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Of late I have been enjoying my time in creating posters. This is a tribute to my love for Graphic Design. Here is a poster in the series of promotional posters that I am doing for the child education project in Bihar. The illustration is done by an intern Jean Haag. What do you want to know today?
We are living in a time when there is a lot of things to be concerned about. Pick up any area, and there are so many problems in each of them. A lot of these problems are rooted at the society level, and there are always shortage of people who are working on these problems. There is a lot of emphasis on business schools (and design schools) on the notion of Social Entrepreneurship too. In the program that I run in India, majority of the applicants have a desire to work on atleast one project in the social space. They say that it is this opportunity that draws them to India. However not many are sure of what the problem space looks like, until they come to India. Many of these problems are Wicked Problems. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. These are found at large in socio, economic, environmental and political issues. Today I was discussing with one of my interns in my company, who is working in the same domain; Design for Social Impact and working in the field of education. We talked a lot about the notion of Wicked problem and its application in Design and how designers can address the challenges it presents. Rittel and Webber’s 1973 formulation of wicked problems in social policy planning specified ten characteristics: (reference) (1) Wicked problems have no definitive formulation, but every formulation of a wicked problem corresponds to the formulation of a solution. (2) Wicked problems have no stopping rules. (3) Solutions to wicked problems cannot be true or false, only good or bad. (4) In solving wicked problems there is no exhaustive list of admissible operations. (5) . . . → Read More: Wicked problems and design I was interviewed in Nantes, France in June 2012 about the Transcultural Design program in India. See the video to know more about the program and what we have in mind with the program.
MDes Transcultural Design India from lecolededesign on Vimeo. Overview of the Transcultural Design India program with Interviews of Course Director Kshitiz Anand, Dean Chris Ebbert and students.
If you ask a lot of people in India on what is one thing that they would really like the companies to offer better, the answer you would get is Service. I have often faced situations that are so bad that often one is made to think, why does the company continue to exist in the first place, with such a bad Service. Being a designer I emphasize that the Service has to be designed within the DNA of the company itself. It requires a lot of Service Design based approach thinking. Not every company is adept at doing that. The problem however, is not that. It is whether they are even thinking of doing it. If you do a quick search on the term Service Design, you find this entry on Wikipedia. The purpose of service design methodologies is to design according to the needs of customers or participants, so that the service is user-friendly, competitive and relevant to the customers. The backbone of this process is to understand the behavior of the customers, their needs and motivations. Service designers draw on the methodologies of fields such as ethnography and journalism to gather customer insights through interviews and by shadowing service users. In this competitive age, where every business is out to outdo the other, if there is one thing that stands out to differentiate the one from the other; it is Service. It is what makes a company stand out. It is therefore but natural that the ones that I have come to like in the past few years have been the ones that provide a good service. This service is not just at the time of the purchase of the product or the service, but at the before and after stages as well. As . . . → Read More: On Service Design Often I have clients come to me stating that they want a logo designed. When I quote them say an amount X, which is decided based on the different parameters in background, dependencies, usages, etc. I try to convince them on why I charge how much I am charging and that there is a lot of effort involved in the logo design process. Recently, a reputed filmmaker friend said; “There is no rule to make a logo”. I disagree with that statement so much. It almost forces me to question him, “Is there a rule to make a film” ? I know there is. But let’s not get into the discussion on that. A logo is an outcome of a lot of hard work and thought process. To make a simple logo is difficult. It is NOT as simple as just opening up powerpoint or any other software and creating it in a few minutes. Here is a video that I came across about the design of the Rio deJanerio Olympics logo. See the video to understand the level of complexity involved and the philosophy behind a logo design exercise.
