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In a recent talk on photography that I gave at Mindtree Ltd, last week, I confessed that the camera that I use mostly these days is the one present on my Nokia E72 mobile phone. One of the good things that has happened because of that is that I am always on the look out for photo-opportunities.
Shooting with the mobile camera has a lot of advantages. First and foremost, there is no worry about the stare from the people around you, as you would attract when shooting with a SLR camera. Secondly, you learn to shoot in constraints and hence are forced to think only on the pure photography terms. There is the constraint of the compositions, the light conditions that cannot be changed, and then the constraints of the moving subjects which would be easy to cover on the SLRs.
Needless to say, it is more challenging too. But the challenge is fun.
And the more I travel, the stuff that I come across always amuses me. The life on the streets have a totally different meaning altogether. There is the business ventures that thrive only on the streets, there is the pani-puri vendor around the corner; who religiously cleans up the footpath and worships it before starting his daily business everyday, there is the beggars who have made the streets their home etc.
The other thing that often catches my eye is the innovation that exists in India. Sometimes it is a resultant of the necessity. Like take for example this mini procession of two camels which I just spotted outside the office. The owners would have ideally wanted to take people / children for a ride, and give them an experience that is unlike any other. However in the times that we are in, people would . . . → Read More: Through a mobile eye
When it comes to booking my flight tickets online, I have almost all the time done it on Cleartrip.com . I love their minimalistic UI, and the User Experience is high on that site. However of late I have been checking out the others too. Yatra I do not like for its lack of consistency in the layouts and UX. MakemyTrip, which was one of the first in this arena, does have a decent User Experience, (except the small font size that I detest so much) but not to the same extent that Cleartrip has.
However, one of the things that I love about the Make My Trip is this feature that they have smartly integrated in the checkout process. At the look of it, it is a simple take it or leave it thing, with just a radio button. Thankfully by default they do not have any option selected.
MakeMyTrip.com has associated itself with an NGO that works in the area of reducing Carbon Footprints, that is generated everytime someone takes a flight. It goes to the extent of telling you how many kilograms of CO2 will be generated and also what you can do to help in this cause.
An example of Design for Social Impact
I think this is a very noble and nice way of integrating the cause for Design for Social Impact. The designers did cash onto the buzz that global warming has created. I think its about these small initiatives, when clubbed together, will lead to creating an impact on the planet.
Whether a person would actually use this feature and make donations (I personally have not done so, since I prefer to donate directly than through a third party) is something that needs to be tested and seen from usage patterns. That . . . → Read More: Reducing Carbon Footprint
I have often been asked about what is the Social Impact that the design is creating, and where has design played a role. I confess that I do not have a concrete answer to that question, as I am myself in the process of finding it.
As I gear up for another round of my travels and this time in the rural parts of the country, I am constantly thinking of finding examples of Design for Social Impact. The best part about this exercise is the fact that Design then does not be limited to any particular domain. Design then appears to be ubiquitous, and often one can see shades of innovation, across demographies and geographies.
The need of designing for the masses
I do some introspection on the state of things. I am always curious to know how the field can progress more. One definite way of doing it is to see how the examples and case studies can be shared. I am hoping to do the same from the field visits from now on.
Since I am always interested in evangelizing about Design for Social Impact, there are two book that come really useful when trying to do any study of the field. One is Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek, and Design for Society by Nigel Whiteley. Papanek is considered to be the one who started the discourses around this field and his pieces are still valued today.
Let me start with a question. Would you be willing to pay extra to have a particular content delivered to you at a premium price, so that you can access the same information faster? Or would you be willing to pay for a service that can be delivered on a higher priority as compared to its competitors? These are some of the issues that one needs to grapple with when we talk about Net Neutrality.
A quick search for it on Wikipedia mentions this: Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by the Internet Service Providers (ISP) and governments on content, sites, platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and no restrictions on the modes of communication allowed.
The principle also states that if a given user pays for a certain level of Internet access, and another user pays for the same level of access, then the two users should be able to connect to each other at the subscribed level of access. This video on CNET demonstrates the concept very well.
Some of the proponents of Net Neutrality are large organizations like Yahoo, EBay, Amazon and individuals like Tim Berners Lee and Barack Obama. Groups like savetheinternet.com have been pretty active in promoting Net Neutrality too.
Looking at the other side of the coin, in simple words it means that in a non-net neutral world, if you are wanting to get a particular content, say like a video, and were willing to pay extra for it, the ISP would be able to do that for you as the information dissemination is at their disposal. If you wanted a Value Added Service (VAS) at a premium, there would be an . . . → Read More: On Net Neutrality
A wonderful representation. It’s so true!
A Graphic Designer's Journey
Image Source: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/graphic-designers-journey-freelance-to-freedom-infographic/
A nice short video which again attempts to capture the essence of what really is good design?
