How India Changed the Way I Think About Design | Rahul Saini | TEDxChitkara University Punjab
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMp_uL9LGow Video ID: HMp_uL9LGow ============================================================ [music] You know, I want to take you to this place, this uh special place where I learned everything I know about design and that helped me shape up, you know, the technology that we've built. I want to take you to those moments where I learned everything that I know and I'm going to put some of those moments in front of you. I want you guys to uh you know live those moments with me for a little while and I'm sure you've done it before. So just close your eyes for a few seconds, few minutes probably. And travel with me to that space. Just close your eyes. I can't see so I'm sure you have closed your eyes and imagine yourself standing in this busy noisy market where you usually end up buying your vegetables or you know groceries or whatever. Imagine yourself standing in this place where there's a lot of people, a lot of noise, and you've just bought something very simple, you know, something worth 20 bucks or so. And now you take out your phone, you scan this small tone little QR code, you enter the amount, you enter the pin number, and you press the pay button, and then nothing happens. this pin drop silence. You're waiting for something to happen. You know, in that moment, two things happen. You look into the eyes of the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper looks into your eyes and you're waiting for something to happen. You're just waiting there. That small moment of tension is what I call the nervous dance between you two. It's like a highstake poker game over 20 rupees. And then suddenly, you know, that sound comes ting ting. I'm sure you all heard of this. And then everything changes. Everything changes in a not in exciting way but in a sense of relief. Because for a country that was built on cash, this sound was not just a sound. The sound was a sound of proof. The sound was a sound of assurance. The sound was the sound of trust. You know, I've been living in these moments for the past two decades, seeing how real humans test the invisible technology one careful step at a time. And India did not give me a you know product problem to solve. It gave me design education. Design does not happen in the you know perfect design happens in the real world you know and uh you know real world was something that how it looked like. So you know the first lesson that I learned you know when we talked about trust was that the trust does not come from the money that was given. Trust came from certainty that it happened and that was the first lesson. [sighs] And you know in those moments of chaos in that in that marketplace that we all imagined you know design happens in that specific moments of things and you have to really be cautious about what is that you observe from those moments. So you know those this chaotic situation is there you're standing there there's a lot of people around you someone is pushing past you someone is trying to make a payment really fast you are always in this situation where you're trying to you know not look like a fool you're trying to you know be quick you not making mistakes trying to enter the right number make sure that the right bank account selected enter your right pin those moments is when design happens So it becomes a performance pressure for all of us at that point in time and this is the next learning that the best design is not the one that happens in the calm room. Best design is the one that works in this chaos. You know though there are moments of stress when you're making a payment but there's a moment when the stress turns into fear because the technology is invisible. You cannot see it and something has happened. You've pressed a button and there is this beautiful animation that starts to load up. You know it's called the spinner. Most of you would have seen it sometime. It's called the processing screen. You know it just keeps loading, loading and loading and it means nothing at all. It's just put you in a situation where you you are not in control and the system is not responding. The system has gone silent. This is the worst stage of design. It's called ambiguity. you know when when in this stage if you're not actually holding the user through that process you're putting him into a trust crisis. So here is what I learned from it that in invisible systems you know which we are building ambiguity can feel like a danger. So clarity is not a feature anymore. Clarity is empathy. Clarity brings about that trust in the user that you can trust this technology and go forward. We are here to help you. You know, but there are still times when uh I've observed and a lot of people I've seen them saying, you know, you know, they press the button, they see the confirmation, but they say did you get it? I'm sure we would have done it right. A lot of us would have done it. We not sure that has this thing happened or not. We are not really trusting the outcome yet. We were waiting for the confirmation to happen because what was happening was we came from a physical transaction world where we gave the money in physical format. It was physics in motion. We were giving the cash, we were taking the cash, everything was a closure. There was an instant closure that happening. So we started forming a ritual around it by asking the people you know did it happen or not you You know so in invisible systems when you start forming rituals because you're not trusting the system you need reassurances and it is a job of design to provide that reassurance to the user and that is when that sound which I talked about in initially you know the sound of payment which we all know now very well we became bigger than the technology itself. It became a culture and now that culture is so embedded into us that whenever we you know go and make a payment we don't even wait for it to happen. We just walk away hearing the sound that oh it just happened already. So whenever you're building something make sure that you build for reassurance. You avoid this ambiguous situations. Uh I'm going to just jump right through this. You know these are the core lessons that I learned but there was one more situation you know which is happening with us lot of time we make a payment uh you know we were whenever you have to make a payment for somebody for the first time what is it that you do it's almost like uh you know a national habit that we find a workar around for things I used to do it I'm guilty of it and I'm sure a lot of you would have done it it's called the one rupee test. We'll first send a one rupee to somebody. We'll then take a screenshot. Then we'll send it to the guy. Then we'll call him aa. Did you get it? You know, have you received the money? What is that? That's not adoption of technology. That's called negotiating with fear. You know when you start negotiating with fear, you not put it as a technology problem. It's more of a design issue. It's a design failure for all of us in that case. So when trust is weak, we don't stop. We become careful and we find a way around it. So make sure that where whatever you're building in for future you are first ensuring that the user trust your technology so well that he's not using the technology to trust his technology again you know why all this is important for you guys now today you know because you know India is going into this next stage of building the new invisible systems you know systems where users ers cannot see and they are blind to it. And if trust fails in those systems then users will just not revolt. They will opt out of it and we will not have a progressive nation. We will not have a growth that will come to us. We will not be able to build up new technologies, adopt those technologies. So if you were to take one final you know takeaway is it it is this that you know when you're building for India you're not just designing technology you are designing courage and make sure that you don't lose this aspect of design or technology because the moment you start getting into building you know for money you're not building for the user. So you know the final takeaway again I would try to reiterate is that the future does not arrive you know when the technology is ready. Future arrives when we humans are ready and humans become ready when design helps them face this invisible technology. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> [applause]