Design Problem

‘Design’ in the Digital/Information/Technology Age has been my preoccupation these days, in the context of education and practice. Question that comes to me: what is it that I can offer today as an individual design professional or a team player where everybody knows little or more of everything!!
Is it user centric thinking!...everybody talks of it; research!!...there are enough in number; strategy!...marketing professional forte; product idea conception!...techys’ default forte; visual appeal!...free for all domain, software freely available to all and so on.
Lets for the time being keep aside verbose on ‘the designers’ role’ etc and think simplistically for clarity.
Take technology driven products and services as the case. The navigator on mobile publicized today has an interface conceived I am sure by a team
which has not questioned its understandability /comprehend ability with people.
Has anybody dwelt into what is the mental model of a Ramu on the street, of the route from A nagar to B nagar? Or even a Rahul!! He/she would never have seen a map (in 3D as if from a plane) in his life except maybe in school, of a world map or of Columbus’s sea route journey. These interfaces are very common to western users maybe because of the direct analogy of maps they are used to in their frequent long distance drives. This taken for granted kind of direct adaptation of interfaces to global users sets the Need Statement to answer the above predicament of design expertise.

Door Signs!

On the 2nd day of their orientation program at the National Institute of Design (NID), Bangalore, the 40 foundation students of the 2008 batch were given an impromptu assignment to come up with solutions of a door sign to depict entry side. These glass doors on campus were newly fitted and didn't have handles and one didn't know which side to push to open.
The students were asked to come up with out of the box symbolic solutions without being literal. The following ideas were applied to the doors.

Anshu George depicted through foot prints of a split personality!!


Sohini pasted a signage as if written by the local carpenter in his own pronunciation.


Kartik showed lot of hand prints creating a play.


Ayush played around with the word exit by placing it inside and deliberatly exagerating the x.

Semantic Ambiguity

The language we use in the nomenclature of prompts/labels in human-product interfaces is a vital consideration in design. More so in today's and future context with diverse users and IT consumer durables becoming more affordable and common place. The interfaces of products such as ATMs, mobiles, home computers, cameras, TVs, etc. Whats prompted me to write is the semantic ambiguities that exist. Lets analyse/question a few commonly phrased prompts which we have been seeing since digital technology became domestic.
Take the search prompt. When someone tells me to search for something it means either something is lost, misplaced or hidden somewhere! It could also mean that the system has got all of it jumbled up somewhere (like in a haystack) and you look for it, if you find it good luck to you pal!! This nomenclature has probably evolved from a developers stand point and remained unquestioned and users eventually got used to its function. I believe that the metaphor 'search' is inappropriate both ways: its inducing a sense of ambiguity to the user (which he/she has not realised) and more importantly fixated the back end design development not allowing it to be re-interpreted.
The cancel & clear buttons on ATMs which appear one below the other, ambiguity in meaning and action. The menu in mobiles, a very interesting analogy but the eventual functionality it offers doesn't really fit and there many users I have spoken to who are unable to connect menu to functions like messages, setting, clock,etc.
As we move towards times when these products are going to get abundantly used by people across regional languages and cultures the semantics and the related analogy or metaphors need to be sensibly thought over/rephrased and adopted. This equally applies to the icon designs as well which today are quiet complex, an interesting area of design opportunity for cross cultural penetration of products. There are am sure experts in semantics of digital media constantly researching about these aspects but it we don't see it being applied in all the everyday newer versions coming into the market.
I believe a richer/human user experience is when instead of 'LOG IN', I say... 'AND YOU ARE' (in Hindi it would sound ' AUR AAP HAIN!')...kind of semantic!!

Design Thought Paper 1

Every nation or ethnic demography has its own pre-occupations that direct thought and action which 'determines' design. It is a contextual adaptation directed by a brief with a democratic, non violent, comforting, rationale and aesthetic sensibility. There are various prefixes being attached to design nowadays such as experience design, service design, and the plethora of writings on the web that it is becoming difficult I feel for ‘pure design’ academics to bring clarity into each. I think these prefixes are specializations or sub categorizations at the brief level and gain importance at the professional implementation level of a design into the required result of a product or a service.

How does Indian industry look at these specializations/ categorizations (like accessory design, toy design, Information design, exhibition design, furniture/retail design, digital design, transportation design, etc.) Though there are industry verticals in each of these categorizations, are there enough placement opportunities in them?

In the India context: my observation is that there are two pre-occupations today. One the inherent need in improving the quality of life across urban & interior India (which we constantly complain about and do nothing about!) and second the world looking at India for service support and as a new market. The first would essentially cover civil sector that is the govt., public services & infrastructure sector, health & social livelihood sector, where design as a problem solving activity takes a role to play substantially. The second broadly would cover IT & manufacturing sector, product consumption sector, where design as an opportunity reaping activity takes a role. The primary distinction one might see in these two headings is that the former enables economic growth and the latter fulfills economic lead.

Now coming to the design academic context these two fundamental needs or pre-occupations if addressed and deliberated upon could give us streams of design adaptations as offering which I believe would satisfy the national, market and individual interest. But how does one teach design when one is talking about a primary need of problem solving and other about a pure business interest?

The answer lies in reinterpreting the existing NID method as: facilitate design thinking, teaching fundamentals of design from ‘pure design’ perspectives to present contextual buzz and expose students to projects under various specializations / domains for them to choose from.

This method would make a generalist of the student in the subject of design & environment essential to address the first pre-occupation of primary need and a specialist suited to fit the team of stakeholders of product development in the second pre-occupation of business need. This might not be as demarcated but the attempt would be to provide a seamless flow in the leaning process.