“Following a flow experience, the organization of the self is more complex than it had been before...
yet complexity also involves a second dimension: the integration of autonomous parts. Without integration, a differentiated system would be a confusing mess.“
Dr. Mihaly Csiksentmihaly

Flow Introduction
Flow aims to help self-employed workers to manage their
business by transforming the phone’s content
from discrete bits of data into meaningful flows of
information.

We propose a package which consists of an OS shell
which organizes data in a meaningful way to the user,
input accessories which support familiar behaviors, and
a backup service which increases trust in the system.
This is a new and flexible way for users to manage client
relationships and jobs through the phone.

Read the interviews >>

Flow Concept

What it is?
A system for managing your phone the way that makes sense to you.
Helping users to manage their business by transforming the phone’s content from discrete bits of data into meaningful information flows.

How it works?
Based on a wiki like system, when you receive or input text into your phone, the phone underlines each meaningful word or phrase it recognizes, be it someone’s name, an address, the name of a job, or an appointment. Based on that content you can organise your phone around a specific task, or someone’s name.

A new and flexible way for users to manage client relationships and jobs through the phone. Our OS shell is the default view of the phone and is based on “wiki” like principals such as:

• Ad hoc content creation and editing
• Links and cross referencing
• Data contextualizing and user taxonomy (Tagging)

This is the default view of the phone, it’s the shell of the phone
- a kind of keyhole into the useful information & functionality that the phone contains. Rory made this page, it’s the way he likes to
organise his phone. He calls “jobs” the events he organizes, so he has made a link here called “. Rory wants to make a new job called Amsterdam. Let’s see how he does that. Now he has a blank container ready to be filled with useful data relating to the job.

1.Now the Job is populated with useful specifi c information.
We can see that the status of the job is new.
2.The message contains all the names of the exhibitors. They are
underlined because the phone recognizes that it already has them
in the address book.

He clicks done, and is returned to the job summary page. He can now see that he has 40 exhibitors in the Job. He can now send summary details to the designers.

Background
Professionals need to take notes and keep track of information in relation to jobs and people.

A problem with information flow is that mobile data is often trapped inside the “applications” model. Each application presents information relative to it’s function, and there is no way of crossreferencing information in an integrated way.

Our context is the blue collar, self-employed worker; who works alone or in small teams and is mobile. According to Eurostat, 51% of the working people in Italy in 1999 were self-employed. Potential industries include: Construction workers, Painters, Handymen, Beauticians, Electricians, Plumbers, Gardeners, Event organizers, Interior decorators, Repairmen, Service technicians and Hairdressers.

Method
In our design process we have used methods which allowed
us to better understand our users. We conducted interviews,
explored our users’ environment and the tools they work with.
Based on our observations, we mapped their behaviors and
activities.
Our belief is that the best designed tools and services are
the result of a deeper understanding of the user’s needs and
desires.

Secondary research
In order to understand what defines blue collar workers we looked
at various information sources, such as industry news, relevant
research, and market reports. Specifically we looked at how mobile
technology has been useful to the blue collar sector. This research
gave us a fundamental understanding of the area we are designing
for and of pre-existing solutions.

User Interviews
We conducted interviews across a range of blue-collar industries.
From a captain lieutenant of the Carabinieri (Italian armed police)
to painters and exhibition organizers, to name a few. In total there
were eight businesses interviewed. With respect to the time-frame,
we spent a great deal of time asking people about their needs and
learning what their pain points were.

Job task analysis
In this stage, we mapped the cognitive processes and actions
our users required when performing their daily tasks. We have
assembled a detailed task flow, which we then used as a guide for
our design. The information gathered allowed us to understand the
general workflow and focus on detailed tasks and activities.

Other concepts

Pointer Camera
This collaboration tool allows remote parties to
view site details for consultation. It also features
laser pointing device and remote controlled tripod.

Overalls for your phone
Robust interactive shell allows essential
phone features to be accessed with
gloves on, and protects the phone inside

Team Phone
Get in touch with a team of workers
who are in close proximity to each
other. With this feature, the user can
call, and receive the nearest worker that
is available to get his call.

One button
The one button phone addresses the
fragility of the cell phone form, and
the need of the user to retrieve his calls,
with out risking his phone and data,
in extreme situations. This one button
phone allows remote access to phone’s
functionality in a robust form within
Bluetooth perimeter.

