your own adventure books, visualized.

» The eternal shame of your first online handle

» A great piece of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness from PBS.

» Photo fakeouts - comparing your dream holiday destinations to real pictures

» The beautiful things you can do with photographs and animated GIFs

Subscribe »

Search Categories

Term paper writing is a real horror? Term paper service will save you! Guaranteed! . forex mmcis . Fast delivery for water cooler from top rated stores . There is no point in searching for guidelines on writing essay! Use Thesis911 s service!