Category Archives: design

design, digital, india, industry, ux

What I’ve Learned About Digital Design In 2015

digital-design

I won’t bore you with a deep introduction talking about how technology is shaping an emerging India. We’re all familiar with the startup explosion, the firestorm that is social media and the inexorable rise of digital marketing. We’ve all been part of the smartphone revolution and the emergence of the app economy. So I’m not going to bore you with details of those.

Instead, I’m going to try and articulate some key principles that could help you while designing for Indian audiences. Principles that could help shape the next website or app you design.

And, just because Star Wars — The Force Awakens is out in theatres, I’m going to do this in the key of R2.

Come back to the Light Side, father!

Functionality is a great thing. But more functionality means a heavier app. Not the greatest idea for a country where a majority of smartphones offer between 4 and 16GB of internal storage. And what’s the first casualty when users run out of space? Apps! The same holds true of heavy websites that invade and occupy users’ caches faster than Darth Vader could occupy Cloud City. So, put your code on a crash diet and build light.

Corollary: To do…or to do not? (There is no try!)

Sometimes, the best way to make sure users don’t uninstall your app when they run out of space is to…not build an app at all! Not every app can fulfill needs that are daily or monthly needs. A beautiful, feature-rich mobile website (like the one Flipkart just built with Google, #shamelessplug) will often serve you better.

Take their hyperdrive offline, Commander!

India’s mobile infrastructure is like a Stormtrooper’s aim — kinda spotty. In an environment of fluctuating mobile connectivity, it’s increasingly critical that some core aspects of your app work offline. And reconnect automatically upon detecting a connection.

Leave the feasting to the Sarlacc

You know what users hate more than smugglers who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser? Apps and sites that feast on data. Just yesterday, I counted 4 rich ad units above the fold on a news site (which serves as many as 11 units on its desktop home page). Not to mention the horde of images that slow down loading time and swallow data packs whole. This in a country with some of the highest Internet costs. Enough said, I think.

Chewbacca had the right idea

Technology is changing rapidly. It’s critical you keep up. Keep tinkering. Optimise everything, from UI to page load times to CTAs. You never know when a small fix could help you win your own Battle of Endor.

Never underestimate the Ewok

Small can be beautiful. Only a fraction of your eventual users probably have the kind of screen real estate you do. And new formats — wearables, cars, to name two — are shrinking traditional screens even further. Design to deliver a beautiful experience across screen sizes.

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design, digital, industry, insight, trend

Digital Thinking. Design Thinking. #SameThing, I’m Thinking.

The real insight that came out of Kyoorius DesignYatra 2013 was, simply, this:

Digital and Design have a common goal – to solve human problems.

The notion occurred to me sometime on day one, during DigiYatra. It could’ve been sparked by the conversation that I had with a colleague on the flight to Goa. Or by the conference theme itself – Create Change. Or by something one of the speakers on the first day – Sanky, Joao Cardoso Fernandes, Laura Jordan Bambach – said.

You’ll find the proof in any products, digital or design, created by a brand or otherwise. As illustrated briefly below.

A low-cost tablet designed to transform India through Internet penetration.
A drinking filter that kills bacteria as you suck up the water.
A fuel-efficient, reduced-emission biomass stove for the poor.
Inspiring the world to stay fit.
Turning old SIM cards into textbooks for poor students.
You never know which tool you may need.
Teaches you how to save fuel and reduce emissions by driving better.
Never get lost again.
Record a program with a tweet.
Bringing light to dark places, with a recycled bottle, water and chlorine.
Helping people find love through Facebook.

Granted, the scale of the problem may vary wildly, from personal to societal. But the essence is the same.

Identify a problem. Then build something to solve it.

The theme was hammered home on day 3, when Raj Kurup forcefully put a message across.

Everybody is a designer.

It’s true. In our world, you don’t need Photoshop and Illustrator to be called a designer. It’s not about what you do, it’s about the problem you solve.

In fact, tomorrow’s creativity may be all about identifying the crux of the problem, for the solution is often obvious.

The best digital and design agencies do exactly this. Identify a problem, design something to solve it. As do the millions of startups that churn out product after product, hardware and software, to address problems they think are worth the effort.

If those solutions can also solve a brand’s needs, then you have truly great marketing solutions.

It’s all about a human-centric approach rather than a brand-centric one.

Not a bad way to attack your next brief, no?

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design, digital, insight, trend, ui, ux

The Future Of Web Design

On 26 October 2012, the digital world changed forever.

That day, Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 to the world. A revolutionary reimagining of the world’s bestselling OS, one which blurred the lines between the computer and the tablet.

We’ve known for some months now that it was coming. And I’ve believed for some months now that Windows 8 heralds a complete reimagining of web design principles.

More and more, people are accessing the web using their mobile and tablets. Most of which are touchscreen devices. We’ve seen the stats for other websites we’ve built and maintain, and the ComScore reports too.

Microsoft realises this. That’s why they’ve built an OS that supports touch gestures on laptop and tablet screens as well as laptop trackpads.

Yet, websites continue to be designed for the point-and-click generation. They’re “optimised” for the mobile, and display on a tablet as they would on a PC.

But is that the same as “designed for touch”?

I would think that if a site were designed for touch, it wouldn’t have tiny hyperlinks you can’t put your finger on.

It wouldn’t force you to pinch-zoom to select text or a link.

It wouldn’t have plugins that don’t work on tablets and mobile phones.

It wouldn’t make you touch-and-drag the site around so you could see what’s hidden in the margins.

There’s clearly a big difference between “works for touch” and “designed for touch”. 

The strange part is, the same publishers design mobile and tablet apps that are absolutely gorgeous and work the way a touchscreen user would want them too.

So why should the touchscreen experience on a website be anything less than gorgeous? Or different from the experience on a computer?

I believe that it’s up to publishers and digital marketers to drive a change. A new language of web design for the touchscreen generation.

A few days ago, we at Jack In The Box Worldwide took a small step towards that change. With the launch of the all-new Louis Philippe website, designed using HTML5, jQuery, JavaScript and CSS. A site born from the belief that web design needs to keep up with changing technology and user behaviour.


When we were designing the site, we threw all standard website references out of the window. And immersed ourselves in the world of mobile and tablet apps. 

Every element on the page, the way the wireframe has been planned, has been adopted, from tablet apps. As have all the little usability cues.

The site is responsive. It smartly resizes to fit any screen. Or any orientation.

There are no tiny text hyperlinks. Only buttons you can press comfortably with a finger or a thumb. 

On a touchscreen device – tablets, mobile phones, Windows 8 hybrids – you navigate with swipes. Swiping horizontally lets you navigate between sections; swiping vertically lets you explore a section further.

We wanted to keep the user experience consistent across devices. So you can also swipe through the site using the trackpad on your Win8 and Apple laptops, which support multitouch gestures. An aspect that should build familiarity through consistency and sheer novelty.

We haven’t sacrificed basic usability, however. You can also navigate by clicking through the links. Or using the arrow keys.

We learnt a lot about touch UI while working on the site. Every few days, we’d have to get together to solve a design or usability issue that popped up while developing. There are still features we need to add and problems we need to solve. That’s why we’re still iterating, and will be constantly trying new ways to solve old problems.

It’d be interesting to apply this thinking to other websites – like news media, for example, or e-commerce. Each of those will have their own problems, and we’ll have to find new, interesting ways to solve them.

A first step…and in my mind, a necessary one.

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