SOCCKET and the Challenges of Human-Centered Design

This week's readings explored a variety of recent innovations geared towards serving basic human needs, generally with an eye towards emerging-markets. These innovations were, by and large, very human-centered in their design, at least on the surface. I was particularly interested in Joseph Stromberg's Smithsonian piece regarding different emergent technologies seeking to bring power to people in emerging-markets in creative ways.

Stromberg highlights SOCCKET, a soccer ball cum power supply, with the idea being that thirty minutes of soccer will result in enough kinetic energy being stored to power a light for three hours. While at first this glance this product struck me as being very “human-centered” in its design, as its use-case focuses on the behaviors of people who are in dire need of off-grid power, I have to wonder whether this is a sound allocation of development funds. Soccer balls are not cheap in their own right, and a soccer ball with kinetic energy capture equipment inside of it is sure to be significantly more expensive than the average. Might we not better utilize development dollars by investing in existing technologies with broader applications?

Take, for example, New York-based MPOWERD's Luci inflatable solar lamps. The least expensive Luci retails for approximately $18, with wholesale prices of approximately $7.50 (you can purchase one for someone in need for $11.95 on their website), and holds a charge for up to 12 hours. This is surely less expensive than SOCCKET’s best case scenario (the Kickstarter campaign provided backers with a SOCCKET if they donated $89 or more).

Price aside, the Luci light and products like it offer far more utility than something like the SOCCKET. For one thing, there is the obvious point that Luci’s light lasts far, far longer than the SOCCKET. Considering that a huge portion of the world’s poor live at or near the equator, meaning they experience early sunsets year-round, it’s important to have a light that lasts as long as possible. Three hours may not cut it for a lot of people.

Luci lights also allow for anyone to charge them by simply putting them out the sun, whether we are talking about an elderly invalid or a young girl. SOCCKET requires that there be someone in the home who can and will play soccer in order to charge the device, and also requires that said individual finds the time to play soccer every day in order to charge it. This represents a substantial commitment of leisure time that not everyone may have available to them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, SOCCKET has been something of a failure. After a very successful Kickstarter campaign, the failed to deliver the product they had promised, and instead released a very shoddy version that their backers were almost universally unhappy with. In their own words: “we totally ****** up this Kickstarter campaign.”

The SOCCKET experience should be a lesson in not promising more than you can deliver and the importance of focusing on a product's potential diffusion. While this was certainly an example of human-centered design on the surface, the reality was a bit different.

Disclaimer: I have worked with members of the MPOWERD team on previous business ventures, though I would not call them "friends".