Measuring Phone
Attaching user-dedicated peripherals
to the phone can enhance the mobile
user needs. The measuring phone is
one example for that. This tool allows
taking house measurements with a
digital meter and storing them directly
on the phone. In the same manner, we
can attach to a police officer a micro
camera, to the plumber a camera and
flashlight and so on…

Toolbox message display
This tool allows the user to receive
important alerts and messages from
his phone and project them onto his
natural environment. This allows him to
address them or continue working.

Dynamic Demarcation
Large digital paper as phone accessory to
display blueprints and get updates from
the drawing board. Attach pictures to
specific locations on the plan.

Data Sync
Back up important data. Your contact
details are stored on network, and
synchronized with your office. Allows
collaboration in teams by facilitating
real-time synchronization of important
data.

Save as Client
Conveniently save new numbers from
potential customers, and allows notes
to be taken and saved with the contact.
Contact information can grow, to store
photographs about a particular job, to
assist with the delivery of estimates and
proposals for work.
Small print outs can be printed whilst on
site.

Interviews

Luciano, painter, Italy
Luciano is a painter, graphic designer and an event organizer;
all at the same time. He has been working as a painter for
the last 3-4 years but not continuously. He used to work for
a boss with a friend of his, and then they got rid of the boss
and worked as partners. They usually get their clients through
recommendations and word of mouth.
Luciano keeps a notebook to keep track of his work. He
documents the details regarding each project. He doesn’t use
the computer to do it because he says writing in a notebook is
faster than computers.
Although there is an agenda in his phone, it is not used
because Luciano doesn’t like keeping important things on
the phone. The reason being that he lost his trust in the
phone after losing all of his precious data together with his
phone. Now he writes all of his contacts and notes down in a
notebook in case his phone gets lost. He knows how to back-up
things and is a skilled user of computers but the only thing he
backs up on his computer are his photos, because he runs out
of space in his phone.
Luciano takes photos of his work to show to potential clients
and keeps them in his computer.
”Q: How do you remember where to go?
A: I write it maybe on my work trousers or on a piece of paper “
Q: What if you could write it on your cell?
A: No! I prefer the notebook, because I can delete by mistake
phone entries. Painting is a dirty work, lots of dust, can’t use
the phone for writing.”
“I put my phone in a plastic bag when I’m painting,
For protection.”

Constantino Negura, painter, Italy
Constantino is from Moldavia and he works as a painter in
Italy. He started by fixing cars in a garage and then moved
to a painting company. With the help of an elderly man he
was taking care of, he managed to start his own business.
He has a van and always drives to work; he will work even
at distant places as long as the client pays the extras. He
works in daylight so in winter he works from morning till
5 PM, however in summer he can continue until 8 in the
evening. He gets his clients through people he knows and
his old clients.
Constantino does the administration work either in the
evening or in the weekends. The mobile phone is essential
in his life since he doesn’t have a landline. He keeps his
contact list in alphabetical order, and adds abbreviations
to people’s names to remind himself who they are.
Every year he buys an agenda and copies the addresses
and other contact information from the previous year
to the new agenda. He carries the old one with him for
another 6 months in case he needs it. He prefers buying
an agenda instead of a blank notebook because he uses
the calendar and the address book at the beginning of the
agenda but doesn’t really use the day-by-day functionality
of the agenda.
His wife takes care of calculating his budget and writing
things on the computer, he doesn’t do it himself. He
documents the work in case he will want to show to his
future clients. He takes pictures with his digital camera
and then prints them. Then he stores them around the
house but he doesn’t remember where they are exactly.
“The names in my phone are listed in plain alphabetical
order but I add small details to the names to remind me
who they are. Paulo.vw.it is Paulo from Volkswagen in
Italy.”
“I keep an agenda for work.” “My wife takes care of my
accounts, she uses word pad.” “I take photos of my work
and print them, they are somewhere at home.”

George Szilagyi, tradeshow designer, USA
George owns a business with a partner in NY; they design
and install booths for tradeshows. They also cooperate
with carpenters, suppliers and workers to actually build
the booths they design. George works on designing the
booths whereas his partner, Peter, is responsible for the
numbers. They usually get their clients through word of
mouth, and ex-clients want to work with them as well.
They also have clients they work for every year on a
regular basis.
George finds it important to keep all the data related to a
job in a folder. He says if the documents are not organized
and kept properly, when a client asks for them later on, it
is a big problem to go through the files in the computer to
figure out which is which.
He also takes digital photos of his work for his portfolio
and keeps them in his computer.
”Before they become jobs, they are back and forth e-mails
when they become jobs they become a folder.”

