Universal Design and Accessibility Conclave @ IIMA

Approx. Reading Time : 5 minutes 40 seconds

Design for Dignity & AccessAbility: 2 Swedish exhibitions at NID

Estimated reading time : 3.5 minutes

Hej Hej Tjena!

The National Institute of Design and the Consulate General of Sweden in Mumbai have organised a Swedish exhibition ‘Design for Dignity’ which showcases products that are designed to improve the quality of life for differently abled people. Produced by the Swedish Institute, the exhibition encompasses 22 products and highlights the importance and benefits of being inclusive while developing products for the future.

A photo exhibition titled ‘AccessAbility’ based on the everyday life stories of differently abled Swedish and Indian individuals, is on display as well. ‘AccessAbility’ consists of personal accounts of 14 individuals from Sweden by Swedish photographer Markus Marcetic and 11 individuals from India by Indian photographer Sunil Thakkar. These images tell stories of their dreams, hopes, sorrows, love, family, daily life, work and spare time.

(source : NID mass email)  

(a flyer from the exhibition)

Professor HOK at NID : Persuasive System Design

Professor Harri Oinas Kokkunen visited the National Institute of Design on April 1, 2016. Harri Oinas-Kukkonen is Professor of information systems at the Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu. He has a strong background regarding various aspects of information systems and digital media both as a practitioner and in academia.

He is a jolly fellow and spent the better part of the morning visiting the Vavs (stepwells) in Ahmedabad. On first thought, Persuasive System Design seems like a complicated term but after the talk, we felt we understood some pieces of the puzzle.

All new technologies that are being developed imitate the web for e.g. the ATM machine UI. Our contemporary web is already social and mobile yet it is far from being a 'frozen' technology. The web as a platform is still in its beginning yet it can be viewed as a transformer and humanizer. Companies have a huge responsibility on their shoulders as they need to encourage people outside their payroll to use their ecosystem, hence the ecosystem needs to be designed carefully. UI is moving towards being more intuitive and natural. For instance, notifications that you need to exercise daily can be annoying if the time is not right. Yet people love to gt rewards when they complete an exercise plan. What could be the solution here?

The PSD model:

1) Persuasion postulates: How can design affect behavior? Is complete behavior change required or do we need to just create nudges?

2) Persuasive features

3) IT is never neutral. It has practical applications. People like their views of the world to be organized as consistent.

4) Direct and indirect routes are key persuasion strategies.

5) Persuasive systems should be both useful and easy to use. There is a difference between usability and usefulness and that certainly need to be taken into account.

6) Persuasion through a persuasive system must always be unobtrusive to a user's primary tasks. It should make users WANT to change. A counter argument is that some people do not want to be persuaded. An example in the non digital world is that in Disneyland, the waiters recommend families to buy the cheapest alcohol. This is because people save up for years to get that experience of Disneyland and thus, Disneyland feels that people should get to experience the place in entirety. Even if they buy cheap alcohol, they would feel confident of making the choice if the wwaiter himself recommends it.

7) Persuasion through persuasive systems should always be transparent.

The session ended with a question answer session and by then most of us had reached our full saturation point. His work area is surely very interesting and since he has been in this field for long and is highly experienced, he answered our questions in detail. He has co-authored a book with his brother - Humanizing the Web which I hope will further answer your queries.

New Landscape of Inclusive Design: Baatein with Prof. Julia Cassim

Baatein with Julia Cassim

Magic of Stainless Steel (SS)

photo: Anish Kapoor Cloud Gate, stainless steel

Mr. Nirmal Chand Mathur is the President of ISSDA- Indian Stainless Steel Development Association and Chairman of the Indian Furnace Association of India. He holds a B.Tech degree from BITS, Pilani. He visited NID- National Institute of Design, Paldi, Ahmedabad, India to have a Baatein session (informal talk session) with the Industrial Design student community.

The session began with Mr. Mathur introducing a 5 module online certificate course on stainless steel (SS) to acquire technical knowledge. You can click here to view the course.

Stainless steel has excellent corrosion resistance and doesn't require coating. It looks aesthetically appealing with other materials, has excellent fatigue resistance, high rigidity, low thermal conductivity, is tough at cryogenic temperatures, has good energy absorbing characteristics and is 100% recyclable. The different alloying elements of SS- Iron (Fe), Chromium (Cr), Nickel (Ni) and Molybdenum (Mo) can be combined in different proportions to create a range of varying strength and a variety of applications.

SS has been used extensively in the Rail and Transport sector of India. Street furniture like bus stands are made using SS. The Empire State Building; the sunscreen of the Stockholm Congress ctr 2005; King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture (under construction); Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai, China; Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; Apple Cube, Manhattan among many more are made using SS. Polished SS has highly reflective properties therefore sheets of SS cannot be used on the roadside as art installations. The AIIMS park in Delhi has spherical steel balls called the mushrooms/ sprouts which are polished but do not act as an element of distraction. They show the best of both worlds - the heavens and the playground of us mortals.

To conclude, the session was useful for the NID student community because mostly doing hands on work leads us to missing out on the theoretical aspects and properties of materials which was fulfilled to some extent in this Baatein session.We were shown two videos and two presentations in which the aforementioned information was contained.

This is not a Chemistry Class

We have a Baatein session with Lyondell Basell today. This is the poster.

Baatein with Prof. Simon Bolton, Birmingham University

So I made this poster for a Baatein Session which are informal yet informative talk sessions with professionals from the Design industry. They are held at NID- National Institute of Design, Paldi, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.

Yesterday, we had with us Prof. Simon Bolton from Birmingham who gave us very useful insights. He is full of energy and passion. He told us that to be 'great' designers, firstly we need to have the will but also the right clients. Also, hard work is ideality. It makes one reach places. Behind every successful person is a hell lot of hard work.

Baatein with Mr. Gerard Eisterhold

Poster by Shridhar Sudhir

Baatein session: An Amalgamation of Gond Art and Chintz

Baatein Session with Prof. Roberto Fraquelli, NID