Request for Proposal

Communication Difficulty in Indigo Bookstore

Due to Language Barrier
Abstract

This Request for Proposal (RFP) has the purpose of improving the daily lives of the
IndigoSpirit bookstore community. This community is located within the Mount Sinai Hospital
on University Avenue ([1]). Its primary goal is selling books, but also interacting positively
with its customers and community surrounding it ([2]).

As the bookstore is located within a hospital in Toronto (a city where 43% of the population
isnt fluent in English), it attracts a very diverse customer base ([3]). The opportunity that is
identified is to eliminate the communication difficulty between staff and customers in the
IndigoSpirit Bookstore due to language barrier through engineering design. This opportunity
has been brought up through direct interaction with stakeholders. ([4])

The primary stakeholders related to this opportunity are employees of the IndigoSpirit store,
as well as their customers and the Indigo Books and Music Inc.. Due to these
communication issues, certain employees and customers experience frustration while trying
to communicate, and some customers may not feel as welcome as Indigo would like, due to
cultural/linguistic barriers. The designed solution will relieve these frustrations and make
IndigoSpirit more accessible to its customers. Along with these stakeholders, Hospital
patients, volunteers and broadly the Mount Sinai Hospital are viewed as secondary
stakeholders.

There are two general concepts of addressing this opportunity that are recommended by the
authors of this RFP: reduce language barrier or reduce the amount of necessary
communication. There are also existing reference designs offering solutions to certain
aspects of the opportunity, however they are not adequate to fully address the opportunity.
An example is that some reference designs are not designed to take into account time
efficiency. As such, the potential design solution must address all characteristics of the
opportunity.

The engineering requirements of this RFP are made based on usability, efficiency, portability,
and ergonomics, as well as the beliefs and requirement of the stakeholders. It is believed
that by achieving these engineering requirements, the designed product will be able to
address this opportunity successfully.
 Table of Contents

Abstract
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Community: IndigoSpirit Bookstore at Mount Sinai Hospital
a. Role and Function of Indigo Store in General
b. Goals of Indigo Store in General
c. Different Branches of Indigo Books and Music Inc. (IndigoSpirit)
3. Opportunity
a. Background
b. Opportunity and Lived Experience Description
c. Scoping
4. Design Space
a. General Concepts
b. Reference Designs
5. Stakeholders
a. Primary Stakeholders
b. Secondary Stakeholders
6. Design Requirement
a. Objectives
i. High Level Objectives
ii. Detailed Objectives
b. Metrics
c. Criteria
d. Constraints
7. Conclusion
8. References
a. Online Sources
b. Stakeholder Engagement
1.Introduction
Reading is one of the most common leisure activities amongst people nowadays (App. A,
[1]), which means that companies such as Indigo Books and Music Inc. are always going to
be predominant on the book selling market and will have a lot of customers. Toronto is the
biggest multicultural city in Canada (App. A, [2]). For a lot of Torontonians who experience
significant difficulties in communication with the English language, it is hard to express what
they want in regular conversation. Especially, when they try to communicate to a store
manager or customer service representative at a store. It creates frustration within the
employee, as well as miscommunication between customers and the employees of the store.
The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to frame the opportunity and to seek
different engineering designs which may address this opportunity to improve the lived
experience of the bookstore community. This document consists of background information
about the community, description of stakeholders, reference designs and framing of the
engineering requirements.

2. Community: IndigoSpirit bookstore at Mount Sinai Hospital

The goal of this section is to describe the bookstore community within its hospital setting.
First, the role of the bookstore will be explored. Then its values and goals will be presented,
and finally the current environment in which the opportunity has arisen will be described.

Location of the IndigoSpirit bookstore

2.1 Role and Function of Indigo Books & Music Inc. Community
This community exists as part of a corporation which owns many bookstores across Canada
(App. A, [3], Figure.1). It functions as most bookstores, as a shop with books lining the
shelves split into separate sections based on genre and authors last name, and with staff
walking throughout the store to help customers find any type of book they are looking for.
The stores location is extremely emotional as it is situated in a hospital where very good and
very bad news are delivered on a daily basis. The role of this bookstore is to accompany
each customer in their search for an adapted book in a possibly emotional time (App. B, [a],
[3]).

2.2 Goals of the Indigo Books & Music Inc. Community (App. A, [3], Figure.2)
IndigoSpirit values Customer Engagement, Respect, and Teamwork above all. IndigoSpirit
aims to be an open space for people of all backgrounds and cultures. Its main goal is to
create a personal contact between the staff members and all customers in order to establish
a soothing and emotionally open environment within their store.

2.3 Different Branches of Indigo Books and Music Inc. (IndigoSpirit)

2.3.1 IndigoSpirit at Mount Sinai
This bookstore is considered to be one of the small format stores operated by Indigo. It is
one of 123 such stores across the nation, and is designed to be in retail shopping centers
and areas (App. A, [3], Figure.1). This location is thought out in order to stay in direct contact
with the communities, as opposed to superstores traditionally located further outside the
communities (App. A, [3], Figure. 1).

3. Opportunity
This section will identify and analyze the existing communication problem due to language
barriers and frame the possible engineering opportunity to improve the quality of the lived
experience of the bookstore community.

3.1 Background
As one of the biggest (in terms of population) international cities in Canada (App. A, [2]), a
country which values multiculturalism (App. A, [4]), Toronto has a great amount of residents
with different cultural and language backgrounds. According to the research from Statistics
Canada (App. A, [5]), there are 42.76% of the population (2,314,530 people, as shown in the
diagram below) in Toronto (in 2013) who have non-official languages as their mother
tongues and are not able to speak either official language well enough to communicate with
others. Therefore, it is assumed that the bookstore may have a large number of customers
who cannot speak English fluently (this assumption is confirmed through stakeholder
engagement (App. B, [a], [1])), so communication difficulties may appear between these
customers and employees of the bookstore.
 Figure 1: Single Responses VS Figure 2: Population Speaking English
Multiple Responses VS French VS Non-official
Languages

These two figures are made based on the data from App. A [5] to give the readers a
direct understanding of amount of people speaking different kinds of languages. In
Figure 1, the total is the population of Toronto. In Figure 2, the total is the amount of
people in Toronto who are single responses (This phrases is defined in App. A [5]
as people who are only able to respond to others in one languages).

