Design story, ergonomic challenge.

A few years ago I bought my grandpa an electric shaver. He has mild Parkinson's disease therefore his hands aren't the most steady, so manual shaver was out of the question. I picked one that was easy to use. It had a slider switch and to clean it, simple squeeze the buttons on both sides and lift the cap.



Then it broke, so I went out to get a new one for him. This time, I thought Philips will be a good option. I picked a seemly simply one with a big grip. It also has a slider switch, and a release button in the middle to release the cap for cleaning. I thought this will be a no brainer.

It turned out that I was wrong.... or rather, I bet even the designers at Philips ( who I used to be one) didn't expect this design failure.

I got back and showed my grandpa how to use it and clean it. He seemed confused. Perhaps it was the new shape. Perhaps it was his Parkinson's. I don't know, but it simply could not figure out one action, which is to press the release button and lift the top cap for cleaning. He simply couldn't do it. My grandma, who's in excellent health condition, did it like any of us could, but not my grandpa. First of all, his thumb could not press precisely enough to depress the button. The button is too small for him, and takes a bit too much compression force. Next, my grandpa couldn't help but use both hands to press the button. One hand to hold the grip, the other to press the button. This means that he will need a third hand, which he doesn't have, to lift the cap once the button is pressed. Sounds complicated? It indeed was, for my grandpa at least.







We designers always want to design the most sleek and stylish designs and electric shavers have always been a product where technology is displayed with cutting edge styling. Most of the electric shavers on the market today have very precised micro blades and complicated mechanisms to wow the consumers. The displays are hidden, the buttons slush and the grips streamlined. It's like spaceships! For most of us, probably the so-called 95 percentile have no problem using this. Perhaps there are some ergonomic compromises, but none that will prevent us from using it. I also expect Philips designers and engineers to have run through human factor testing with their designs. It's just that no one thinks about testing it with a Parkinson's disease patient.

I am not saying that all products should consider all user types. That's unreasonable and unrealistic. However it also raises the need to serve people with special needs.

In the end, I went back to the store to get him another product, a even simpler design but one that broke the next day.

The ever changing social and economical fabric

The rural parts of Taiwan is as non-international as one can imagine. You will hardly see any foreigner and if/when a foreigner walks on the streets of rural Taiwan, he/she will be met with strange eyes of people seeing things that they rare get to see.

Well that's changed in a very different way.

Back in the days, my grandparents' little town are just filled with two types of people. Old folks who were born and raised locally as well as young kids who's parents are too busy working in the cities. The old folks have been thrifty all their lives and it's become more of a habit than a practice. Therefore, there wasn't a whole lot of consumerism happening in town. Most of the stores in town service broken products more than selling new ones.

Most of the old folks, being thrifty, do not eat out, so it's quite a dead end business if you open a restaurant here. Needless to say, opening a western style breakfast place is tough. That's what it used to be, not anymore.



Nope, this isn't in a western country. It's also not in Taipei or the big cities. It's in my grandparents' town's breakfast shop.

You see, when the young moves out of town and when there's no one else left to work in the local factories, they hire foreign labors. Thailand, Vietnam etc, and these folks have very few places to go during their spare time. They make money, not much, but always need some form of entertainment. Other than the occasional trip to the city, the most convenient place to hang out will be in the little town. The once old folk dominated economy is not taken over by foreign workers, and to get their business, you've to do something about the menus. English becomes the money-making language.

It's simply hilarious that when we talk about learning, we always try to find motivations and there's no motivation stronger than the need to make money!

Afternoon rain

Photo entry: Tainan 台南二寮

Tainan Er-Liao is located just 40min from my grandparents' place, in the west side of Taiwan county close to the mountains. It's unique dry and loose soil type means it's prone to erosion, exposing parts of the bare slopes that it forms. Also, the main type of surviving vegetation here is bamboo. Er-Liao, being rolling hills, also gathers moisture in the morning, making this an excellent and popular spot for photography during sunrises.

At nature's will.

I used to buy guava from this family who's two girls were my students. They used to sell their guavas by the side of the road and the two girls would attend the small stall while reading their books. They love to read!

This time, I didn't see the stall and went to look them up. They were happy to see me and we sat down for a short chat.

Their entire guava plantation was wiped out by the recent typhoon. Nothing was left.

Not only that, it was just ten days before the guavas were ready to be harvested. The mom said that this batch of guava trees are four years old, and since the harvest gets more and more each year, she was particular excited about this year's harvest because with this increase in harvest, she can finally sell the, in town and have her own little business. Then, the nature says nope, and all efforts were gone.

Luckily, the family still has these two girls who are always performing well in school, giving everyone a peace of mind and doing their family proud.

"Next year" I said to the mom," I'll be back to buy guavas from you!"

Caught in the act

Just a grasshopper that we found while Wibber and Yun was having the English quiz.

The tale of two boys

To say it's a tale is overly sugar coating their stories. These are the two boys who I spent lots of time tutoring a year ago, and of course, the two who I am most curious to find out how they are doing.

It's been a year and it's really hard to say how they've been or become. When I came back to visit the school, now in summer vacation, I asked one of the teachers how the first kid, Yun, is doing.

