Using user centered perspectives in design - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

 In the negotiation of non-automated tasks and processes in any given system and also to understand the challenges that emanate from outside system boundaries such as the social, cultural, economic, political framework in which the system exists, a nuanced understanding of a variety of people is useful. 

This approach recognizes that any non-automated subsystem becomes alive when the people involved become important components to consider. 

A user centered perspective of such subsystems can look at components and connections as dynamic sets of events, the nature of which is hugely influenced and determined by people within the subsystem interacting with each other and with others such as patients in a hospital who may have a more transient interaction with it. 

While this post does not explore the challenges of discovering and understanding problem areas, it does explore the solution space of discovered problem areas. 

This is especially true in the design of communication, digital, UX and spatial solutions needed for enhancing user experience and easing communication flows within said subsystem as well as outward facing solutions designed for transient users where participation of humans is essential. 

It is easy to see that to design solutions for differently abled individuals, understanding of specific human perspectives is essential. Extend this to children, the illiterate, the culturally different etc. 

Let us explore needs in case of an emergency in a fixed space. 

An auditory alarm will be sufficient for many and will probably reach 99.7+% of very different people which is in the region of standard deviation 3. What is the range of visual alarms needed? How does one design for evacuation flows? 

Similarly one can consider scenarios when a standard deviation of 1 or 2 will suffice and design baskets of solutions that are suitable for different groups within that range.  

This helps us to arrive at an estimate of the range of solutions needed for various tasks. Within such ranges one can fine slice offerings to reach people with more nuanced differences. 

Any set of tasks and processes within this subsystem would require similar consideration and should be worked on in collaboration with other professionals in multidisciplinary teams. 

Will we then find user centered perspectives built on user centered information useful? 

Design notes: 21 November 2025 - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

Design has never been the sole prerogative of us 'designers' who have come to be associated with it at least since the time when 'modernism' started gaining traction.

Engineers design, as do managers. Management organizations are designed as are engineering solutions of all kinds.

The different approaches can be seen in the centricity. Engineers may look at this as technology centric, managers may look at it as activity and organization centric. Other professions would have other kinds of focus. They are all creative problem discovery and solving.

We designers are 'human centric' which is why we are concerned with human values, ergonomics, aesthetics, likes, dislikes, preferences. For us, obviously, technology, organization etc will be in the service of human values, needs, desires, sensibilities.

My colleagues in Engineering design and build wonderful things and what I bring to the table are approaches that make complex engineering solutions intuitively accessible to a 5 year old, a person of special needs or indeed our illiterate companions.

I asked Perplexity to convert this into a poem, this is what it came up with:

Design’s not just for designers alone,
Since modernism’s seed was sown.
Engineers craft with tech as their guide,
Managers shape the flow inside.

Each with a lens distinct, unique,
Technology, tasks, or people they seek.
Design’s a dance of mind and heart,
Creative problem-solving, a collective art.

But we, the designers, hold a sacred trust,
Human-centered values, fairness, and just.
Ergonomics, aesthetics, what people feel,
Bringing simple clarity to complex zeal.

From children’s wonder to needs unseen,
Special friends and those in between,
We make solutions clear and bright,
Making the complex feel just right.

Thus we bridge the worlds apart,
With empathy etched in every part.
Design’s a language, broad and wide,
Where engineers and hearts collide.

Design 5.0? Reclaiming the profession - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

 The current trend of understanding Design as an activity which can be used for solving the ‘big problems’ of the day has its roots in the thinking of individuals from outside the profession who have discovered the virtues of human centred iterative approaches towards so called wicked problems where ambiguity is high. 

This is undoubtedly a good thing but when they believe that the subject of Design itself needs redefinition in these terms with consequent revamp of design education goals and curricula, practising designers need to take notice and revisit our roots and understanding of what it is that we do. 

Is design primarily a problem solving activity? To my mind, it is not. 

Modern Design from its roots in the world of craft, products and communication has grown to embrace experiences and services leading to a certain culture of design that becomes an integral part of human made systems. 

Systems that are imbued with the consequences of what designers do, have a certain quality of ease and delight for all those who interact with such systems. This happens at the interfaces between the various systems and sub systems that we build and people who use these systems. Systems in the area of our physical spaces such as cities; transportation systems; our buildings;  systems of governance, law and education, all benefit. 

These interfaces are complex and nuanced, humans are complex and nuanced. Human made systems which are negotiated by people, who are also part of the system, for all kinds of activities, the process of living itself, must aspire to our highest ideals and offer possibilities for limitless and multiple ways of fulfilling all that we love, desire and want to become. Physical, emotional, spiritual. 

Designers work at these interfaces trying to understand and work with the complexities inherent here, always wanting to improve upon and transform the ordinary and usually difficult interactions that we have with our habitat, our transportation, our relationships with governance, law, health, education.  

People are different from one another. We in India are yet to synchronise our understanding of time, space, order and hierarchy with the systems that we have inherited from other cultures and world views that have hitherto defined the prevailing world order and definitions of modernity and progress. Should designers not address this deep dissonance? 

Should not these interfaces between the variety of human beings and all the activities that define her/his life in a world which is increasingly human made and distant from the natural world be the principle concern of design education and practice? 

Design notes: 13-12-2020 - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

 It really is time to increase weightage of subjects like drawing; craft studies and practice; form, material and colour studies; music etc. in the school curriculum. Apart from reading, writing and arithmetic the connections and relationships between various subjects could do with more emphasis. Time for some holistic approaches. 

May even go some way to help get past this current fascination with ‘design thinking’ as an added bonus. Problem solving will automatically become more holistic for everyone. This kind of thinking will find integration with other more critical and analytical approaches. 