In one of my earlier posts, I had written about analyzing logos by using Semiotic Theory. What it basically was to take a closer understanding through different point of views related to the viewer, the designer, etc. Of late one notices that even the governments have been interested in getting their logos designed, and seeking inputs from designers. It is a healthy sign indeed. One such example is the Government of India working hard on the Unique Identification Project under the name of Unique Identification Authority of India and headed by former Infosys co-founder, Nandan Nilekani.
Nandan Nilekani launching the new logo and name
They recently had a new name (Aadhaar) to the whole project and a new logo unveiled.
I am going to do a critical analysis of this logo based on the semiotic theory and seeking the explanations from the phenomenological understanding that I have developed over the years of designing logos and branding solutions.
To start with, when trying to understand the semiotics behind the logo, one first has to understand the referential function i.e. the content of what the logo is composed. The Aadhaar logo is primarily composed of three parts namely, the sun and the finger print and the text below the logo. There are two prime signs in the logo in terms of the imagery. These signs signify certain attributes independently and then as a collective they have a different meaning. While doing a critical analysis, it is important that we understand the signified meaning of all the individual signs and what they signify and then finally the overall logo.
Being an Indian, I understand that the association with the Sun is perhaps more than any celestial body out there. The sun is an element that is worshiped across the country and hold . . . → Read More: A critical analysis of the Aadhaar Logo
I have been out of blogging much for quite some time now.
It has been mostly due to the startup Deskala. We recently completed 6 months there and the journey there has been truly fascinating. During this period we have interacted with a lot people, and me personally got to know a lot more because of my photography workshops too. The other reason is the travel, which if something I just love, so cannot put an end to that too.
One of the biggest challenges that we have faced as Design Entrepreneurs, (Designpreneur) is to sell the service of design to people in the Business tea. And when this happens inspite of having close to 10 years of experience between us, it surprises me. My friend and co-founder of Deskala; Porus wrote an interesting article on this phenomenon, and what both the parties namely the Business and the Design team should work towards.
In my opinion, I think that its relatively easier to become a Designpreneur, but more difficult to sustain oneself as that. It’s easy, because right from the college days, one is designing and creating products and services. The innovations is happening then and there itself and its actually their first meeting with the entrepreneurial life. Now let’s see what happenes when that particular developed idea is marketed and sold properly. Viola! you have the idea for the company that you are going to put up.
The other big challenge that we have is to position Deskala as a design firm and not a development firm. There are already numerous firms who start off with software development and slowly add designers to the team. As Deskala, we are going the other route, wherein we say build a design centric team first and then we move forward.
As mentioned . . . → Read More: On being a Designpreneur
One of the interesting discussions I remember we had was in Erik Stolterman’s class on the word ‘design’. Basically, Design can be a noun (when used to define a quality of a product). Design can be a activity (I design things.) Design is a profession. Come to think of it, Design also happens to be perhaps the oldest living profession, when you think that every must have been designed in a particular manner before it was invented.
When a designer opens a Design firm, it is a highly challenging situation. And in my opinion, I think it’s more challenging than any other tech startup. Well you may ask why?
To start of with, as an entrepreneur you are constantly doing everything else but Design! Yes, sad but true. So one day you are doing Marketing and Sales and the other day you are writing up proposals. Things you had thought was the job of Managers only. And not to forget what technical writers are meant for, you end up doing that as well. You grow your networking and improve your networking and people skills. You attend gatherings of other entrepreneurs, inspire each other and then find the next gathering and its location.
In the hustle- bustle of all this, Design as an Activity takes back stage. You tend to think that since you are in the Design Profession, you will end up doing good Design (a noun here) any day, no matter how long you do not do it. However, i think that is not true. Design is a process that has to be practiced. One needs to keep doing it from time to time. This can be in the form of simple doodles, sketches, diagrams etc to full fledged design solutions.
Therefore any Designer in . . . → Read More: I am a Designer. I DESIGN.
I recently came across this article by Joe Fletcher titled “The Bridge Between Cultures and Design” The synopsis of the article is that: Over roughly the last 10 years, China and India have given way to a huge rise in technology outsourcing. Jobs are outsourced from companies like Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Honeywell, and many others. In Microsoft I’ve worked with teams in both India and China developing software for a variety of uses. Having our headquarters in the US, I usually work with small satellite teams in these countries. I couldn’t help but wonder why these countries who had become huge in the area of software technology, struggled so much in the area of user experience and UI innovation.Note: this article refers specifically to software UX. Both of these countries have very innovative and creative aspects in other areas of their culture, and I’m not expressing these comments as blanket statements.
I think that is a very valid question that Joe puts across. However I do not quite agree to all the points that he mentions in the article especially if one is looking at the case of India.
Cross Cultural Design
One of the key things required to see is the growth of UX as a field in India. While in the west the field UX, Interaction Design, HCI have been around for much longer a time, in India it is know only for say last 5-6 years.
This leads us the point that in India, Interaction Design has a long way to go before it catches up on the west. In my opinion, in India, the Interaction Design as a field is still limited to the software industry and all the User Experience is still discussed in the context of the Software Design. Unless . . . → Read More: State of UX in India
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