Nokia OpenStudio is a project by Nokia Design which is based on the concept of exploratory design research. The Nokia Open Studio took place in three communities in India, Africa and South America where Nokia together with local teams staged an event to gather design ideas for mobile phones that match the lifestyle of people in their environment.

Nokia designed entry forms and provided writing equipment so that local people are able to write down their ideas and participate in the contest. Additionally the teams performed interviews how the design of their mobile phones actually relates to the people’s life.

At the end an award ceremony was organized and the winners were awarded. The most promising  ideas were an intuitive and instant weather forecast, a solution for creating awareness of the environmental problems as well as a four Simcard holder.

This is a good example of how to identify latent user requirements especially when you are dealing with customers that have a totally different cultural and environmental context.

 

Here is the speech from Younghee Jung

 

For more scientific information about this you can read more about sticky information in a paper written by Eric von Hippel titled "Sticky Information" and the Locus of Problem Solving: Implications for Innovation.

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