Well it’s been long since any of us had any chat on this ground. We have been silent. Lot of things are going around in everybody’s life. And I think it’s time now we break our silence and put down some worthy thoughts. I would like all to come back on track. We’ll be posting on my recent experiment on multitouch application, the game and the experience.
Yesterday I was having a chat with one of my colleague on how much plastic waste do we produce. The discussion led us to the source of this plastic pollution. The discussion was considering India, but I think it is applicable to rest of the world too.
Take this scenario. When we go for shopping, we unnecessarily take away too many plastic carry bags from the shop to home. Now do we do with them. Most of middle class family will retain them to be used later on, either as dust bag, or a carry bag for something else. However most of the upper class or say uber rich people throw them away in garbage starting a chain of non interruptable pollution.
Now take this scenario. What do we do with the newspapers and old notebooks and magazines that we have subscribed to? We either give it to raddi wala, who in turn either sends it for recyling or sends it for some scrap. Well, frankly speaking I need to dig out some details on this.
Newspaper bag
My take on these scenario. How about manufacturing carry bags of different sizes and shapes out of these used newspaper? You must have seen this in Fab India store. They sell ethnic Indian items and gives carry bag made of newspaper. But that’s limited to that store only. How about making this national and then global. I need to do a bit of research on this. But from my past experience in malls and big shops I can say that they are not in market yet. And this is a huge opportunity for us to get started.
I am very enthusiastic about this project. What say?
I call this “eco friendly business”
Edit : I did a bit of research on the market of this newspaper bags in India. It seems it is more taken as a fashion statement rather than an act towards saving nature. Hence this bags are priced very high than their actual cost. What I am suggesting in my idea is to have a cost effective way of manufacturing them so that we target lower strata of society who are the major users of these bags.
Are you a movie buff?
Especially bollywood movies. Then you must be knowing some good details about your favorite movies and the cast and crew of it. If you go for exploring something more than that you’ll probably end up searching details either on internet of video library/museum.
Let us say you look for it on internet. Some of the sites you may refer to IMDB which provides all the information of movies mostly Hollywood. But now a days bollywood flicks are also being listed
Apart from this you may also visit some online music sites like MusicIndiaOnline that lists songs from different movies (dated back to 1940s). So you can search for songs based on movies, actors, music directors, year they were released and so no.
I think I have set the context. What if all this information is available to you visually. As in all at one in some mesh/network form. Take a look at DiggLabs. The way they present real time data of the diggs users are doing around the world in a nicely categorized way is just awesome. Though the information is coming from all over the internet, showing it in a compact form makes it more usable and the learning curve is very gentle.
The adjoining image shows the users (on the periphery) of digg who are bookmarking links across the internet and different colors shows the major categories, the shades of which show the hierarchy within that category. So it’s aptly said that an image is worth 10,000 words.
Now my idea here is to make such a visual system wherein all bollywood infomration can be linked together and shown.
Since India has got a huge mass of population who are bollywood fan, presenting them the data in a new format will be a huge success in its own. And yes the platform or the medium of presenting this data may not be limited to just computer screen, but brought out to multi touch displays. This will make the environment more immersive and engaging. Such installations can be used at Movie libraries or museums or at the offices of some production house.
I have build a small prototype of this in flash, which I’ll be uploading soon. Major task is of building the database. Well all the information is available on internet. We need to write some script (crawlers) which can navigate internet and collect information. I think MusicIndiaOnline is a nice source of information. Though limited it’s very well seggregated, hence easy to parse through and get the information.
Given is a small screen shot of the same.
If you click on one of the movies, it lists all the songs of it and also gives the names of actors and music director, year of release in brief description, which can be easily parsed. And an image is a additional information you can have.
So the premise of this idea is to create a visual system of navigating through bollywood information, which is engaging, rich and usable.
Design to most of us is the beautification of objects/elements in the system around us.
Though this forms only a small part of whole definition the perception about design needs to change. It’s become so much a lingo in our everyday life that we unknowingly use this word.
“Arey ye chair ka design sahi hai !!!”
“Is web page ke design me color thik nahi”
“Is rangoli ka design (?) maine kiya hai”
Above are some of the common phrases you might have overhear/heard sometime in your life. Now read my comments on them.
“Chair ka design sahi hai but are you able to sit on it properly or is it poking your butt ???”
“Web page ka design ? are you able to find the required information even with that color ???”
“Rangoli is an art not design”
Well you must have inferred something from my comments. If not let me first put before you the definition of Design in my own language.
“Design is a process in which you try to make/modify something to which is aesthetically good, functions to ease the life of it’s users/non users and helps them to get their work done in effective/productive way.” You may find different definitions on web. It’s because there is no unanimous definition of it. You may find all of them relevant in their context, though different. Well this may sound similar to the software development life-cycle or product life-cycle, it varies majorly on the medium and effectiveness. Designers mostly follow a visual medium so that it’s easier for human brain to understand the intricacies better and produce effective solutions.
When I say design is a process, it follows a proper step by step methodology to arrive at the final solution, which we many a times consider as one shot result.