According to Kevin Marusic, there is no formal solution for this problem now (App. B, [b], [2]).
When none of the employees can speak the languages with which the customer is familiar
with, communication difficulties will occur, and the only thing the bookstore can do is to call
the hospital and ask for help (the hospital has interpreter services (App. A [6] & App. B [a].[2]
& [b].[1])). However, this is inconvenient and may not work if all the interpreters are busy,
according to Kevin (App. B [b].[3]).
During the interview with Kevin (App. B [a].[3]), there were several potential opportunities
(except the communication difficulty opportunity) such as ordering the books that were
discussed. However, these potential opportunities already have solutions that are good
enough (i.e. first-year engineering students are not able to design better solutions in several
months) and Indigo has people and processes in house to deal with them (App. B
[a].[4]&[6]).

3.2 Opportunity and Lived Experience Description

The opportunity that is identified is to reduce the communication difficulty in IndigoSpirit
Bookstores due to language barriers through engineering design.
The experience of communicating with customers who cannot speak English is very
unpleasant. In Kevins words, ...then we come to an impasse and its not ideal (App. B, [b],
[3]). For the customers, it would also be frustrating and stressful if no employees in the
Bookstore can understand them and help them (App. A, [7]).
By addressing this opportunity, the lived experience of both employees and customers will
be improved. The employees will not come to an impasse due to language barriers anymore,
and the customers will be understood by the employees and get help from them. At last, the
Indigo companys mission to bring customers joy will be further accomplished (App. A, [3],
Figure 3).
3.3 Scoping
The purpose of scoping is to limit this design project so that it is within the ability of the
engineers who will work on this (i.e. first-year student engineers from Engineering Science of
University of Toronto).
The focus of this RFP is the communication issue happening within the bookstore. More
specifically, the purpose of this RFP is to address the communication issue due to language
barriers happening in normal conversations in a bookstore (e.g. conversation about looking
for a book). Therefore, the engineers are not expected to eliminate the language barrier in
other situations (e.g. its unnecessary to design a product which can translate all languages
extensively).

4. Design Space
This section will provide some general concepts that may help the engineers address this
opportunity (Notice: these concepts are recommended to be considered and it is the
engineers freedom to choose to follow them or not). This section will also identify some
existing but imperfect designs as reference designs.

4.1 General Concepts

There are two general concepts to address the opportunity that are recommended to be
considered, and some general information about communication which may help to
understand the opportunity.

Concept 1: Eliminate the Language Barrier

Communication can be categorized to two kinds by the method using (App. A, [8]). One is
verbal communication, which can be understood as communicating by languages. The other
one is nonverbal communication, which is using symbols other than words (e.g. gestures
and body language) to transmit messages (App. A, [8] & [9]). Therefore, except direct
translation, using nonverbal communication to replace verbal communication may be a way
that can address the opportunity and is worth considering. As (App. A, [10], [3]) shows, its
possible to communicate and achieve the goal of communication through only nonverbal
communication. However, it should be mentioned that nonverbal communication can be
successful only when two people are willing to communicate with each other and both have
basic knowledge about the item that they are talking about (App. A, [10], [3]). Thus, if
engineers want to design something that can eliminate language barriers through nonverbal
communication, it would be important to ensure the users willingness to communicate (App.
A, [10], [2]) and their knowledge about whatever they are communicating about (e.g. a book).

Concept 2: Reduce Communication

The idea of this concept is to reduce communication between staff and customers who are
not good at English, so less communication difficulties may appear. According to (App. B, [b],
[3]), the truly necessary communication in a bookstore is limited. For example, here is an
extreme but possible situation: if a customer is bad at English, but he knows the name of the
book which he wants to buy and he can understand numbers, the customer would be able to
buy the book without saying any wordshe would only need to take the book to the cashier,
read the price of the book (numbers) and then pay for it. However, this may only happen
when the customer knows the name of the book and where to find them. Thus, the
engineers may want to think about designing a product which can reduce communication
between two people with different language backgrounds and help the customers with their
needs (e.g. find a book). Nevertheless, it should always be kept in mind that the Indigo
Bookstore values customer engagement (App. A [3] Figure 2) so the product should not
contradict with this value.

4.2 Reference Design

Five reference designs which may address the opportunity are listed below. Each design will
be described in terms of functions, advantages, and disadvantages. By considering and
validating the reference designs, the engineers may gain some ideas about the kinds of
engineering requirements that are needed.

Human interpreter (App A, [11]):

Functions Advantages Disadvantages

A trained professional -It is an interpreter s job to -May be faster than using a

interpreter translates a text
from its original language to
the desired language, while
taking into account cultural
and linguistic factors.
ensure the accuracy of
translation.
-An interpreter is able to find
suitable alternatives when
literal translation is not
possible.
dictionary, but is slower than
machine translation (e.g.
Google Translate) under
most conditions
-May cost much more than
dictionary, whereas the free
ones (from the hospital) are
not always available.
-One interpreter knows a
limited number of
languages.

