TRANSACTIONS IN LONDON
DEFAMILIARIZATION AND ETHNOGRAPHY
Defamiliarization is a technique we can use to intentionally disrupt our automatic engagement with familiar systems - preventing our eyes from glazing over—and revealing new insights into the ultra-familiar. By making the familiar seem newly strange, we can surface unique and new design affordances and constraints that typically go unnoticed. These fresh insights can then be leveraged to craft more intuitive, resilient, and human-centered designs, among many other things!
LONDON & CONTACTLESS
This was an individual project conducted over just about four weeks. The first weeks were preparation: developing a literature review and methodology ahead of a three week stay in London, where I would conduct my fieldwork.
MOTIVATIONS
London, of all cities in the UK, is making the fastest transition to a cashless city: and it’s something that was repeatedly noted to me, as an incoming tourist, to be prepared for.
As many cities around the world apparently brand themselves as “cashless” environments, I wanted to make the most of my trip to London and dig into the experience: noting small frictions—confusing signage, split-second hesitation, or a failed tap—of this apparently all-digital system, and breaking down what exactly makes it so “special?”
RQ1: IN WHAT WAYS DOES LONDON BEING "CASHLESS" AFFECT TRANSACTION EXPERIENCE?
GOAL 2:
Compare across key sites where transactions occur to uncover how contactless is accepted, how it has propagated, and how payment technologies produce different behaviors based on site.
GOAL 1:
Experience for myself both the ease and frictions of contactless transactions in situ—seeing how space, signage, informatics and medium/device could be queuing or guiding people’s choices.
LITERATURE REVIEW
My literature review is comprised of a mix of research papers, commercial articles, and news sources. This menagerie of perspectives helped me to build a cohesive picture of the contactless landscape, and some even went as far to help me scope in on a precise methodology.
For London, the turn towards becoming a ‘cashless city’ started with the Transport for London’s (TfL) initiative for a tap and go/pay as you go Underground and Bus network. Public transport in london allows you to tap in and pay as you go with a card or phone, where before commuters had to prepay cards and tickets. TfL’s own data shows that by 2022 (influenced by the pandemic), mobile wallet usage like that of Apple Wallet or Google pay became the most common mode of payment on the Tube, outstripping the iconic Oyster cards and literal credit cards. In 2014, cash fares were completely eliminated from buses, meaning passengers use their phones, credit cards, or an oyster card to tap on, just as they would for the underground.
ANTICIPATING SAFTEY, PRIVACY AND WILLINGNESS
Seeing as paying and transactions themselves are a sensitive interaction, where people go out of their way to buy RFID safe wallets, and use their bodies to cover their pins, I wanted to be certain I could be unobtrusive in my observations.
At this initial stage in the project, I didn’t anticipate being able to get interviews. All of my fieldwork centered around observing from the outside, and making sure I as an outsider and researcher in the field wouldn’t end up putting myself in danger!
Before setting out, I also explored the laws surrounding photography of other people in London, and found that because I am not acting for a commercial purpose, and taking photos in public spaces, I should generally be okay. I planned from the beginning to be especially sensitive in the underground and bus stations, seeing as they are separately highlighted as under specific restrictions.
FIELDWORK
DESC ABOUT FIELDWORK PRIOR TO CEHCK IN
Changes made to fieldwork. Methods section already discussed the intended data points and HOW
DATA ANALYSIS
Coded for 4 main themes from lit review, top down, thinking of intentions behind design
DATA ANALYSIS
DESC ABOUT WHAT CHANGED AFTER MY INITIAL FIELDWORK ATTEMPTS
Coded for 4 main themes from lit review, top down, thinking of intentions behind design
SITE SELECTION
A smaller constraint to consider was that of this being a school trip in a foreign country. We were asked to move in a buddy system, and not go explore the city alone. My sites — transport hubs I’ll already be using, coffee shops, and so on — all of which being busy, social, and easily accessible made them attractive locations for fieldwork where I’d always have another person tagging along. Even better, in cafes I could bring along groups to study and work as I conducted necessary observations!
To the left are various pictures of my fieldwork sites, and notes and informatics I took pictures of.