Research
Design starts with research and understanding the system and context of the solution/problem. It may also be called “data collection” stage. Many a times it happens that you don’t have a problem at hand, but you are given a system/domain which you need to study and figure out the location of breakdown. You need to study about that system first and then draw mind maps and bubble diagrams (peculiar to a designer, though engineers also like it they seldom use it). Several such mindmaps of the system are created and put side by side. Visual representation of the system helps human brain to understand it in a better way and it’s possible to make interconnections between different parts of it. These interconnections may not be visible otherwise. An example of mindmap is show below. The mind map is a result of brainstorming on activities and objects surrounding TV.
Apart from studying system you also study parallel products/market/business of it. Well this part may be quite optional it assumes an important role when working on large projects. You study how things happen in current scenario and may depict major breakdowns by a brief story board by scribbles. Keeping this aside for later reference helps a lot to align final design with goals.
Analysis
Once you have cracked down the system comes phase of ananlysis. With whatever data you have collected you try to see where the problem lies or if you already have problem at hand you see what parameters are causing the problem and analyze the reason for it. As a designer this is mostly done using sketches and doodles and whiteboard scraps (though this is not their legacy). All the analysis is presented in form of “Visual Representation“. Infographics/Information aesthetics is one of the commonly used term with us wherein we present data in a way that is simple and quick to understand and looks good too. Information aesthetics is a site that has huge collection of wonderful representations of data. Some quick examples can also be found at Smashing Magazine.
See how beautifully is the data represented. Had this been in figures it would have taken years to analyze and you would be scratching your head, unless you have a Beautiful Mind .
Design Intent
After analysis it may happen that you want to rephrase your focus/problem statement/domain. This is the time when you do so. And with this you also set some goals for your final product. The goals may be in terms of usability, aesthetics, market value, consumer base capture etc. At the end of any project (small/big) you crosscheck whether your final product meets these goals or not.
Concept Generation
The designer phase. With all those stages toured our minds would be filled with all the data of the system. Now comes the time when you feel free and jot down ideas pertaining the problem. Withough hindering the imagination with technology, economic feasibility and constraints you sketch down the concepts. However the problem and its system and relevance of the concept should always be kept in mind. The end result of this stage may be doodles and story board of how the concept is going to handle the situation at hand.
Design Evaluation
Rough paper prototypes of the concepts are prepared and taken to the actual users. Paper prototype help reduce the cost and time that might go in wrong concept. This is an easy method in which you draw low fidelity screens (with minimal details) of your product, number them as if you have drawn each box in the flow diagram of you concept system on a big paper. If it’s a physical product say something like cellphone/keyboard you make a physical model of the concept with some details to it and again paper prototype to show the response of the system at different point of use.
You closely watch users using these protoypes and make notes of where they are finding it difficult. You may use your goals (set in Design Intent) to monitor their actions. This phase is not about asking users whether they like the product or not. The answer would be yes in most of the case. As a designer we should be able to tell what suits them best by examining their actions and expressions while using the product/system. At the end of this stage you may create a matrix listing all the parameters that you have judged your concept for and differnt concepts. The resulting figure will give you an idea as to which concept should be taken further and detailed. Some of the parameters that I use are User liking, Personal favorite, Ease of User, Speed of learning, technology feasibility, amount change in current system etc.
Detailing
Once the concept is finalized the concept is detailed. Now this stage itself comprises of several sub stages like information organization (s/w engg. call it object modelling), navigation model (state diagram/flow chart), interface detail (button placement etc.). Hmmm this seems to be pretty close to what we have learnt in Software Engineering. Remember UML? Yeah, it’s almost the same except that all this is done keeping user in mind and not the system. Hence there is clear distinction between software engineer who cares about the software/product and a designer who cares for user first and then the software. This is an iterative process wherein at each stage of proto completion you go to the users take feedback, evaluate and come back. The duration actually depends on you and project timeline.
Though there doesn’t seem to be any end stage of the product except it’s final delivery for a designer it still continues wherein he/she studies the behavioural pattern of the usage of system and suggest necessary changes. This may also result in writing guidelines for such projects.
So here I finish looooooooong first informative post about Design. I have tried to keep is as short and simple and in the course may have missed many parts of it. The details will be taken care in posts later.
Till then happy designing.
Designer Engineer Programmer Researcher Wit
I am Kumar Ahir.
Done my graduation in Computer Engineering from Nirma Institute of Technology and then went to taste the work in Industry. I worked as a Software Engineer at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. for two years during which I came across varied technology platforms and managerial experiences and encounters. I learnt project management and technology adoption and adaptation from the grass root for a project. During my stay in Industry I realized that there is a dire need to understand a term called “Design”. And then began my journey as a designer. I did my Master of Design specializing in Interaction Design from Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay (one of the most reputed design institutes across world). My focus hence shifted from just making a good optimal system to user centered good optimal system for the end users.
My interests lies in designing new systems and applications and working to make it possible. Well I do trek and scribble and shoot (photographs). In my leisure I like to take doodle with small naps in between which takes me in dream world where I see what I am supposed to do 