Observation Assignment

For our observation assignment, Peter and I met at the corner of Manhattan and Norman Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Saturday. It was such a beautiful day that we ended up walking around for two hours and did not take the bus or the subway. We decided that we'd observe people with devices in the subway or the bus on our own.

The areas we covered are Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The wide variety of people we watched span from Polish Americans to hipsters, from tourists to street vendors. We saw people in relationship with their laptops, cellphones, iPhones (as it deserves to be a seperate category), ATM machines, SLR cameras, digital cameras, Blackberrys, phone cameras, headphones, Bluetooth devices, registers, scales and DV cameras. All and all, it was an interesting task to watch and report on people who were doing not so extraordinary, daily tasks that I don't think any of them would think that they were worth observing or reported on.

In the interest of being readable, I will write down the observations we made in a list form, and then add our comments that we made while watching them in the end.

REGISTER: 1.45 | Lite Bites Cafe | Manhattan & Norman Avenue
Takes 5 seconds. Cashier uses only one hand. She punches numbers with index finger. Very intuitive. No thinking involved.

iPHONE: 1.46 | Manhattan & Norman Avenue
Woman walks past with iPhone. She first dials a number with right thumb, then lifts the phone to her ear to listen to the dialing tone.

CELL PHONE: 1.50 | McCarren Park
Woman talking to her cell phone, while she's holding her bike. She uses one hand and looks around as she is talking. Takes a few minutes.

SCALE: 1.55 | Farmer's Market | McCarren Park
Takes 6 seconds to weigh one eggplant. Intuitive to use. Uses right hand to place the eggplant, punches a button with index finger, gets the info. There is no thinking involved.

BLUETOOTH: 2.03 | Bedford Avenue and N11th
Guy walking and talking on his bluetooth device. Shocking to observe. Looks like he is a crazy person, talking to himself.

SLR CAMERA: 2.04 | Bedford Avenue and N11th
Tourist taking a picture of who knows what. He stands still, holds up the camera with two hands to his eye-level, pauses and pushes the button with index finger. He has a camera "stance." Looks around to see if anyone's watching.

DV CAMERA: 2.10 | Bedford Avenue
Guy standing and holding camera with two hands at belly-level, recording two women who are sitting at a bench. Women are speaking to him, not to the camera. They have a camera persona; more composed, less gestural. When the camera is not pointing at them, they fix their hair, look more natural, more in real life. Takes about 6 minutes.

BLACKBERRY: 2.15 | Bedford Avenue
Guy uses both hands and two fingers to type the letters. Moves around in a circle. Places the phone that is tied to his keychain in his pocket.

BLACKBERRY: 2.20 | N9th Street
Street vendor is sitting and checking something on Blackberry. At a point when she is writing something, her hands are cuffed around it, using two thumbs. She smiles. Switches to one hand. Probably uses internet now, while she strokes her dog with her free hand. Says hello to people passing by in the meantime. Takes her about 8 minutes.

BLACKBERRY: 2.22 | N9th Street
A guy standing 10 meters away from the vendor. His hand is cupped, leaning against a shop window. He is just inspired to check his email. He has a pose. He is rolling the side button. It's something to do in public, like holding a drink at a party, when you are standing alone and don't have anything to do. While he is using his Blackberry, he takes a moment to check out the hot girl passing by. Implicit communication.

iPHONE: 2.40 | Bedford Avenue
A guy biking against the traffic AND checking his iPhone with his right hand!

CELL PHONE CAMERA: 2.41 | Bedford Avenue
Two tourists take picture together with cell phone camera. They check the picture together, takes about 15 seconds. They maintain active conversation for a few more minutes. Phone is like a 3rd party. Gets referred to every once in while. Conversation takes 5 minutes. They hug each other and part ways.

iPHONE CAMERA: 2.45 | Bedford Avenue
A guy photographs books on the table with iPhone. He uses one hand, the other hand holds his coffee. He has to raise the phone up to get a top-down (bird's eye view!) shot of the books on the stall. Takes about 20 seconds.

ATM Machine: 2.55 | Bedford Avenue
A guy is using a nameless ATM Machine on the street. Uses index finger to push buttons. Waits for the cash to come out. Waits for about a minute. He looks very bored and unhappy. Nothing comes out (maybe he wasn't trying to withdraw cash?), he steps away and stands about a foot away from the machine after interaction. Still looking bored and unhappy.

LAPTOP: 2.58 | A Cafe at Bedford Avenue
A girl is sitting at the bar by the window with her laptop. She is facing the street. She creates limited social area, there is wall between others. She is using both hands, static but less focused on device than mobile users. Not that interesting to watch. She pauses, sips coffee, looks around, goes back to computer, writes.

DIGITAL CAMERA: 3.15 | McCarren Park
The father is standing and holding the baby while the mom is sitting and holding to camera to get a good picture. Angling camera around, uses her upper body to catch a good one. Shows the result to her husband. They smile. Takes 2 minutes.

Our overall observation was that cellphones are the most commonly used devices. Talking on the phone doesn't hinder one's physical actions, that's one reason why people uses cellphones a lot. Another pattern we saw was people who have iPhones tend to hold their phones in their hands; after a while, it looks like the phones are a body ppart. They use their iPhones for instant reference, for getting information, entertainment, communication, to take a picture, to spend time...