LONDON IN THE NEWS
The transport system was only the beginning, and soon many smaller shops began following suit. However: going cashless means being entirely dependent on this technology: What happens to those who cannot use cards? Who don’t have access to technology which gives them a mobile wallet? What of those who use ONLY cash? These debates only continue as a trend among london businesses rises to the top. Articles seem to indicate that London businesses are more and more often refusing cash transactions altogether (making places such as PRET unique for transitioning towards tap to pay, but keeping support for cash transactions, a special case!).
METHODOLOGY
I plan to conduct fieldwork at several key locations, which I selected based on notable sites in my lit review, and the accessibility and safety of myself as an ethnographer.
As established in the lit review - the transit system in London is largely credited with gearing Londoners with the familiarity and physical technology needed to engage with a contactless tap-to-pay system. The bus system, as a site for one of the papers itself, also became a main point of focus for contactless transactions.
It was from there that I decided to look into Cafes and Coffee shops. These are locations where I wouldn’t be out of place loitering around, and which usually have an open design: with tables near or in sight of the till!
The last fieldwork “site” was comprised of any location where I myself engaged with or observed a transaction of note. This was all captured in my Fieldwork Journal! Any time I saw a notable, special, or otherwise odd interaction in a ‘transaction space’, I would take note. Sometimes, even anecdotes from my classmates would make the cut!
ETHNOGRAPHY FOR DESIGN:
JAPAN & DIGITAL MONEY
Paragraph abotu MEIWAKU, exploring transaction design through social implications of debt, commotion for others, and privacy
This is the paper where I pulled the theme of community or a social implications elements being attached specifically to TIME.
ETHNOGRAPHY FOR DESIGN:
SOCIAL INTERACTION VIA DIGITAL TRANSACTIONS
PRE-DURING-POST transaction ethnography, helped me figure out early methodologies.
Informatics, and Social Barriers (consideration), cites MEiwaku and claims this is the case for UK as well (YESS!!)
key notes in stickies
STUDENTS IN HIGHER ED PAPER & :
Stakeholders venn diagram: Stakeholders want you to spend money and feel the least loss possible, so you spend more. digital money has less intense feelings of loss connected to it, so students are spending and spending. Users want to manage their money sensitively, budget effectively, and spend the least (presumably)
LONDON BUS DRIVERS: CASHLESS ETHNOGRAPHY
PAper about bus drivers and the transitions to cashless.
probably really good now to backfill more qualitative reactions because its a much more in depth interview based study.
The contrast between how Londoners pay for the tube as opposed to buses is one highlighted over and over as an incoming tourist (Tap in! Tap off! Don’t tap!). In 2014, Transport for London (TFL) made plans for all of London’s buses to become cashless. In the previous year, when buses began accepting contactless payments, 1% of all transactions were made with cash (about 60,000 journeys). Of those using cash, 86% also had an oyster card (Oyster Cards are NFC cards used to pay for transport in London). This paper explores the influence, impact, and interpretation of digital monies, such as the oyster card, through the lens of HCI. I think the implications for going cashless section will be especially valuable.
This universe where everyone clicks for every dollar they spend pulls from themes from the Higher Education paper, as well as generally tries to address a ‘cashless’ society where we still feel the weight of each transaction…
Desc of sketch and design intention. Disucsses the data analysis lead in, and defamilliarization or smth
Desc of sketch and design intention. Disucsses the data analysis lead in, and defamilliarization or smth
SKETCHES
To further clarify and explore the themes, the next step of the process was to take the data analysis into sketching and ideation..
My themes became my step points for design: I thought about ways to play with the social implications, the cognitive implications, and so on, with each design.
For example, this early design to the left is a series of three sketches which I imagined would feed into a larger “movement” encouraging people to be more social and make use of the time saved by using tap to pay at the till by making connections.
London became cashless because the entire population was already adapted to it as a result of the transport system.
So this design is inspired by both that and my experience at Primark where you had to use your receipt to scan out of the store.
Desc of sketch and design intention. Disucsses the data analysis lead in, and defamilliarization or smth
CONCLUSION
We began by documenting the onboarding process through interviews with team leads and technicians. We identified gaps between management’s expectations and the practical experiences of new hires. The training process lacked standardization, resulting in varying levels of expertise among technicians.