Getting inside of the Cambodians heads....

A big part of our project and one of the main reasons why we are here, is to conduct consumer research. You can read all you want from books about a culture but it will never be the same as living it.

At the TU Delft we learned several techniques that help us understand the user and the behavior, also that help us define the target group we want to design for. We left the Netherlands with two target groups defined: Rural Affluent and Middle Poor. We also concluded from past reports of students and other sources that a good way to identify the social class of the people here is by looking at their houses. So, we felt prepared!!

BUT.....


As soon as we came to Cambodia and began to interview the people many things change, for example we learned not to judge the book by its cover, the houses from the outside might not always tell the truth, some people living in houses that you might classify as rural affluent, were actually very poor.

Every situation is different, every single person we interview has a story to tell that will always be different than the others.

We try not to generalize but we do have to find points in common to be able to reach as much people as possible.

Another thing that changes is that targeting the rural affluent with the type of lamp we are designing is not a challenge, this people have the money to buy something better and they have already a source of light.

The first phase of our research, we designed a open questionnaire, if one thing we do know is that you can not expect to get very concrete answers, you as a researcher need to be very open to any answer and ask many times....why,......why...

Most of the people will answer with words that they consider will please you, instead of the reality. For this first interviews we showed some products we bought back home. They thought we were selling them......


Another interesting thing was trying to keep up with our translator, some time he spended a long time talking with the person, and just said a very short answer to us.

On this second phase of interviews we are aiming to get deeper answers from the people. For this we are using Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques, this are methods that involves more the participant by asking him or her to describe with the aid of graphics and visuals (previously designed by us) their daily life for example, or when, along the day do they use light.

No matter how much you try, you will always feel there is much more to know and to ask, and we are very thankful with the attitude of the people, they are always happy to share their life, needs and hopes.

The more people we visit the more we want this product to be a success and to actually reach the most in need.

We will continue our quest to find out what they actually want and need.....