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.

Brands take away the flavor

Every city or town had a market place or the Mall road equivalent with a unique flavor of the place and character to its shopping spaces and the things sold. When one has visitors from another town, they would all make a trip to an MG road or Main Street or Linking road or the 17 sector, to check out something which they don’t find in their streets back home or things unique to this town like chikkon kurtas or kolhapuries etc.
Today you walk these roads/streets and find the same brands and the same clothes or accessories any city you go to. Nothing new or novel about visiting a market to shop or browse in a new town. And they talk of shopping experience. Brands can get so boring!!

Design for Need...not Business

There is something fundamentally being missed.
IT media devices and systems are spread across demographics doing their own bit…as programmed. There are researchers in industry and universities working 24/7 (cliché of the century) on the future of these systems and devices extrapolating formulations of the next ethereal environment.
The mobile today allows you to connect with others, gives information, is a personal assistant, etc; the PC connects you to the world web, helps in computing, designing, plays games with you, etc; TV gives you news, infotainment, etc; Ipods, radios, etc provide music, information and so on; and newspapers, magazines doing their own thing.
This was only to put the context in place before I ask the hollow question!
The primary need of food, clothing and shelter, lets for the time being assume has been satisfied for everyone in the world. Then what is the next level of need and are we satisfying it?

A housewife of a mid/upper middle home has all these devices and uses these as situation or mood permits. For information on baby health or to see photos of a family wedding she checks the internet on the PC, to speak to her husband or sister from anywhere in the house uses the mobile and watches soaps on TV. Have we satisfied her needs, one might say, yes we have, her information and entertainment needs. But if one were to probe deeper into her dynamic archetypal self or a collective of such and understand her next level of needs we might come up with propositions for a whole new model of product system. At this point I wouldn’t want to call it anything, but for dialogue sake let’s call it the ‘box’. Here the ‘box’ would grow out of pure need based thinking rather than a business based thinking. The earthen pot has not evolved out of a business need but a fundamental human need. If one were to apply this philosophy then the ‘box’ will be a more meaningful provider. Convergence of technology is being talked about and being implemented today, but it seems to me that it has a business need approach more than the actual human need.
To illustrate an example, a large pc component manufacturer had initiated a project of providing computers for rural school children in India involving other technology and design partners. The PC was designed, fabricated and tested, but the project was later put on hold or shelved as per paper news for business reasons. Now the whole idea in this case was satisfying a need of providing PCs for rural school children, but the point being missed out is that the object or device has already been defined before establishing the real need. Maybe because the project was floated by a PC tech company!!
There is something hollow about this business of tech devices being flooded; if one were to identify the right ingredients of the ‘box’ we have a more meaningful future idea.
These thoughts are my personal deliberations through observations and trying to make connections of things around and more importantly instinctive!!(read Indian or rather human)

Humanize

These thoughts triggered from a meeting I attended and I started thinking about usability vs adoptability.
These times of technology providing innumerable services and products which have eased our daily lives has been and is being further improved for better and better usability. Today tech products are a part and requirement of the generation. Lots has been talked about and invested into innovation for this generation by marketers and researchers.
Lets take the web and mobile media which are as big inventions as the electric bulb. With all the engineering, design and research behind, it remains 'conformed'.
They follow templates and constraints directed by technology to the extent of giving style guides and standards for even Look & Feel. Now that’s boring, especially when we are addressing this generation.
This generation I believe is rational and honest and above all, have choices. Therefore giving a ‘my space’ page which is no different from the newspaper is technology limited.

The idea here is to get emotive. People share less nowadays, with all the urbanized socio-cultural shifts. They share on the tech media in a pseudo community. Emotive interfaces, different from customized, would be something the user would like to adopt rather than giving a usable interface that he can adapt to.
Here I would like to give an example: A probable application or a feature would be to ask the user who he or she IS ('...and UR', as opposed to login) before flashing the home page and providing things that user can relate, share and be with in terms of content and presentation. This question the web service would ask can have drop down options of different categories which could provide a huge qualitative database of the emotion kind. So the shift needs to be from improved usability to improvisation for adaptability.

Design Triggers 1

Random Object

You are in a rush to park your car in your driveway and the gate invariably doesn't stay in place. You look around and find a a stone, wedge it to the gate.
This quick solution and the hero of the event, the stone have put together an essential detail. Also the selection of the device is not random, you tend to identify one which is jagged wedge like and fits well into the gap.
The random nameless object lying around in your garden for years has now become a product, your tool. You realize it was your buddy when suddenly one day you find it missing, and you would always crib to your self, ' that was a perfect piece' and shout at the gardener for it.

Metaphor

U have finished your work in the kitchen and look around for something to latch the old weather worn door in place. You find a spoon and just slip it in the latch. Done.
The object, the spoon has done the job of locking as it has an appropriate shape to slip in and stop. Also a nice finger grip to pull it off.
The object besides all this is saying something more.....maybe about the contents of the room and the activity.
This casual spoon act can trigger bundle of ideas and thoughts to work on.

Applied science

The rear view mirror is one of my favorites. It fascinates me. Its just a convex mirror fitted to the incredible complex machine doing a life saving job. Science and simplicity at its best.
Its a twin of the wind screen capturing everything behind , sincerely doing its job, engaging yet not looking back at the driver!
Very soon technology will out date it taking away its buddy relationship with the driver.

Mark

The grand and mammoth temple of Tanjore must have engaged several stone and wood carvers, temple artisans & architects working on dedicated modules of the structure.
In the orderly proportions and measurements of architectural elements was freedom of expression in the figurative carvings seen on the walls, pillars, gopura, etc.
But this off beat carving in front at a random location is vague and doesn't fit a pattern.
Was it a mark to ward off an evil eye, or symbol of luck or superstition or was the carver playing a prank.