Analysis: This reference design can be considered as the current solution of this opportunity.
According to its disadvantages, efficiency, cost, and number of languages that can be
translated should be considered when making the engineering requirements.
Machine translator

Functions Advantages Disadvantages

Machine translators work
with Statistical Machine
Translation which collects
information over time in
order to produce the most
accurate translation.
-Takes less amount of time
compared to a dictionary.
-Its easy to use. The users
may not need to type or
write anything. (App. B, [b],
[6])
-May detect source
language automatically.
-Mistakes may appear when
translating sentences (App
A, [12])
-Quality varies depending on
language pairs
-May require Internet
connection.
-Requires a smartphone if it
is an app
-Takes time to set up (App.
B, [b], [5])

Analysis: Disadvantages of this reference design lead to the consideration of accuracy of

translation and accessibility of the design.

Dictionary/ Phrase books

Functions Advantages Disadvantages

Translates words or phrases -Most dictionaries are cheap -Time-consuming (not

from one language to
another. A dictionary will
give a definition of an
individual word whereas a
phrasebook will simply
translate the sentence.
(App A, [13]) instantaneous).
-IndigoSpirit has some -One dictionary is only able
dictionaries and to translate between two
phrasebooks (App B, [b], [4]) languages (App B, [b], [4])

Analysis: This reference design has disadvantages in terms of time-consuming and limited
number of languages that can be translated which should be considered when making the
engineering requirements.
Gesture/ Body language

Functions Advantages Disadvantages

Allows for nonverbal -Independent of verbal -miscommunication is usual

communication. There is an language knowledge. (App when using gestures and
example of two people A, [8]) body languages
communicating successfully -Its accessible for almost -requires the people in this
with only body languages everyone. communication having some
(App. A, [10], [3]). basic knowledge about the
contents they are talking
about (App. A, [10], [3]).
Analysis: This reference design shows a method of solving language barrier by using
nonverbal communication.

Writing interaction

Functions Advantages Disadvantages

Minimizes oral
communication needed
-Doesnt require the ability to
speak
-May be useful for the
people who are bad at
listening and speaking.
-requires paper and pen,
and a literacy in a common
language
-may be time-consuming

Analysis: This reference design shows another method of solving language barrier by using
nonverbal communication. Accessibility and efficiency should also be considered according
to the disadvantages of this reference design.
5. Stakeholders (App. A, [14])
A Stakeholder is generally an individual or a group, that is connected to the community, and
will be influenced by the new design solution. The stakeholders would be affected either
positively or negatively. Some of the stakeholders would be influenced significantly, for other
ones it would make only a small change. Considering that, there might be two different types
of stakeholders, primary and secondary ones.

5.1 Primary Stakeholders

Primary stakeholders are the ones directly affected by the resulting solution to the
opportunity. For this opportunity, the primary stakeholders are the Indigo Books & Music Inc.,
the employees at IndigoSpirit at Mount Sinai hospital and customers of Indigo.
1. Customers of IndigoSpirit (especially the ones who are not familiar with English (App.
B, [a], [1])
As one of the primary stakeholders, they want to be served well by the employees
without any frustration (In other words, they want to be understood by the employees
and get help from them). They would be interested in testing the possible solution if it
can improve their interactions with the employees and make these communications
much smoother.
2. Employees of IndigoSpirit at Mount Sinai hospital (App. B, [a], [2])
As the workers at one of the branches of Indigo Books & Music Inc., they are
interested in improving their working environment. As primary stakeholders, they
would like to cooperate, in order to implement the solution into their routine.
Moreover, they can act as negotiators with their head chair representative.
3. Indigo Books & Music Inc.
The company is interested in their customers engagement and comfort (App. A [3]
Figure 2). As a primary stakeholder, the company would be interested in the solution
to the improvement of the international customers to employee interactions. They
would potentially invest some money into improving comfort of their employees and
customers. The main decisions are still dependent on the head of Indigo Books &
Music Inc.

5.2 Secondary Stakeholders

Secondary stakeholders are the ones that are indirectly affected by the design solution to the
opportunity. The Secondary stakeholders for this opportunity are Mount Sinai hospital, the
hospital volunteers and hospital patients.
1. Mount Sinai Hospital (App. B, [a], [1])
Since the current solution for the IndigoSpirit bookstore is hospital volunteers, the
hospital workers are interested in how busy their volunteers are. The hospital recruits
these volunteers as interpreters to help hospital patients, not for other communities.
They would be interested in the design solution which would reduce the amount of
times their volunteers would have to be called to the IndigoSpirit bookstore.
2. Hospital Volunteers (App. A [6])
 They are interested in improving their work with the possible design solution. They
might test it in their working experience, and express their personal opinions on the
solution.
3. Hospital Patients
Hospital patients, while receiving medical treatment in the Mount Sinai hospital,
expect to get certain facilities, as soon as they need them from hospital volunteers.
They would be interested if the design solution would allow the hospital volunteers to
be more available for them.

Table 1: Risk Register Comparison Model of Stakeholders

Risk Impact Category (how influence on Owner Method of Given

(Stakehold on decision) of the being rank
er) design Risk involved of
Solutio into the impor
n problem tance

Customers +++ Opinion on design solution; The Direct 1

of Indigo Can test it. respon
Bookstore dent
team
Employees ++ Opinion on design solution; Direct 3
of Can test it.
Bookstore

Indigo +++ Pay for design solution Direct 2

Books & production;
Music Inc. Care about their customers
opinions(App. A, [3], Figure 2).

Mount - Have volunteers who currently Indirect 4

Sinai help IndigoSpirit employees
Hospital with the problem (App. B,
[a],[2]).

Hospital -- Help the IndigoSpirit Indirect 5

Volunteers employees to communicate
with customers (App. B, [a],
[2]).

Hospital --- Dependent on the volunteers Indirect 6

Patients who take care of them.
Note: For the Purpose of the Request of the Proposal (RFP), only primary stakeholders will
be considered in requirements, since they are the only ones investigated thoroughly.
6. Design Requirements
This section will discuss the engineering objectives for the design solutions, followed by
metrics, criteria and constraints. Objectives are created to indicate the goals that the final
design must achieve. Metrics are provided to specify, clarify and measure each objective.
The final design solution cannot violate any point listed in the constraints and is evaluated by
the criteria.

