Observations from India

In one of my domestic flights, I flipped through the pages of the popular Femina magazine and felt, a lot has changed in the country while I've been away. There are lots of local designers who are doing reasonably well making very Indian things. Many of them are bringing a contemporary edge to traditional Indian crafts, household belongings, lifestyle items etc. 

I also realize that all of a sudden 'creativity' is in vogue now. Every other person is now identifying and more importantly nurturing the creative side within themselves. People of all ages are becoming potters, candle makers, chocolate makers etc. 

‘Bacchey aaj kal job nahin, passion dhoondtey hain’ (Kids today don’t search for a job, they search for their passion instead) is the punch line of one of the big insurance companies in India, wooing parents to secure the future of their children. 
This is a welcome change from the times when every child was forced to become a doctor or an engineer or join the family business. For years, I had a hard time convincing people that my decision to take the ‘arts’ stream is the right one for me. 

The one thing that strikes out the most is, the trend towards entrepreneurship. In the last couple of years a bunch of my friends have quit their well paying jobs to become entrepreneurs. Most of them are still in their early phases, evolving, and learning. Some of the most successful ideas are the simplest ones.

My reading of all this is, 'design' is slowly gaining grounds in India, creative fields are seen as viable career options for the young generation and there is an increased confidence among the designers to work with very INDIAN concepts, principles  and challenges. 
Design methodologies are increasingly being applied to solve some complex social problems faced by the country. 
Design methodologies are also increasingly being used to identify indigenous innovations that work within the context of India. 


It all feels great :)
  

Cultural Contexts and design?

Delhi Airport: The airport looks a lot like airports in the US with carpeted floors. 
The time we got off, there were plenty of Indians too. Interestingly, during immigration, most of them were in the queue of OCI (overseas citizen of India)/foreign passport holders. The queue for Indian passport holders was the shortest.

I did notice some design flaws in the airport. A big one for me was, there was almost NO information to a first time visitor that indicated the existence of 2 other domestic terminals.

The toilet entrance have big poster size photographs of an Indian woman indicating the Women’s toilet and an Indian man indicating the Men’s toilet. At first instance, these big photographs can be easily misunderstood to be some kind of advertisements.

The domestic terminals are not very close to the International terminal. Different domestic flight carriers fly from different domestic terminals. There is no information about this available on display in the International terminal. Once you figure out which domestic terminal to get to, the next challenge is to figure out how to get there. There are very few information desks and depending on the time of the day, they may/may not be staffed.

The exit signs show signs for Taxi, Car Rentals etc but none for Inter-terminal Shuttles.

So? The only way is to ASK. Ask a security staff/ staff at a coffee shop…ask anyone who might know. You learn that there is a counter outside the exit gate of the International terminal for the inter-terminal shuttles.  Get out of this gate and yet there are no signs. In one non-descript corner is a small counter for the inter-terminal shuttles. Present the tickets of your onward journey and you will be told the number of a relevant bus station. At this bus station, there is no bus. The bus parked at the adjacent station is also going to the domestic terminals and is waiting for more passengers before it leaves.
Shall I get into that one? Or shall I stay put at the bus station I was told to get a bus from?

As an Indian, asking people and finding my way through places is inherent in me. But having traveled a lot through international airports, I was just putting myself in the shoes of a first time visitor. In most international airports, one can get around without asking anyone anything – using maps/signage etc. So I wonder if there needs to be some form of standardization in International airports so it’s a one time learning process for travelers?

On the other hand, can't we just work on our culture of ‘asking’ and design with it in mind? That's what we do to ask for directions, to find out things...We are a country with a large population and human capital. We also have a large English speaking population. So why not leverage it? We do not necessarily have to go the direction of automation and/or self-service. We could potentially have our own unique approach to address these issues by making it equally intuitive and adoptable.