Since January this year, I have been in-charge of running a 2 years Masters program in Transcultural Design in India. This is a short article on what the program is about and how one can get admission to it. Transcultural Design – A unique opportunity for Design Graduates In the current context of globalization, understanding other cultures and other value systems is a major asset for every designer. Lecole de Design Nantes Atlantique offers a unique two years Masters program in Transcultural Design at its Asia Campuses in India and China. It offers a tremendous opportunity for design students from all over the world to discover and comprehend the Indian and Chinese cultures. This master program encourages the exploration and acceptance of different cultures within an applied, interdisciplinary context. It aims at providing young design students an opportunity to broaden their horizons and develop their design skills in a cultural and creative environment. Design graduates of any discipline are encouraged to apply. The students spend their 2 years enrolled in the program and have the option of spending time on the China campus in Shanghai too as an exchange student. The program is a professional masters program with the participation of the industry design experts and supervised by an international staff. The teaching is based on a participatory approach and the course is delivered in modules. The modules are structured into workshops and seminars to encourage student participation. The programs bring together students from different fields of design and undergraduate curriculums (product, spatial, interaction or graphic design). Central to the programs are a strong international dimension, the acquisition of project management skills and a cross-disciplinary, professional approach to design.
The skills gained during the 2-year master’s programs are based on the ability to: – use design in an innovative . . . → Read More: Transcultural Design – Masters program I have often thought about this question. What defines the User Experience trends? Is it even a topic worth discussing? A friend of mine (working at HFI) has started the UX Trendspotting group. The topic in itself intrigues me. I would presume that in the larger companies there would be dedicated groups to look into these trends and identify such things for their teams to create products for the future. But how do small companies identify them. This is where I think a group like this could be really useful. UX trends could be seen through different eyes. Is it defined by technology? Or does User’s needs define the trends? Or is it entirely business driven. The logical conclusion would be that it cannot be individually and it has to be thought of it collectively. Point in case for the technology defining User Experience, could be seen in the rise of touch screen phones and tablets. With technology becoming more affordable and a lot of Open Source initiatives thriving, the notion of providing a better User Experience driven by technology is evident. However many would argue that its not technology but the User’s needs that define the UX trends. This user’s needs is often revolving around multiple things. One is the need to solve a problem that the user base is facing. A lot of the innovation happens around that. The other factor governing the User’s needs (which is more prominent these days unfortunately) is the peer pressure and societal norms. What in my opinions are the UX trends that are being defined presently? To answer that I think it is important to look more wholistically than to be looking into the specifics. It is important that one looks are the numerous issues that are . . . → Read More: What defines UX trends? I have always been fascinated with technology, and then Design happened. Over the past few years, I have also got interested in how Design and Technology can be used to create products and solutions for creating a larger Social Impact and is beneficial to the people at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Came across this TED talk by designer Vinay Venkataraman who talks about tinkering ideas to create such products. Inspiring and Fascinating stuff. Recently a friend shared an article on how the term UX killed Usability. The article per se was (in my opinion) a personal opinion, with a lot of pointers signifying the same, from a person who is passionate about Usability, but the article also raised a very valid point that I often try to drive across in my workshops. From the article “Usability as a term is pretty much dead and has been replaced (not very well) by UX, meaning user experience.” This statement reminded me of the numerous discussions I have around this. Here I put down a few reasons on why I think the above is happening. I think this is a classic debate that has been going on for quite some time now. I have often addressed this point in a lot of my workshops and insist that now it all comes under the umbrella of UX. I have often proposed that we address ourselves as UX professionals more than anything else. While earlier you could be an Information Architect, or Usability “Engineer”, or Graphic Designer, or User Interface Designer separately, these days its more about knowing (and excelling at one or couple) a gamut of skills. I think the UX professionals are the most T shaped professionals (as outlined by the McKinsey & Co) . Though the arms of the T these days are too wide! Spanning from Design to Business to Technology! This UX driven approach is also evident when I did a lot of recruitment for companies. While you want the candidate to be strong at one aspect, either Usability or Interaction Design or Graphic Design, you do intend to look if they have other skills. And that recruitment drives have often led to a lot of professionals present themselves as UX professionals. I . . . → Read More: The T shaped UX professional Open Show is a photography event in Bangalore that I co-produce. We have held 8 events in the past and are now accepting submissions for the 9th edition of the event. You can send in your submissions here Open Show Bangalore #9
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