"Not too good, becoming even more "mindless" as before. He's now moved in with his dad but no one really wants to care about him, and being energetic, he simply can't stay put and wonders around. The village folks told me that he's been wondering around late in the night..."



While the "wondering around" part doesn't surprise me at all, him moving in to his dad's place was a bit of a surprise. He used to live in another village about 3 km north of the school with his grandma, his older sister, his dad and his step mom. His grandma is pretty much the only person who will pay attention to him, fetching between home and school and look for him when he forgets to go home while busy playing with his friends after school. His dad started to work for this company to take care of the stationery fishing trap in another town 3km south of the school and moved over there. His grandma then decided that she can no longer spend time looking for Yun all the time, and sent him to live with his dad and step mom, who don't give a crap about this boy's well being.

Who's Yun?

Yun's a kind hearted boy. He's never known to be smart and some will regard him as "stupid". Stupid as in illogically adventurous. Riding his bicycle into a wall, tying both his shoelaces together just to see what happens next, swimming in the ocean the day after typhoon has passes.... just to name a few. To me, Yun is not stupid, he's just a restless boy who isn't satisfied by what people tell him. He wants to know for himself. Yun is also a boy who has little concept of "causes and consequences". He lacks the motivation to learn and keep time.... that is, before I realized that he didn't know how to tell time! While I spent many months understanding and working with him, I found that Yun is not stupid at all. He's not smart, but he learns quickly. It didn't take me long to teach him all of the alphabets as well as all the different phonics. It's a big achievement to him, and it also proves to me that Yun is indeed a talented boy.

So this time when I came back, late at night, Yun and his buddy who I also tutored, Wibber, came knocking on my hotel door. They were bored... It's been a year since I've seen both boys, and while Wibber hasn't changed much, Yun grew taller, but his expression lacks soul. There was barely any happiness.

Ok, bored, let's have an English quiz!

That shock in their face.... actually, they were really excited to play this game again. It's not any fancy game, just to see how fast they can write the alphabets.









Yun took a bit longer than before to complete it, but to my surprise, he remembered everything I taught him a year ago. Earlier I mentioned that learning English is a big achievement to Yun, but teaching Yun is the biggest achievement and satisfaction in my life.

And then, the smile that Yun used to have came back.

It it a pain to me to see Yun and all these kids here suffer for various reasons. It's not just simply because of the lack of wealth, but also the lack of will and consideration. Most people have already given up on kids like Yun and Wibber before they have left their childhood. The fact is, kids like Yun and Wibber are talented and smart kids who have much more potential than many others. Chance, is what they desire.

Then to Wibber, the talkative one but also one who dread in hand writing. Writing is something Wibber find extremely uninteresting. It will take him hours just to write one line of homework, so painful to him that it's quite amazing to see. Wibber is yet another case. Wibber lives with his grandma in a small metal shack. His mom and dad are far far away, like what you will hear in a fairy tale. They are divorced, and Wibber's mom lives in the city, not exactly doing very well, so all of the responsibility of caring for Wibber falls onto his grandma. His grandma, a tough old lady, not only has to take care of Wibber, but also has to provide for him. His grandma harvests a special type of leaf that people use to make rice dumplings. The problem is, to get perfect, untorn leaves, his grandma has to drive hours into the mountain to find them up on the steep hills. After harvesting the leaves, she has to process them by cleaning and wrapping them into bundles before a middle man comes each week to collect the harvests. It's a very tough and relatively dangerous job. Wibber therefore usually has to find ways to kill his own time.





Every time I hear Wibber talk about his family, it's always been "my aunt" and "my aunt's husband" and of course "my grandma". There's hardly "my mom" and never "my dad". Wibber is loved by his family unlike Yun, but there's still a difference between being loved by an aunt vs mom. His mom just seems to have given up the responsibility of her son, and no matter how much you shower the boy with love from else where, it's simply not the same.

Wibber has just graduated from elementary school and there's no plan for him to move in with his mom. Again, the cycle continues. I don't see "chance" coming any time soon.

Kid and his puppy

This little boy is in kindergarten and likes to go to school, according to him. I met him while on my scooter riding through a small tribe in the mountains. I asked him if I can take a photo of him, and he quickly raised his puppy with a victory pose. He's obviously trying very hard, harder than the puppy was comfortable with I think.

Back to Taitung again, already miss it!

It's been a year since I left Taitung and I can't wait to be back. To me it's a place I look forward to go "back" to, like a home, because it's so beautiful. Indeed, as soon as I arrived at the airport, I already felt at home with the clean and refreshing air, and the colors blue and green were once again filling my vision.

While I was here a year ago, I had many opportunities to see the fighter jets train and land at a nearby air force base but never had the chance to photograph it. This time, I made the effort to capture a few shots. The landing strip is parallel to a major bridge, making it possible to see the jets at almost the same height and up close. Here's a F5E training plane.







And then, it's all the way into the wild!









The scenery along the way are just all too familiar, and riding a scooter along the coast in the ocean breeze is the best way to tour this coast.

Very soon, I was back in the town where I spent a year, it was like being home again.





Back to my favorite secret spot.





A hermit crab hiding by a spot of green.



And needless to say, a few night shots are a must!











And sunrise!











Strange fruit