Me, manager & thesis guide
Feb 2019 - June 2019
Mobile
Post 2015 India’ digital landscape has changed across the nation. It has made affordable data services available to every strata of the society. Socio-economic landscape, traditions and culture play a large role in shaping the behavior of a market. As the number of internet users in India continues to grow, brands are adapting and developing products that cater to India’s needs.
I led the project from research, analysis, exploration, testing & design. The final deliverable was a reimagined Bing catering to India’s unique digital needs. As part of the project I also delivered a guideline and UX principle handbook for designing digital experience for India.
The project had a bigger personal & professional impact on my career. It taught me how problems in the real world don’t come in neat packages. The cookie cutter design process in reality is a complex web of processes happening simultaneously. I was designing brands yesterday, today I am designing apps and tomorrow it might be a new medium. Design at its core is problem solving which transcends beyond mediums.
I kickstarted the project by understanding the market & people I was designing for. I dived deep into understanding India's internet landscape. I brought in research from multiple papers, journals, annual reports across Microsoft & other companies to gain insights. I reached out to area experts and user researchers across Microsoft who explored this space before. The key takeaways were:
Majority users belong to Tier 1 & Tier 2 cities. They are low income & less educated. Women’s adoption of technology has been catalyst by the data revolution.
Mobile is the primary device to access the internet. Network type has high network coverage & slow network connection.
Access to technology is almost always intersectional; norms of gender, religion, or class may further include or exclude people from technology.
The dominant narrative suggests that people in developing countries are using technology for utilitarian purposes. However they use it for entertainment. Play dominates work, leisure overtakes labour.
India’s physical spaces are larger than life. They are vivid, textured or maximalist. However our digital experiences are derived from the west. The applications and the interfaces we are exposed to are often minimal, clean & structured. Our digital spaces don’t align with our physical space.
I studied apps that are popular across India and those designed for India. Aim was to understand the virality of these applications. What makes them extremely popular and their USP in context of India?
I decided to do a UX breakdown & study of Chinese UI/UX patterns. The reason was the recent success of Chinese apps and emerging patterns where homegrown products had started replicating Chinese UI/UX patterns.
Based on case studies & secondary research, four major themes were developed for articulating the hypotheses. These themes were internet usage, search habits, visual understanding and content consumption. Key research queries were:
We covered consumers from all the 5 SEC ( socio-economic classification of urban customers), across the age of 16 to 50. The research was carried out over a span of two weeks, in three cities : Hyderabad, Ahmedabad & Delhi.
The approach adopted for hyderabad was shadowing the users and in context interviews.
I shadowed and studied their behaviour, making observational notes. Then I would proceed with more in depth one on one focus interviews.
The last leg of my research was in Delhi, I was able to be a member of a larger Microsoft wide research initiative, aligning to my project. First we would sit with the entire family to discuss and ask questions. Then the group would divide and question each member personally. We would go deep into each aspect and theme. Post individual interviews, we would gather again with the peer circle of each member of the family and have a discussion with them.
Post each session the team would gather and discuss and do a quick analysis of everyday findings. This aided in developing new hypotheses or confirms existing ones. Patterns and insights would emerge early on in the process. Multiple teams worked and discussed research insights remotely or on field. A live Watsapp group was created to share insights on the field. This aided better documentation and collaboration.
To understand and study the visual understanding, the usual approach of asking people or studying background didn’t seem to work. I decided to go for a more visual approach. I offered them packaging of hypothetical brands. One was minimal and clean, while the other was expressive and rich. Participants were asked to answer how they feel about each and describe the emotion. Which packaging they trust more. How much do they think each costs, etc? Not just packaging, participants were shown images of two sarees. When asked about which they desire more, they would often prefer the more ornamented one. Similar approaches were developed with other products.
We streamlined and arrived at our key insights under each theme.
A Learner uses technology to empower themselves. They share a unique relationship of teaching, learning and growing with their digital devices.
A Hoarder collects information. It plans and checks each thing online. They often would check prices at multiple websites before buying. They keep multiple tabs open so they can access them later on.
An Influencer extends their knowledge and habits to their peers and social circuit. They often aid app adoption. The are mostly gen-z or younger millennials.
Internet for explorers is a passage for discovering & sharing content. They come to internet to mostly fulfil entertainment purpose with no clear goal or objective in mind.
I mapped out scenarios that gave rise to possible opportunity areas where I could intervene. These opportunity areas acted like idea pools which I further used to sketch out my ideas. I divided scenarios into two type :
Multiple ideas and concepts were generated under each theme and scenario. The pros and cons for each were weighed against each other. Certain ideas were clubbed together to make one solid approach. Some ideas were written off as they were either too ambitious or didn’t make sense in the general scheme of things.
The final approach was an amalgam of multiple concepts, weaved together by a single narrative. These ideas were narrowed based on the intensity and frequency of the problem they were trying to solve. Intensity involved understanding how deeply the pain point impacted the user. Frequency meant understanding the degree of occurrence.
Search and Browsing experiences are often seen as separate. Search is understood as utilitarian and task oriented. It is meant for self development or work. Content Consumption meanwhile is more personal in nature. It is visually driven and carries emotional potion. My eureka moment laid when I realised I was seeing these two use cases as separate. There was a possibility of integrating them as one. Can we make search more fun, personal and engaging ?
Throughout the process, I took key design decisions. Some made sure that the entire process was smoother. Some emerged out of the constraints of technology or user behaviour. Others were derived to understand the process better. I principlised them, so that anyone post me can adopt these and design for the India market.