Walk-in Rack

It was in Tanjore temple premises I found this interesting system of footwear leaving method. The designer, the shoe-keeper himself thought of this numbered grid idea.
Though there is scope for improvement, the idea is intelligent and lateral which can trigger many parallel concepts for other domains.

Thinking Mason

If the door was not visible in the picture would you see it as the doorway! You would. A deliberate and conditioned pattern of laying by the mason suggests that he is a thinking man. Does he want you pause at the entrance to check whether your feet are clean or pause to view and check out the room or is it simply his signature style in flooring art.

People Friendly

When ever I went to an MNC bank the chained barricades to form ques put me off and a red line at the end of it telling you to wait for your turn was intimidating. While working on visual merchandising solutions for a bank I decided to tackle this (though the client ignored it). This was one of the solutions I cracked which would, guide people, allow for branding/ promo and liven up the space.

Mindset

This door mat I found in a guest house in Delhi.
What would be your first reaction. Depends on beliefs, context, culture.
Whoever the designer, has challenged the mindset, maybe, or just done it for Fun!!

Romantic Thought

My friend Dhuli in college applied for a design competition for which the topic was WIND.
He chose to work on Paper Weights. This selection I believe is a totally lateral thought.
Solution: A regular form with a flag, when there is wind the flag would flutter and the paper weight trys communicate with you.

Semiotica 1

The task was to design planters for the NID campus in Bangalore. After a lot of design deliberation I questioned the object's participation with the surronds and the design people on campus, I said its going to be a tea cup.

Where Time Stands Still

Far from the madding crowd as the old phrase goes, is Dubbaguda, a self contained small hamlet in the midst of the hills of Adilabad district of AP, India.
30 km from Adilabad town and bus or jeep ride of 45 minutes across dry copper coloured landscape and blue sky, you get off at this fresh ground water bore well point, with a view of Dubbaguda on the hill side across a spring water stream. You walk crossing the stream along cotton fields and reach this lovely set of houses, clean, paved in dung and bamboo thatch. You go sit in one of the patios of the houses and time stands still for next 15 days we spent there.
People of Dubbaguda belong to the kolam tribe of the region engaged primarily in agriculture cultivating cotton and pulses. Since bamboo is abundant in the forests around, it is a common household material used by all to make thatches, baskets of different sizes, fishing traps, etc. There are about 70 families in this hamlet.
The most fascinating thing of Dubbaguda is; the place is clean, no plastic wastes, no open dirty drainages, no TVs, no mobile signal, the bore water is mineral water and is very tasty clean, they don’t wash clothes or vessels at the bore but at the stream,no perceived politics as they all belong to the same community maybe, no daily drinking, happy drinking on festivals only, mango crop is plucked only after doing a ritualistic puja to the tree, same for tree they make their local liquor out of! They shop once a week in nearby Saidpur weekly market, eat 4 to 5 jawar roties with vegetable curry in the morning before work and eat again only in the evening after 8, mutton or chicken once a week, women wear captivating tattoo below the lower lip and above the eyebrows, there are rmp doctors visiting daily, a school for children with mid day meals, electricity though not so regular, no regular temple, mosque or church, only their village spiritual installations on the periphery of the hamlet, dead people are buried with all their belonging in the persons own land with not much cry, they smoke !! and are existential. This is the life in Dubbaguda in times when the world outside is at acidic pace.

Design Initiatives in Craft

Wooden Cutlery
Location: Udaigiri, Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh,India
About 50 highly skilled and motivated women from the Muslim community and a few other older masters are engaged in hand carved wooden cutlery and hair clips embellished by Persian motiffs passed on from earlier times.
Here the intervention though very basic but was of high value and need. We first initiated them into the use of measuring scale and the geometry box. With the installation of wood working machinery by the dept. of Handicrafts the need was to make them understand the idea of replication. These girls who left school half way are now, at least a few, familiar with the idea of one eight of inch or three forth of an inch. We familiarized them with contemporary dining spaces and objects through browsing magazines to help them get a feel of our thematic approach in creating newer flat ware.
We introduced the concept of making sets for possible use as disposables by individual buyers or theme hotels/airways. This would create bulk orders and better economic benefit.

Sheet Metal Shaping
Location: Chandur, Nalgonda District, Andhra Pradesh, India
About 100 families from the Vishwakarma community in this cluster are engaged in producing urns and water vessels by beating and shaping brass and copper sheet.They are very skilled but a disillusioned lot. Since this category of vessels are today available machine made in steel and aluminum, market for their products has come down, the story similar to other crafts.
Our intervention here was to design regular utility table ware in a newer form and character familiar to them and which could be achieved only through shaping by hand. End of the workshop they were convinced that they were many possibilities to exploit their skill sets beyond making spherical water vessels.

Metal Mirror craft
Location: Aranmula, Kerala, India
Aranmula Metal Mirror (Kannadi) is so perfect a mirror that it can be mistaken for the ordinary mercury coated mirror.
There seemed to be needed to establish the fact that it is made by hand polishing a cast metal alloy and illustrate by design. This we felt could be achieved by embossing the cast piece and polishing the raised portion leaving the rest of the visible metal unfinished. The craftsmen were firmly against the idea. After constant persuasion they attempted and were successful, and according to Mr. Gopa Kumar (a senior metal mirror maker), "for the first time in 500 years Aranmula Kannadi history something like this has been tried!"
This innovation we believe did three things - freed the craftsman's mindset which was restrictive over times to attempt newer mirror applications, an illustration to designers and merchandisers to explore possibilities, has reinforced the metal mirror's unique identity and given it a new dimension / character.