India an Ideal Place for User Experience Design: Expert

KOCHI:
India’s deep cultural ethos and hospitality make it an ideal place to create world-class user experience design, a leading global thought leader in design said here today.

“Indians think a lot about other people, are willing to work collectively and be successful,” said Eric Schaffer, Founder and Head of Human Factors International, while delivering the first keynote address of the three-day-long Kochi Design Week (KDW) that kicked off at Bolgatty Palace.

Speaking about the Indian lifestyle, Schaffer pointed out, “The traditional Indian lifestyle takes only one-tenth of the carbon footprint as compared to the American lifestyle.”

Schaffer said that he had strongly argued for setting up a user experience company in India, allaying scepticsm that it was not possible to do such work remotely from the country. The company, which has an office in Mumbai, is a world leader in user-centred design solutions that has delivered work valued over $225,000,000.

“A change in mindset from thinking about a technology stack to a customer-experience stack is required to excel in designing for people,” he noted during his interactive session.

India can make the ‘Make in India’ campaign unique by leveraging the country’s stunning values, he added.
A panel discussion on “Designing for Experiences where digital and physical worlds converge – How is this relevant for India” followed in which the panelists spoke about designing digital experiences for the common man, digital as an enabler of capacities and the importance of convenience while designing digital products.

Those who spoke on the occasion included Joyojeet Pal, Principal Researcher, Technology and Emerging Markets Group; Harshit Desai, Head-Customer Experience, Aditya Birla Finance Limited; Senthilkumar M, Co-Founder, JioVio Healthcare; Alok Nandi, President, IxDA and Founder-Director, Architempo; and Balaji Parthasarathy, Professor, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.

Apala Lahiri, Co-Founder, Chief of Technical Staff, Institute of Customer Experience moderated the session.