The profession of ‘Design’ can be left to focus on the relationships of human beings with all that is given to us by nature and all the systems that we build within it. The complex interfaces between who we are and can be and the worlds we build, tangible and intangible.

Design notes: 04-12-2020 - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

 To explore and to see Ideas not working, I hesitate to use the word ‘fail’ because of its negative connotations although it really isn’t, is integral to the design process or any innovation process. 

This will always be somewhat abrasive in environments where outcomes and delivery of something resembling solutions is the focus. People understand this which is why everyone pays lip service to it but when it comes to implementing a supportive environment for such an approach they hesitate to go all the way. 

It is not easy; these are processes which are essential for meaningful outcomes and solutions but they must compete with the processes that are designed to deliver immediate results however flawed. 

Such is the nature of anything that involves great change. Tiny steps that, over the years, make a difference. 

You may feel frustrated and understandably so but your patience is paying off and will become visible in the long run. 

Nobody said that your design education provides you with a magic potion, it merely starts you off on a journey, often an arduous one. 

Rightly so, because if the focus of education was industry readiness, you would be obsolete within five years and you would lack that essential attribute of open ended exploration and willingness to ‘fail’. 

It is true that designers have increasingly begun to rely on formulas and dogmas. But then, one expects the young to call this out instead of looking for comfort in the art of always being agreeable. 

On a lighter note, this vocation offers you the option of developing alternate sources of income while being an activist on a long road. 😊

Design notes: 19-09-2020 - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

 ‘What is education’ ‘what is learning’ 

Would it be equipping the young to understand the complexities of life and the universe? Would it be learning the skills to survive and possibly thrive in a human built world? The latter is common to all species and especially to species with sophisticated social interactions. 

The former is perhaps uniquely human; this desire to know, to make sense and to articulate understanding. Both require learning a set of foundational stuff to individually build on. 

That is hardly the problem. The problem lies in the area of costs incurred by the individual while learning all of this. 

Why does this happen, why does the individual get submerged by the learning process and lose itself? 

Is it because of the enormous complexity of what we must learn coupled with the methods we employ to achieve this? 

Have we lost control of the simple innate processes of ‘learning’ in the face of the magnitude and complexity of what we must learn? 

Is the human made world with all it’s attendant systems facing another ‘limit’ similar to the ones faced in the way we conduct the building of our physical systems, our economic systems and our other systems. 

Is it a question of scale? 

Too unwieldy? 

Perhaps humans need to rethink everything from foundation onwards and radically change the way we live our lives on this planet. 

Education, manufacturing, economics, governance. Everything is interconnected and springs from the same impetus that we have to transform our world. It is what we are. 

The only question is whether we are on the path to getting better at it before we screw things up irretrievably and kill ourselves in the process. 

Nature won’t mind, either way.

Design notes: 31-07-2020 - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

Design thinking is an innate trait in all humans, is it not?
Imagine, before the 20th century, design wasn’t considered a profession. Does that mean that it didn’t exist. All our professions are codified into silos and spring from human impulses that we all share.
Does it bother you that others are rediscovering parts of themselves that were common before the advent of modern education, which is designed to develop analytical processes at the cost of more rounded possibilities that humans are capable of? Simply because it is designed to cater to 20th century needs driven by forces like industrialisation and urbanisation?
Erecting barriers are what all professionals do, their economic value and livelihood depends on it.
Well, you had better shape up or perish because the profession is metamorphosing.
It is no longer confined to the realms of applied art and craft or indeed products.
Do you imagine that design doesn’t function at the interface of governance and people, or social justice and the citizen?
No products there necessarily, of any kind.
There will always be a place for products with roots in art and craft but there is more. Design is expanding its bandwidth and we are discovering that the processes we honed there are applicable in many areas of human life.
Design thinking is becoming mainstream in response to newer challenges which humans everywhere are facing.
It would be a pity if the only people caught unawares are trained designers.

Design notes: 30-07-2020 - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

Indian design education, indeed all education will always be a me too laggard trying to play catch-up as long as it copies other models from elsewhere and tries to transplant them here. Copying something means that you will never be better than the original because the vision isn't yours, can never be. Having said that, many individuals in India, from all walks of life are charting fresh paths and doing stuff that is truly unique and fired by an energy that comes from our mileu. 

I think that things are definitely getting better and our grandchildren will truly come into a forward looking impetus with their own brand of confidence and ability that no one here can begin to imagine.

BBC - Electronic India - Electronic Music at NID - Deepankar Bhattacharyya

 Released On: 17 May 2020Available for over a year

In 2018 Paul Purgas found a box of dusty reel to reel tapes in the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. They featured a collection of intriguing electronic compositions made by a series of unknown composers dated from 1969 to 1973. In this documentary Paul sets out to find the musicians he heard on the tapes and to discover more about this little-known chapter of Indian music history.

The National Institute of Design (NID) was a design school in Western India which during the 1960s became a creative hub, where leading international artists came to teach, share ideas and socialise. Louis Kahn, David Tudor, Iannis Xenakis and John Cage all passed through the college. The NID also housed an electronic music studio containing an early Moog synthesizer. Paul’s discovery raises some intriguing questions: how did such a rare piece of technology come to crash land in Ahmedabad in the late 1960s, what else was recorded there, and why have we not heard of it before?

Paul Purgas is a British electronic musician. Born to Indian parents and raised in the UK, he has created a form of electronic music that owes as much to Xenakis as it does Detroit Techno - but in all his years of researching his craft, he has always looked West, from Stockhausen in Cologne, to Laurie Spiegel at Bell Labs to tell the story of electronic music. Until Now.

Produced by Alannah Chance.

A Reduced Listening Production for BBC Radio 3 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j969 

BBC Documentary - NID Electronic Music