6.1 Objectives

High Level Objectives

1. Reduce communication issues between customers and employee of IndigoSpirit
bookstore (Primary Stakeholder 1, 2, 3)
Justification: This is the only high level functional objective. If this objective
is not achieved, the opportunity will not be addressed. Therefore, it is related
to all three primary stakeholders and is considered to be the most important
high level objective.

2. Improve the working experience of employees and shopping experience of

customers within the Indigo Bookstore (Primary Stakeholder 1, 2)
Justification: The purpose of this objective is to improve the living
experience of two primary stakeholders (employees and customers of Indigo),
which is also a purpose of this RFP as was mentioned in the introduction.

3. Indigo Books & Music Inc. is willing to use and pay for the product (Primary
Stakeholder 3)
Justification: Indigo Books & Music Inc. is the stakeholder who has the
power to choose to use and buy the product or not. Therefore, it is necessary
to have this objective to make sure the product would be accepted.

Detailed objectives
1. By using the product, the customers/employees can gain sufficient communication
abilities to shop/help shop in the bookstore. (HLO1)
Justification: This detailed objective is related to the Concept 1 in 4.1
General Concept, which is aimed to resolve this opportunity by eliminating
language barriers. If the customers gain sufficient communication abilities,
they will be able to communicate with the employees of Indigo to a certain
degree so the communication issues will be reduced (and vice versas), which
achieves High Level Objective 1.

2. The final product should be operated in as many foreign languages as possible

(HLO1, HLO2)
 Justification: As was mentioned in introduction and in the background of the
community, there are a lot of multicultural customers. This means that the
solution would have to be provided in a lot of foreign languages, which would
reduce communication issues between customers and employees. This is a
part of High Level Objective 1 and High Level Objective 2.

3. Product complies with definition of comfortability (HLO2)

Justification: The definition of comfortability is the state of physical or mental
comfort (App. A, [15]). As was mentioned in community description for Indigo
Books & Music Inc., the customer's pleasure is their most important value
(App. A, [3], Figure. 2). The comfort of their employees is also important.
Feelings of comfort create better environment in the store. This is directly
relevant to High Level Objective 2.

4. The product is accessible (HLO2)

Justification: In this case, accessibility means ease of understanding and
learning how the product works. High accessibility reduces time wasted on
learning the product, and the employees can be more productive and helpful.
This is a part of High Level Objective 2.

5. The product has reasonable cost (HLO3)

Justification: The product needs to be in a reasonable price range such that
it is not a relatively heavy expenditure to the Indigo company, so they are
willing to purchase it.

6. Product complies with definition of portability (HLO2, HLO3)

Justification: The definition (in this case) of portable is easily carried or
conveyed by hand (App. A, [16]). The portability of the product would allow
the employees and the consumers to use it with ease. Also, as the size of the
product increases, the level of inconvenience when moving it around the shop
(or looking for space to place it) increases. This is directly related to High
Level Objective 2 and 3.

7. Alternative to DO1: By using the product, the amount of communication between

customers and employees will be reduced. (HLO1)
Justification: This is an alternative of Detailed Objective 1. In other words, if
Detailed Objective 1 is achieved, then this detailed objective should be
ignored, and vice versa. This detailed objective is related to the Concept 2 in
4.1 General Concept, which is designed to address this opportunity by
reducing amount of necessary communication.
6.2 Metrics

1. Level of communication that can be reached by using the product (DO1)

Justification: By assessing with this metric, the engineers may know how
DO1 is achieved. The phrase level of communication means the complexity
of conversations happening between customers and employees. The more
complex the conversation is, the higher the level of communication is. The
recommended method is to categorize Yes/No questions and answers to
satisfactory level of communication and more general questions and answers
to good level of communication. However, it is the respondents freedom to
decide to modify this or not.
Reminder: This is the metric related to DO1, so if the engineers decide to
use DO7 instead of DO1, this metric should be ignored.

Unacceptable Satisfactory Good

The product rarely The product improves the The product improves the
improves the level of level of communication to level of communication
communication, so the a certain degree so the significantly so most kinds
communication issue is customers and employees of conversation that may
not solved. of Indigo are able to make appear in a bookstore can
some basic conversations be made by the
(e.g. How much is this customers and the
book?) employees of Indigo (e.g.
Could you please
recommend a science
fiction which is?).
Recommended test method for this metric: Observe users (or engineers acting as
users) of the product shopping in the bookstore, record the level of communication
they reach, and analyze the data.

2. Price of the product in CAD (DO5)

Justification: Indigo needs to be willing to purchase and use this product, so
the price has to be acceptable.

3. Ergonomics of the product (DO3)

Justification: Detailed objective 3 asks for comfortability when using the
product. Ergonomics, by definition (App. A, [17]) , means designs with high
efficiency and low level of both physical and mental discomfort. Therefore, by
evaluating the ergonomics of the product, the level of comfortability of the
product can be determined.
 Unacceptable Satisfactory Good

Consumers experience a Consumers operate the After usage, consumers

form of discomfort after product within some do not experience any
using the product. The level of comfort. The discomfort qualifiers due
users feel sore or mental ache or the discomfort is to the product. The users
discomfort after using not heavy but still exists are happy after using the
(App. A, [18], Figure 1). (App. A, [18], Figure 1). product (App. A, [18],
Figure 2).

Recommended test method for this metric: Do a survey about user feedback on
using the product (App. A, [19]).

