As consumers, we often overlook the role played by design in making a product more efficient and appealing. In a two-part series, we explore the possibilities that design can bring to our lives
Design has an immense ability to bring about systemic changes in our lives. It is embedded so deeply in our everyday experience that we find it difficult to draw lines to distinguish where the influence of design begins and where it ends. Design, thus, creates a greater sense of mystique in the intensity of its impact.
Fundamentally, design has the ability to humanise experiences, whether it is the act of using a stove or driving an automobile. It creates that intervention between the user and the object in its most basic sense—it improves our way of life by resolving challenges. Whether it is a handle grip on a cooking pan or the navigation of a smartphone, both need intense design thinking that brings together creative, logical, ergonomic and functional resolutions.
India is a diverse country, and it creates a perfect platform to rethink design in the Indian context. The need to localise the context of a particular product leaves a lot to be desired through design. For instance, Indian kitchens and food habits, towns and public infrastructure, cultural diversity and its impact on lifestyle—all these aspects need far greater attention through design.
Design can unravel new opportunities in the ideation and creation of new products. There is a natural tendency among consumers to get comfortable with existing product experiences and, thus, they don’t innately ask for change.
This is one of the first points of intervention where design can identify and define the latent needs of consumers—needs that a consumer would have loved to have if they knew they existed!
In these circumstances, tools that aid pre-emptive and anticipatory thinking can help designers visualise a host of possible opportunities that might appeal to a user. This can be the genesis of a better product through empathy for the consumer.
(This story appears in the 10 June, 2016 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)