a memorable day for Chinese!

picture resourse: Getty images and Xinhua She

'recycled' lighter

Lighter is prohibited from being taking on the plane with carry-on luggage since 911.
With the approaching of Chinese Olymic 2008, the airport security is heavily enforced at the Shanghai and Beijing International airports. Like most of international airports around the world, lighters are collected upon security check point.

In the United States, such a collection along with any suspicious items, like (sealed, unopened) bottle of water,etc) will be directly trashed. However, people can opt to choose one(1) free lighter of their choice upon their baggage claim. I have to admit that it might be a better way of 'recycling' these lighters than throwing them away. The small free lighter station is overcrowded with passengers. Some of them would spend up to 2 minutes to dig out every possible styles. It seems that they don't really care about any potential danger the lighter may carry, but more about which one is more expensive or better-looking.

a play of consumer psychology and marketing tricks

The high or the low all depends on how you look at it!

Tappening Now: http://tappening.com/

Love it or Leave it

"LOVE" used in automobile marketing.
The 'PreLoved" Volkswagen doesn't really look depressed but more anxious to be loved again

Do You See the Sign?

A sign is to be seen. I, 5'3 tall, can see seven(7) unrepeated signs in the above picture while I am standing in this lavatory on a US Airways plane.

However, if I bend down at least 45 degree, I saw another squarish sign, warning what can be and can not be thrown in the trash bin.

Let's imagine our experience of taking a lavatory break on an airplane and possible activity routine there. We either want to quickly finish our job (sitting on the toilet facing towards the door or standing against the door) and wash up your hand or refresh yourself by toothbrushing, face washing or doing makingup using the mirror.

Chances are if you are not observant enough, the sign wouldn't be seen even when you are sitting on the toilet seat. Wouldn't agree?

Then, my question is: the sign is designed for whom to see?
for Kids, you may say, of age ranging 1-7 whose height may fulfill the requirement to see the sign. I may buy your answer. However, in real life, we observe that kids of 1-7 are normally under parents' companion to take the lavatory break and they normally do what an adult guides them to do.
If my reason stands, shouldn't this sign be designed mainly for users of teens or older? Thus, the human factor issues for the sign design should be reconsidered.

Left or Right?

If you take a close look at the picture taken at Phoenix Skyharbor airport, US, the freewalk way on the left side of the escalator, people habitually walk on the right side. However, the sign hanging down from the ceiling is clearly warns/guides people to 'Walk On Left, Stand On Right", which is aganist people's daily behavior routine/habit. Even just passing the warning sign, people still naturally Walk On the Right (as seen on the picture). If you have ever experienced this escalator, you will probably agree with me that when you do walk on the left, it is awkwardly user unfriendly to have someone pass by on the right. To make the experience worse is when the person is pulling a luggage.

Update: on my recent trip to Japan, surprisingly I found that the sign guides customers 'Walk on Right, Stand on Left'. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the sign.

Update:
My friend, Dr. Hana Smith, gives me the following helpful and insight explanation.
I have to say, it does make sense! But when you are near airport next time, try it out and tell me which way you feel more pleasurable/comfortable, i.e. "walk on left, stand on right", or "walk on right, stand on left".

" The 'Walk On Left, Stand on Right' refers strictly to the escalator path, and follows the same convention freeways and interstates follow. Except instead of 'slower traffic keep right', it is 'standing persons keep right'. Either way, faster or moving traffic pass in the left lane of the highway (cars)or walking on the left side of the escalator (people). "

'STANDBY' Mode

A Vivid Laptop'Standby' Mode Demo. A slim beauty like Apple Air has to 'stand' wide open!

A Display of Political Relationship

It seems that this "Cart Pool' board at Narrita Airport, Japan is a diplay of Political Relationship . Hierachical order of countries that are (important/friendly) to Japan are USA or any English-speaking country (in English), Korea (Korean), and China(Chinese)! What is also interesting to me is the translation and its of a simply warning 'Use at your own Risk". Korean is the longest, followed by Japanese and Chinese. I don't understand Korean and Japanese, but the tone of the Chinese version is much more polite and humble than 'Use at your own Risk'.