4. Portability of the product (DO6)

Justification: If the product is meant to be carried around the shop, then the
weight of the product needs to be evaluated so that the operator does not feel
tired after using the product, which in turn allows for continuous use without
the need to rest. Also, how much space the project occupied determines the
level of convenience of moving it around.
a. weight
Unacceptable Satisfactory Good
The weight of the product The weight does not The weight is below 2.3kg,
exceeds 4.4kg (App. A, exceed 4.4kg, and the and the product is sturdy
[20]). product is sturdy (App. A, (App. A, [20]).
[20]).

b. Space occupied

5. Number of different language barriers may be solved by the product (DO2)

Justification: This metric is to evaluate how many foreign languages the
product can successfully operate in, which corresponds to detailed objective 2.

Unacceptable Satisfactory Good

The product fails to The product can only The product succeeds in
reduce any language help with one or two reducing communication
barrier. languages. barriers in any languages.
6. Time to effective use (DO4)
Justification: Time to effective use refers to how long it takes for people to
learn about the product and use it effectively. Based on detailed objective 4
which requires that people of any background can use the product with ease,
time to effective use needs to be evaluated.

Recommended test method for this metric: Observe a number of users learning to
use the product and record the time. Then calculate the average time consumed of
understanding and learning to use the product.

7. Amount of necessary communication between customers and employees while using

the product (DO7)
Justification: By assessing with this metric, the engineers may know how
DO8 is achieved.
Reminder: This is the metric related to DO7, so if the engineers decide to
use DO1 instead of DO7, this metric should be ignored.

Unacceptable Satisfactory Good

By using the product, the By using the product, the By using the product, the
amount of necessary amount of necessary amount of necessary
communication between communication between communication between
customers and employees customers and employees customers and employees
rarely decreases. OR By is reduced such that if the is reduced such that some
using the product, the customer knows the name specific questions of the
amount of necessary of the book he/she wants to customers can be solved
communication between buy, he/she will be able to without communicating with
customers and employees go through the whole the employees.
overly decreases so it shopping process without
contradicts with the any communication with the
customer engagement employees.
brief of Stakeholder 3
(Indigo Books & Music Inc.)
(App. A [3] Figure 2).
Recommended test method for this metric: Observe users (or engineers acting as
users) of the product shopping in the bookstore, record the amount of necessary
communication they need, and analyze the data.
6.3 Criteria

1. Preferred higher level of communication that can be achieved. (M1)

2. Preferred lower cost. (M2)
3. Preferred less discomfort. (M3)
4. Preferred lighter weight. (M4a)
5. Preferred less space occupied by the product. (M4b)
6. More language barriers solved is preferred. (M5)
7. Less time to effective use is better. (M6)
8. Less, but not overly less, verbal communication is preferred. (M7)

6.4 Constraint

1. Must score at least satisfactory when assessed with M1 (or M7) and M5.
Justification: These metrics are related to the functional objectives, scoring
unacceptable when assessing these metrics means the opportunity is not
addressed.
2. Must have a price that is accepted by the Primary Stakeholder 3 (Indigo Books &
Music Inc.) when assessed with M2.
Justification: Primary stakeholder 3 has the power to decide to buy this
product or not, so the price must be reasonable such that the primary
stakeholder is willing to pay for it.

7. Conclusion
Throughout the researches and stakeholder engagement, the opportunity is defined as to
reduce the communication difficulty in IndigoSpirit Bookstore due to language barrier by
engineering design. Therefore, the primary goal of the final product is to ease
communication between staff and customers who are not familiar with English at the
IndigoSpirit located in Mount Sinai hospital. This can be done in a variety of ways, which
may include reducing language barriers to make communication easier, or simply by
decreasing the amount and complexity of communication required. In the process, all
objectives should be taken into account in order to obtain the most suitable result for all
stakeholders.
8. Reference

Appendix A: Online Resources

[1]Are Canadians spending their leisure time reading?,BookNet Canada. [Online].

Available: http://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2016/6/3/are-canadians-spending-their-leisure-
time-reading. [Accessed: 18-Feb-2017].

[2]Diversity,Toronto Facts - Your City | City of Toronto. [Online]. Available:

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=dbe867b42d853410VgnVCM1000
0071d60f89RCRD. [Accessed: 18-Feb-2017].
[3]I. I. B. Music, Our Company | Fast Facts,indigo.ca. [Online]. Available:
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/our-company/fast-facts/. [Accessed: 18-Feb-2017].

Figure.1

Figure. 2
[4] Government of Canada, "Canadian Multiculturalism: An Inclusive Citizenship," in
Government of Canada, 2012. [Online]. Available:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/citizenship.asp. Accessed: Feb. 19, 2017.
[5] Population by mother tongue, by census metropolitan area , excluding institutional
residents (2011 Census) (Ottawa-Gatineau, Kingston, Peterborough, Oshawa,
Toronto),Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 13-Feb-2013. [Online]. Available:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo12c-eng.htm. [Accessed:
18-Feb-2017].
[6] Interpreter Services,Interpreter Services Mount Sinai Hospital - Toronto. [Online].
Available: https://www.mountsinai.on.ca/patients/interpreter-services/interpreter-services.
[Accessed: 18-Feb-2017].(c) C. 2011-2017,
[7] H. Ding and L. Hargraves, "Stress-associated poor health among adult immigrants with a
language barrier in the United States," Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, vol. 11, no.
6, pp. 446452, Oct. 2008.
[8] Non-Verbal Communication,Non-Verbal Communication | SkillsYouNeed. [Online].
Available: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/nonverbal-communication.html. [Accessed: 18-
Feb-2017].

