Interview Jan Chipchase

Article

In this New Scientist interview, Nokia design researcher Jan Chipchase discusses his fieldwork studying how people around the world actually use mobile phones, describing his approach as “design research” rather than formal anthropology. He explains that keys, money and a mobile phone are the near-universal set of objects people carry regardless of culture, argues that phones often deliver disproportionately greater benefit to poorer users with fewer alternatives, and discusses how people without formal addresses sometimes write their phone number above their door as a form of identity.