Of late I have been traveling around India. In context of designing for social impact I have always been observant to how design is playing a role and how and where design can further play a role. There have been numerous occasions where I have got some answers. The journeys have been mostly done in the different kind of trains, the auto-rickshaws, the private vehicles and also on foot.
Needless to say there have been numerous occasions where you feel like doing something. There is an abundance of issues that in my opinion need the services of a designer. Every step I took, made me realize the importance of being a HCI designer. One of the greatest learnings that I have taken out of my masters education is the value of seeing problems and design solutions from a HUMAN point of view. The moment one does that a lot of things appear different. And I am not saying from a USER point of view here. In my opinion they are both different.
A HUMAN point of view allows me as a designer to not think deeply about the solutions, but the needs. It allows the designer to take care of the emotions and the pain as felt by humans. After all in the end the designer is also a Human. The USER point of view that usually results from the personas, or by studying the likely people who will use the design solution. More often than not, the designer fails to connect with the person on the level that one experiences the similar joys and pains.
Another realization is that even if you implement the design in a novel manner, how do you ensure that the user’s behavior is changed? For example, you can have the best facilities for a reservation counter, but people still spit around it after chewing their betel leaves? Or you have the dividers in a road, and have lane discipline, but people still do not follow it.
I think as a major challenge for designers like me who are interested in looking into designing for social impact, it becomes essential to understand how small design decisions can enforce the user to change their habits. For example, one of the thing I realized was to avoid giving the user too many options, and hence reduce the chances of error. Will write more with an example more concretely soon.