[9] TYPES AND LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION,TYPES AND LEVELS OF

COMMUNICATION. [Online]. Available:
http://intranet.tdmu.edu.ua/data/kafedra/internal/i_nurse/lectures_stud/BSN%20(4year)%20P
rogram/Full%20time%20study/Second%20year/the%20art%20of%20speaking/%E2%84%96
%2011.%20Types%20and%20Levels%20of%20communication.htm. [Accessed: 18-Feb-
2017].
[10] Penny Kinnear (2017, Feb. 5th) Re: Could you please give us some advice? [Online].
Available e-mail: penny.kinnear@utoronto.ca

Thank you for the questions. I will do my best to give you useful answers, although these are
really big questions.

1. The advantage of using oral interaction over written interaction comes in being able to
use non-verbal and paralinguistic signs and signals. That means you can use [1]gestures,
facial expressions, body postures and tone, speed, intonation to supplement the linguistic
parts of communication. Often you can "guess" what someone is trying to say or at least
their general meaning from a combination of gesture, facial expression and intonation (rising
and falling of pitch). Your guess at the meaning will not be precise but it can often be "good
enough" to have a general idea. There is also an advantage in oral communication when
dealing with people who are not literate (There are many people, particularly refugees but
not exclusively, who have not learned to read and write for a wide range of reasons. Writing
something down does not help with communication, as it sometimes can.
Miming actions, drawing quick sketches can help with communication but are not perfect.
Different experiences will set people up to interpret images differently. There was some
interesting research done in South Africa by scholars and health workers trying to put
together materials to be used in HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns. They found that the
illustrations they had made were NOT interpreted with the same meanings they had
anticipated.

2. There are not foolproof ways of solving language barriers. One of the most important, and
I would argue an absolute, requirement is the ability and willingness to listen (and watch) for
meaning. This means listening not just to someone's use of words in sentences but
attending to what is called illocutionary (intended) meanings as well as the literal meanings
of words and phrases. [2]The language barrier is not just a lack of knowledge of a different
vocabulary (lexicon) and grammar. More often it is an attitude of judgment that the "other
language speaker" cannot use or understand anything. Even when we are using our own
language we do not listen or pay attention to every single word someone says; we listen for
meaningful phrases, intonation, pauses, pace and volume. That's one of the reasons it is
very difficult to recall a conversation word-for-word.
The use of translation dictionaries, things like Google Translate are also useful tools to
achieve a rudimentary shared understanding. These can be quite effective in achieving
simple, basic understanding.

3 and 4. Go to Statistics Canada and you can find some really interesting statistics on
languages, how many people use different languages, what those languages are, where the
people using those different languages live and how the language mixes have changes over
the years. I believe the most recent stats are from 2012, which is acceptable.
5. How I would start communicating really depends on the other person. If the other person
has some English, I would start there because that is sort of a common ground. Without a
common language, I would start with the situation we find ourselves in. Am I in the grocery
store? I would use the stuff around us along with gestures and always saying the different
words (words have been borrowed among languages so there is always a chance you will
find a common words that can provide a stepping stone) to try and figure out what the
person is looking for. [3]I watched a woman ask a cashier at the store just yesterday. The
woman was trying to find out if the store carried a certain kind of grinding bowl but the
cashier couldn't (or didn't seem to) follow the customer's English language description, so
the customer added gestures of a round bowl, using her fingers to indicate the pattern of
ridges on the inside of the bowl. The customer didn't have a name for what she was looking
for (like a mortar and pestle but different), however, I recognized from her description what
she was looking for but only had the Japanese name for it. The cashier also seemed to
recognize the object, but also didn't have a name for it but could reliably tell the woman that
the store didn't carry that particular item. Guy Cook, an Australian applied linguist, has done
some very interesting field work on how people communicate in shops and restaurants when
they don't share in-depth knowledge of one another's languages or English.

I hope this helps you.

Penny

Sent from my iPad

On Feb 5, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Hengrui Jia <nickhengrui.jia@mail.utoronto.ca> wrote:

Dear Prof. Kinnear,

We do have some basic questions:

1. What is the role of oral languages in communication? Is there anything can function as
alternatives of languages and what are they?
2. Are there any ways of solving language barriers? If yes, what are they?
3. What are the languages that are used widely in Toronto except English and French?
4. Where can we find some legitimate statistics about the Multicultural society in Canada? (e.g. How
many people in Canada's first languages are not English nor French?)
5. If there is a person whose first language are not the ones you are familiar with, how will you
communicate with him/her?

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Hengrui Jia
[11]L. Broderick, "Machine vs human translation: The pros, cons and when to use each," in
translate plus, translate plus, 2016. [Online]. Available:
http://www.translateplus.com/machine-vs-human-translation-pros-cons-use/. Accessed: Feb.
5, 2017

[12]Google translate (no date) [Online]Available at: https://translate.google.ca (Accessed: 7

February 2017).

*the actual meaning is ---- I am a man from the Northeast.

[13] Dictionaries: Meanings, Pronunciations, and origins (2016). [Online] Available at:
http://www.staples.ca/en/Dictionaries/cat_CL207783_2-CA_1_20001 (Accessed: 7 February
2017).

[14]A. L. Friedman and S. Miles,Stakeholders: theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010.

Page 32
[15]"the definition of comfortability", Dictionary.com, 2017. [Online]. Available:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/comfortability. [Accessed: 19- Feb- 2017].

[16]"the definition of portable", Dictionary.com, 2017. [Online]. Available:

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/portable. [Accessed: 19- Feb- 2017].
[17]Farlex, "Ergonomic," TheFreeDictionary.com, 2003. [Online]. Available:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ergonomic. Accessed: Nov. 24, 2016.

[18] K.H.E Kroemer, K.E. Kroemer-Elbert and H.B. Kroemer, Ergonomics: how to
design for ease and
efficiency, c1994 ed.
Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice Hall, 1994.

Figure. 1 Figure. 2
[19]6 Reasons Why Customer Feedback is Important to Your Business, Client Heartbeat
Blog, 07-Oct-2014. [Online]. Available: http://blog.clientheartbeat.com/why-customer-
feedback-is-important/. [Accessed: 18-Feb-2017].