Charging Party at Airport

Finding an easy-to-access power plug-in at airport is always a pain in the stomach! All these laptops are in desperately hunger of being fed.

'GPS' a Restroom

A Japanese restroom sign is clearly identified with a distance of 50M from the entrance of the exit hallway. Do we need this acruate GPS locating? :)

'loud' Restroom sign

a very 'loud' restroom sign in Narrita Airport, Japan that is of impressively big size.

Love it or Leave it!

"LOVE" used in automobile marketing.
The 'PreLoved" Volkswagen doesn't really look depressed but more anxious to be loved again

one less suv

CO2 emission visualization

Breath Earth ,an interactive map showing CO2 emitted by country, population levels + births and death rates of each country.

Sand, Lenovo's IdeaPad, and Chinese Olympic!

Sunflower seeds 'energy drink'

Visited a Chinese student's dorm room on campus, who has lived with an American for 4 months.
Some interesting behavior patterns differences can be easily spotted in this no matter than 100 sqt space.

First thing popped into my eyes is this sunflower seeds 'energy drink'. It is a rare phenomena you may only spot here in the US. Before I explain the reason, let's tell you how American are taught to consume sunflower seeds. I quote the following instructioon from wikihow .

Steps:
1. Purchase a bag of sunflower seeds (David is very well known and the choice of baseball teams the country over).
2. Place two(2) sunflower seeds in your mouth.
3. With your tongue, move one over to your cheek (the side not being used to actively eat the seeds).
4. With your tongue, place the other seed vertically or horizontally between your teeth, depending on your preference. Either way, the outside edge of the sell should be making contact with you teeth. Use your molars (chewing teeth), because there is an indention in the middle to hold the seed.
5. Apply firm and steady pressure on the seed until it cracks.
6. Release the seed from your teeth.
7. With your tongue and teeth, separate the inner seed from the shell. The texture is the key to this step. The inner, edible seed, will be smooth, while the shell will be rough.
Spit out all of the shell pieces. (After practice, the shell will usually break open like a clam, therefor making this step less messy)
8. Eat the seed.
9. Slowly raise the amount of seeds you can hold in your spare cheek to reduce the number of reloads per serving.

Even Tips are offerred.
1. To avoid annoying your coworkers, try to crack the seeds with your mouth closed to minimize the irritating "cracking" sound.
2. If you are a really serious seeder, try growing sunflowers and harvesting your own seeds. You can then decide how much salt you want.
3. Don't be discouraged if you don't get it the first time. Professional Sunflower Seed eaters have had years of practice and make it look easy. Keep at it, practice makes perfect.
4.If you want to shoot some seeds inside spit them into a cup.

Above instruction is totally different from how we, Chinese, eat sunflower seeds. If you watch the Youtube video, the boy on the left is how we 'naturally' eat sunflower seeds (I don't recall being taught so, guess it is inherently in the gene?)

Teaching students design evaluation

The Gondola Cardboard Chair

bike and coffee

Post-it note: 'Please bring you own paper!'

with the paper tray open and post-it note aid, telling user "you need to bring your own paper!"

Stamp ribbon

Visited a Postal Office, instead of waiting in the long line, I chose to give a shot to the Automated Postal Center. This machine can weigh your package/mail and tell you appropriate postage needed. I was short on 21 cents, that was how the machine really shows its ability: all it can give you is 1 cent value stamp.

Here we go, I bordered the envelop with 'stamps ribbon'.

Can you imagine what if a consumer just needs a 41cents stamp?

Hmmm, maybe it is time for us to have an envelop of 1-cent stamp pattern as background.

Which seat does not recline?

Saw this sign while sitting on the Southwest air plane, middle exit area, The seat in front of mine should not recline in case of blocking the emergency exit. But the sign can only be seen by the people behind the seat. So which seat does not recline?