[Sigia-l] "Messy" design, Indian style

[Subir Kumedan]

thanks this was great to explain to a creative that the same design principles (online/offline) do not apply globally


----- Original Message ----

From: Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net>

To: SIGIA-L <sigia-l at asis.org>

Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 3:38:57 PM

Subject: [Sigia-l] "Messy" design, Indian style



We often get flummoxed when a Western oriented site needs to be redesigned

for non-Western audiences. Beyond the necessary mechanical changes required

for more mundane things like language, labeling, etc., there may also have

to be a whole new design approach altogether (cf. recent thread on Google in

Asia).



Here's a WSJ article on Indian supermarket design with insights on Western

vs. Indian approaches:



Americans and Europeans might like to shop in pristine and quiet stores

where products are carefully arranged. But when Mr. Biyani tried that in

Western-style supermarkets he opened in India six years ago, too many

customers walked down the wide aisles, past neatly stocked shelves and out

the door without buying.



Mr. Biyani says he soon figured out what he was doing wrong. Shopping in

such a sterile environment didn't appeal to the lower middle-class shoppers

he was targeting. They were more comfortable in the tiny, cramped stores --

often filled with haggling customers -- that typify Indian shopping. Most

Indians buy their fresh produce from vendors who keep vegetables under

burlap sacks.



So Mr. Biyani redesigned his stores to make them messier, noisier and more

cramped. "The shouting, the untidiness, the chaos is part of the design," he

says, as he surveys his Mumbai store where he just spent around $50,000 to

replace long, wide aisles with narrow, crooked ones: "Making it chaotic is

not easy."



Even the dirty, black-spotted onions serve a function. For the average

Indian, dusty and dirty produce means fresh from the farm, he says. Indian

shoppers also love to bargain. Mr. Biyani doesn't allow haggling, but having

damaged as well as good quality produce in the same box gives customers a

chance to choose and think they are getting a better deal. "They should get

a sense of victory," he says.



<http://tinyurl.com/2goedy>



One wonders what the Indian version of MySpace would look like then. ;-)



--

Ziya



"Every problem comes from a solution."





------------

IA Summit 2008: "Experiencing Information" 

April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida



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