[20] Ergonomics of handheld devices for industrial use [Online]

http://www.processforusability.co.uk/PIC54webslides/Slides/Ergonomics_of_hand-
held_devices.htm
Appendix B: Stakeholder Engagement

Email of the Head of the IndigoSpirit Bookstore, Kevin Marusic: kmarusic@indigo.ca

[a]Transcript of our conversation with Kevin Marusic, Typed by Nicolas Miran

Interview of Kevin Marusic, Customer Experience Manager at IndigoSpirit Mount Sinai

Hospital;
Fedor: Do you give me your permission to record you?
Kevin: Yes, you can record me, absolutely.
F: how is it working at indigo and who are you in Indigo?
K: Ive been with indigo for 15 years now and Im head of store here at IndigoSpirit Mount
Sinai. I like the company, otherwise I wouldnt have been working here for 15 years. I think
indigo has a very strong relationship with the communities that it services, I think indigo has
a very strong corporate culture and a very strong store to store culture. I have a background
in a variety of shops, Ive worked in machine shops doing [inaudible], Ive worked at a zoo,
Ive been a massage therapist, Ive been a bouncer. So a diverse skillset has kind of lead me
to where I am today. And now I am running this store in a hospital which is one of our
smallest but also one of our most unique in the company.
F: is it your most favorite place that youve worked at?
K: Ive had some really great jobs, Ive had some really bad jobs, and this is definitely one of
my most favorite jobs for sure. This is the longest Ive worked for any single company. The
longevity shows that its a good job.
F: What else do you find pleasant other than Indigo itself, maybe something in customers?
K: It all comes down to who indigo is. We all get to bring our individual best selves to work
on a regular basis. We have some phenomenal people who work within this company and
we get to interact with amazing people on a regular basis. In this particular store I get to
experience people at both ends of the emotional spectrum. I may have a customer who just
had a baby and is super excited or I may have someone who just lost a baby. We have
people who are diagnosed with cancer, who are dealing with health issues, with the loss of a
friend. I feel very honored to be in this place on a regular basis where I can touch peoples
lives at such a personal time. Its a very powerful experience.
Nick: Do you have customers from a great diversity?
K: [1]Absolutely, especially here at the hospital is an environment where everybody passes
through our doors at some point. We have people who come from all around the world. We
have people who have English definitely not as a first language, and sometimes that
presents a challenge but we find a way to communicate as best we can. The hospital has a
staff of volunteers who speak a huge variety of languages so if we ever get into a situation
where we just cant communicate with a customer, we can call up volunteer services and
chances are pretty good that theyll have somebody whos a translator here. We try to be
incredibly respectful of all these beautiful cultures that come together and make Canada up.
We try to have cultural displays when we can. Mount Sinai is traditionally a very Jewish
hospital so we put stuff up for holocaust awareness month, weve also put up displays for
black history month and for lunar New Year. We try to be aware of the cultures and customs
that we interact with. Its a huge part of being responsible.
N: So sometimes, if the communication is difficult, is there a kind of software that helps you
translate?
K: so thats outside of my realm of expertise. I cant speak to that at all. We dont have any
resources here, in store, to utilize that. Ive been lucky to have staff members over the
course of time who have spoken different languages. That's been a real treat to be able to
go oh you speak Spanish, that's great, my co worker speaks Spanish. You cant, obviously,
represent every culture, you cant represent every community all the time, and we cant.
[2]For us, we just do the best that we can and communicate with people the best that we
can. The people coming in here either have a little bit of English, or will come with somebody
who can translate for them. But once in a while theres just somebody with who we cant
make it work so we call the hospital volunteers. I think that having a translation device in a
retail environment that is easy for everyone to use would be greatly beneficial especially in a
city like Toronto that is so multicultural and multiethnic. I think that having as close to a
universal translator as possible available in some small format at a retail store would be
really cool.
F: Are there any difficulties that you encounter every day?
K: Not really, most difficulty will arise when dealing with people. Especially with people not
interacting with you on the same level that youre interacting with them. You might have
somebody who is angry or perturbed or not happy with a purchase. We try to do our best
and be diplomatic about it and do whats in the best interest for the customer and be on the
side of kindness whenever I can. [3]We also have to acknowledge, especially in this
environment that if somebody comes in really mad then they might have just heard the worst
news of their life upstairs. I cant say that theres a bad part of my job, or something that I
expresses frustration with every day, because the parts that cause that are so few and so far
between that they are not even memorable moments.
F: What about some things that you are not comfortable with or which could be improved to
make your life easier?
K: I honestly cant think of any right now. [4]We have forms and processes within our
company for the stuff that may need improvement. For example last time we rearranged the
store we had too many fixtures to allow wheelchair access, we made a call to remove one of
those fixtures in collaboration with our partners at home office and we decided which fixtures
go and which fixtures stay. We have processes within our company to address stuff like that
and I think that in any position there is always stuff that you are going to try to improve. But
sometimes you dont know what those things are until it happens. For example getting the
same book 15 times off of the same inaccessible shelf and you now have to get a ladder so
you put it on a lower shelf.
F: So for example putting a ladder that would allow you to access higher books.
K: [5]Indigo has a lot of experience in store design, so they take care of all this and
complying with health and safety regulations etc... There are little stuff that dont occur every
day, but they are not important enough to require inherent design changes. If there is a
difficulty it usually occurs from lack of training or lack of experience, and both of those are
compensated by working in the store on a regular basis.
Ben: Im just curious, do you have problems ordering all of these books?
K: We get shipments of books twice a week. We get anywhere from 10 to 30 boxes of books.
We have two separate systems which allow us to look at what books we have and where we
are supposed to be looking and how we have to categorize them. Once you know where the
books go its just a matter of organizing. Theres no issue or problem sorting or categorizing
them. There might be on a much larger scale, so if you look at the indigo distribution center
which is a massive operation. I think supply chain can always be better, but that's not
something that directly affects me every day.
F: but its not as perfect as you would like?
K: I think that any large company that says that their supply chain is perfect hasnt looked at
their supply chain. I think there are always opportunities in the supply chain for improvement,
but [6]indigo has people and processes in house who are looking at that.
F: Thank you, that was very useful for us.
[b] Second interview with Kevin
Fedor: Youre using some sort of translation methods right now to communicate with
international people. What are they?