Mr. Pireno, construction manager, Italy
Mr. Pireno owns a small construction business with
his brother and they have 10 employees working in
the company. They sometimes hire external workers
depending on the size of the job. In their family business
he is responsible for the office work while his brother takes
care of the fieldwork. They have an office in Ivrea and
unless the location of the work is too far away, they use
that office for coordination and such. If the workplace is
not easy to reach, they create a second mobile office in the
area but it’s something they rather not do.
For Mr. Pireno, connectivity is very important. He works
with his brother and when one of them is in the office the
other is on the construction site and they need to be in
contact all the time. This Christmas he bought his brother
a new phone just so he can be connected all the time,
because his brother used to blame his cell phone for not
getting reception at certain times.
Mr. Pireno takes digital photos of some of the sites they
are working on. Sometimes there is prior structure in
the ground that they have to build upon, so they need to
know what was there when they started and how the
process evolves chronologically. He also photographs site
details with his camera phone for the same purpose, but
complains about the quality of the pictures.
He says they don’t take the portable computers to the
work site because they are delicate and can get dirty
however he says he takes his cell phone all the time
because he can put it in his pocket to protect it.
“I have a camera phone. I use it for taking photographs
of construction details. I use digital camera to take
photographs of construction details before we seal off the
walls.“
“The relationship between the plans and the photos are
not so close, so if something goes wrong we can always
check.”

Mike Harrigan, tradeshow worker, USA
Mike started up his business with 5 friends and they build
booths in tradeshows. They travel to the tradeshows, arrive
very early in the morning to set up and start building. He
is responsible for overseeing the process from beginning
to the end and also has to document every detail to report
back to his clients daily.
Mike uses his phone to establish the order on the worksite;
he has to coordinate the people working on the booths. He
says there are 8000 push-to-talk conversations showing
up in his monthly phone bill.
He says it is very important to mark the workspace
carefully and keep all the tools within that space.
He photographs and documents the work he is doing on
a daily basis and reports to his clients by emailing the
photographs from the booths everyday when he gets
home. This is an important issue because if something is
damaged in the booth when it arrives, he has to let the
client know; otherwise he will have to pay for it.
”Gotta know your booth, do your homework, gotta know
everything.”

Rory Dodd and Piers Roberts,
exhibition designers, UK
Rory and his partner Piers formed Designers Block in
1998. They curate design events both in London and
internationally. They work with a lot of external people
including but not limited to designers, artists, electricians,
carpenters, builders and light technicians. They depend
heavily on their contacts and the list of these contacts
is constantly growing. The business they are doing
requires them to be highly mobile, since they travel
from one exhibition space to another and sometimes
internationally.
Rory and Piers travel often to their exhibition locations.
They prepare excel sheets containing contact information
and other details related to the work, print them out and
carry them around wherever they go. They don’t use
portable computers as mobile devices but more as a source
to refer to, like a book.
Piers currently has 400 names in his contact list and he
doesn’t remember most of these names. Rory deletes some
of the people he knows from his contact list, because he
is afraid to delete numbers if he doesn’t know who they
belong to.
”I would press the magic button and the phone will
transform into a laptop and back again”
Rory Dodd

Tenente Mele, Carabinieri Capitano, Italy
Tenente Mele has been in the Carabinieri organization
for 11 years. He is in a fairly high rank position; he is
responsible for all of the Piedmont area in northern Italy.
His job is to coordinate between the carabinieri on duty
and the higher ranks. Most of the day he stays in his office
doing paperwork but sometimes he goes on location
looking over the operations and reporting what goes on to
his superiors.
Tenente Mele was given a basic cell phone and a sim
card as part of his job. Because of the nature of his job,
he always needs to be there, always connected. However
he doesn’t use the phone he is given but his personal cell
phone instead. It’s a new cameraphone with a color screen
so he can use his daughter’s photos as wallpaper.
He sometimes takes photos of the crime scene with his
digital camera in the phone, but these photographs don’t
carry any legal value, they are purely for personal usage,
to remind him of the event if it comes up in the future.
The other carabinieri do this as well and they all have 16
MB storage space each on the carabinieri servers for this
purpose.