Off-the-grid we stand!
The story of an — almost — off-the-grid French designer who lives in lovely and rural Yvelines (France) area, where the landscape’s green and the connection’s bad.
My daily dialogue with anyone goes along the lines of:
Client: “Sorry I can’t hear you”
Me: “Yes, sorry, I live in the brrrrr countryside, my Internet grmblll connection is so bad-d-d-d-”
Client: “Ah ah, you have managed to escape to your countryside home during quarantine, lucky you!”
Me: “No, no! That is schkklng where I live. That is my actual house and my actual life”.
Remote work: fake it ‘till you make it
With the Covid-19 lockdown, remote work has become the new Eldorado. We have managed to transcribe most of our daily activities from the analog to the digital world. Birthdays are now “Skypéros” [portemanteau word made of “Skype” and “apéros”, which is anything happening after 6pm including more than one person and at least one alcoholic beverage]. Professional meetings are now held Zoom, Teams or Hangouts. We, as designers, get to facilitate workshops with Mural, Miro or Klaxoon.
We are surfing that wave. Companies showcase innovative resources and commercial offers. The most in-person events are being gracefully transposed into digital vibes, from a graduation ceremony on Minecraft by Japanese schoolkids to Travis Scott’s concert on online game Fortnite.
The problem with cloud-based life
Everything works remarkably well, remotely — provided you have an Internet connection. I should probably stick with: an acceptable, stable Internet connection. Which is, obviously, not my case, due to my location in the countryside. Situated fifty kilometers away from Paris, my family house, with its low-speed connection and bad phone signal, definitely qualifies for “fracture numérique”. It depicts an area of France where the Internet coverage is very low.
I was expecting to be as productive as before — but it was a mistake. I learnt it the hard way after spending a few hours conducting 1:1 interviews with users for a research project. I used my homemade triple backup technique, recording the faces and voices with both Google Hangouts and Loom. Next thing I know is these interviews evaporated somewhere and never materialized on my Drive or app dashboard. Lost forever.
See, that is the problem when we use cloud-based tools: we cannot afford a chaotic connection.
Relying on humans more than ever
That’s my little technoskeptical side… Plus, I am always looking for ways to enhance relationships between people.
What can you do to tackle this no-connection situation when you still need to show up to that meeting, speak to that conference and present these research findings ?
- Find a partner-in-crime who can back you up if needed. This is particularly helpful when you are to give a presentation. It takes more preparation time but saves you a lot of stress. Amongst your co-workers, identify someone who can become your voice if you disappear from the screen. You should prepare a good brief for them and maybe a transcript of the message you want to share. My inspiration came from this TED talk where Jess Thom explains that her support worker will take over in case she cannot make it to the end of her speech.
- Stop assuming that everyone has a working Internet connection. A few years ago, I was trying to schedule a Whatsapp call with my dear friend Mia, who was born and raised in Lebanon. I assumed that time difference would be the only obstacle to our communication. She did a good job teaching me that Internet connection — and electricity, in general — was not exact science in Beirut, coming and going every hour or so.
- Broaden the scope of inclusive design. We can design screens for color-blind users; adapt objects so they can be used by those who do not have their full physical capacity; we can design intuitive and assisted services. One of the next challenges might be to design for ill-connected people, in an area where they are expected to get full coverage.
PS: I will be a speaker at one of the next e-summits organized by Idean. That will be my next big connection challenge. As of now, there is no plan more elaborated than parking nearby my lovely, now-closed co-working space, staying in my car and hoping to tap its Internet connection from the parking lot.
PPS: For those who wonder what was the third tool included in my triple backup interview capturing technique: I used alternatively Voice Memo from iPhone or Quick Time Play audio recording feature. Lost the video but not the speech!
About me
I am a Design Strategist who conducts user research on a daily basis. This includes, but is not limited to: calling or video-calling experts and users for interviews; facilitating workshops; monitoring or analyzing remote user tests; synchronizing with my fellow research colleagues about ongoing projects. All these activities call for a powerful, reliable Internet connection.