Kevin: [1]So right now the system that we have in place is: the hospital, which we are in, has
a volunteer department, and many of the volunteers are multilingual and serve as translators
within the hospital. So if we have need, we can call the hospital volunteer services and see if
somebody speaks the language of the person we are speaking to. Most of the time, in our
store, we have been very lucky in that, if there is somebody that has absolutely no
knowledge of English, theyre often here with a family member or friend who at least has a
little bit, enough to complete a transaction. There have been a couple of instances where
that wasnt the case, where weve had to call the hospital volunteer services. Weve also
been lucky in having people in our staff who speak languages other than English. One of my
team right now is fluent in French and another in Spanish and a third in Arabic.

F: so you just find these people.

K: [2]its not an organized system, or a permanent structure to the system.

F: What if you have someone, but none of your people speak their language?

K: [3]then were at a loss. We try to communicate at best we can. You can point at a price
tag, because most people will understand numbers, and then Ill show them the screen as in
this is how much it costs, and we can help them with money, or they can pay with a credit
card. But if somebody is looking for specific questions then were at a loss, then we dont
have a recourse if we dont have a volunteer or staff who can speak the language and can
get here quickly. Then we come to an impasse and its not ideal.

F: Who are these volunteers usually?

K: Some of them are students, some of them are retirees, some of them are people in their
30s and 40s who just give what time they can. The spectrum of volunteers is really wide
ranging. Most of the people who function as translators are a little older, I want to say not
students, adults usually.

F: How do you like this system?

K: the hospital is doing a great job of having great people to work with and the volunteers are
all great. Its not the most ideal situation if youre dealing with a large number of people who
have language difficulties. Weve been very lucky here in that most of the time our
customers are accompanied by somebody who can facilitate communication. But in
situations where there isnt, it just makes interacting with other people more difficult, in any
situation.
Nick: We have some reference designs here and wed like to hear your thoughts on them.

K: OK

N: The first one is a printed dictionary.

K: [4]Most Indigos carry language dictionaries or phrase books. Unfortunately were small,
so we dont. We do carry a couple phrase books, which we can use potentially to facilitate. I
havent had to use them. Usually when I run into a language barrier and nobody is around to
help, I just point with numbers, I write stuff on paper. A printed phrase book would be very
useful, but the problem is that it is only from one language to a specific other. A dictionary
with many languages all in one spot would be the ideal situation.

N: and google translate?

K: [5]We can use it occasionally, its tough to, at a busier time, find the time to go through
that process. Even to go find a dictionary. Spending time with each customer is very
important but we have to also be able to facilitate customers through the store. If theres only
a couple of us here, its tough for one person to be railed for longer than necessary and
leave the other person flying solo on the floor.

N: voice translator app?

K: Weve never used anything like that. I know that they exist, but Ive never had the chance
to use one. [6] That would be the most useful from an ease of use standpoint.

F: you would like a kind of device with like a microphone or something.

K: Yes, something that can sit on the desk, be tucked in a drawer. But to have something
that either party can speak to and have translate, that would be the most useful item I think.

N: Sign language?

K: we do have several customers who communicate with sign language, I have one staff
member who is fluent in sign language, who used to teach ASL. When that employee is here,
those transactions go really smoothly because she immediately starts to sign. In the case
where someone signs, if our common language is English, we just communicate by writing.
We have a regular customer who communicates via sign language, so we all carry
notebooks with us and communicate back and forth, but its not the most ideal scenario.

F: But it still takes a little bit of time?

K: Yes, it does, but it also takes the ability to recognize that its an issue. A lot of people will
just smile and nod while we talk to them, communicate with body language that theyre fine,
but Im wondering how many of those people will be willing to interact if they knew that we
have a way to communicate more easily.

N: What do you think about our opportunity and are you interested?

K: I think its a really interesting project, I really do, and I think that its really interesting here
because we do have a wide variety of languages and cultures coming through our store. I
think that its potential to be much more wide reaching is phenomenal. To have something
like this that starts as a discussion and turn into an engineering opportunity and resolve
those points of usable, portable and not overly complex can have huge benefits, not just in
retail, but in medicine, any time two or more human beings are interacting, sharing a
common language makes that interaction much better.

[3] Interaction with Indigo bookstore press representative

Reference List For The Abstract

[1]
[2]I. I. B. Music, Our Company | Fast Facts,indigo.ca. [Online]. Available:
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/our-company/fast-facts/. [Accessed: 18-Feb-2017].
[3] Population by mother tongue, by census metropolitan area , excluding institutional
residents (2011 Census) (Ottawa-Gatineau, Kingston, Peterborough, Oshawa,
Toronto),Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 13-Feb-2013. [Online]. Available:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo12c-eng.htm. [Accessed:
18-Feb-2017].
[4] Second interview with Kevin Marusic

Kevin Marusic:then were at a loss. We try to communicate at best we can. You can point at
a price tag, because most people will understand numbers, and then Ill show them the
screen as in this is how much it costs, and we can help them with money, or they can pay
with a credit card. But if somebody is looking for specific questions then were at a loss, then
we dont have a recourse if we dont have a volunteer or staff who can speak the language
and can get here quickly. Then we come to an impasse and its not ideal.