semantics & visuals

Six months ago I did round of hospitals as I was tending to my mother – and each visit to different hospital left me pondering about the role of technology, design & social media in hospitals. I could notice design & technology substantial contribution to make hospitals infrastructure aesthetic and efficient. But the thrust at large is to have designed space, and design is still not being used to resolve human, usability and data issues.

I feel social media should play a vital role in the way hospitals function. Both hospitals & social media share common ground – both have social cause as the driver and their popularity & growth is propelled by word-of-mouth. Hospitals can make a start with posting, blogging or tweeting about a visiting specialist, progress on complex cases and new discoveries.

Companies like GE & Philips are already making headways both by way of their technological products for the hospital industry as well as exploring ways to involve design in communicating complex & information-laden scenario more effectively.

Came across an interesting & interactive data visualization of the costs associated with chronic conditions.

data visualization - deeper understanding of healthcare costs

The BarCamp Delhi seems to have started a sort movement of unconferences. Close on the heels of BarCamp Delhi, there have been BarCamps in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Then there was the BarCamp like event on Mobile 2.0 titled as MoMo Delhi. Organized at the same location Adobe office in Noida, the unconference unfolded quite like BarCamp Delhi chapter. But by the end of the day, I was left with the feeling that the standard of the presentation could have been better. Also I believe there should have been more focus on usability and user experience. More than the PCs, mobiles are very user centric gadgets. You will rarely come across two mobiles which are being used and are similar in their experiences they provide. For every mobile user, the mobile becomes an extension of the user personality and shades of the persoanlity is reflected in choice of ringtones, wall papers and color schemes. And therein lies the need for the mobiles to connect to the user on the experience level.

Of all the presentations koolpool and Webaroo caught my attention. Koolpool is a SMS based carpool service. I would be following their progress, as the concept looks exciting. Webaroo, though not semantically satisfying, still stood out because of the attempt to go beyond the web based search. And finally we had the pannel discussion towards the end. The interaction though lopsided was still inviograting as it is very rare to have such an exotic panel discussing emerging trends.

Now there is India’s biggest blog unconference scheduled for 9-10 September 2006 in Chennai. The BlogCamp website describe it as “a rich mixture of workshops, practical demos, presentations, interactive quizzes, lectures, iron-man challenges, debates, group discussions and games.”

Appears to be an interesting event. I am looking up my schedule.

I recently came across an explorative article by Peter Lawrence the chairman of Corporate Design Foundation on “Why design?”. He describes design “as a user-focused, prototype-based development process that simplifies complexity and achieves success through collaboration.”

Culturally the interplay of art and design has varied from society to society across the world. We in India have traditionally been more exposed to art that to design. This is a feeling which has found resonance in the myriad from of folk arts and in the marked absence of design in public places. Perhaps it is only in the last two decades that there has been a conscious move to use design in the public spaces and in urban areas.

This is a leaning which is also reflected in the web domain – a public space where design is an integral part of the medium. In the last few years of my association with the industry in India, I have realized that web designers in general tend to be more of artists than designers. Driven by their personal desire they tend to override the need to design for public pleasure.

Some anonymous designer once observed: “Design is based on sharing; it is a communal activity, its goals are communal – it seeks not the furtive satisfaction of the private individual but public pleasures of many individuals”

Even though the above observation was made quite a few years ago, this still holds true in the age of usability, user-centric design and user experience where user holds the centre stage of the design process.

Add on news: Photoshop labs has recently published the Web 2.0 Design Kit, with tips on how to create some of the more popular “Web 2.0″ design effects using Photoshop.

Looks like the interactive agencies in India are finally taking the creative leap. Recently some of the interactive work executed in India created quite some splutter in the international award festivals.

Earlier this month BC Web Wise won a Bronze at the Media Spikes 2006 for its creative execution of Ford Fusion website.

Now LIC website has won a webby Award. Design by Tribal DDB India the website has been declared People’s Voice Winner in this year’s Webby Award. This looks like an awesome achievement – given that Webby pits you against the best in the world.

“Creative? Got a great business idea? Want to know how to develop it into a real business proposition? Then apply today to take part in the Creative Future programme.

Twenty young people with a business idea in the creative sector will be selected to take part in the Creative Future School at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore in August.”

Looks like the season of entrepreneurship have finally arrived. British Council India along with IIMB is offering to mentor twenty great business ideas from the creative industries.

The above words are from the Creative Future website inviting people to submit there ideas. Though the submission have closed for this year, it would be interesting to keep a track of the ideas which finally emerges from the initiative.

On 28 August, a group of eminent judges from India and the UK will select the final three who will go to the UK in October 2006.

You can visit the website to view further details.

Taking off from my last piece on semiotics, it looks like the world is warming up to visual design as more than just expression of abstract thoughts.

From the cave days of signs & symbols to the present days of elearning, visual language seems to have come full circle. Of late it is fast gaining recognition as being more persuasive for communication and learning. I have been pondering why is it so, and why so late?

Visual language requires users & viewers to get engaged mentally. Unlike most of the traditional human languages, visual language doesn’t have a structured or predefine syntax. Users have to engage with the visuals to understand the overt or underlying meaning, which contrast with the established human languages with a predefined syntax.

Over the years users of traditional human languages develop habits around tense, voice, person and gender. But with visual language even though users or designers evolves an individualistic approach to design, it still remains largely a mental process all along. Each visual expression has a very individual flavour to it. For the viewers, pieces composed in visual language are open ended statements. And I have a feeling that because of this freedom which visual language allow users, it is able to present the case in a more persuasive manner.

First on a sub-conscious level human just don’t go through a visual composition as a matter of habit. They have to connect mentally to absorb the message and which helps in internalizing the meaning & understanding. This is also where the challenge for visual language users lies; they should try to break the mould with each new visual composition. It is the ability to break the pattern & surprise which is one of the most powerful tool that a designer has. Some one has named this as “creative leap”.

Secondly on a more conscious level, visual language does not force users to comply with a set meaning & syntax and offer freedom of interpretation in a subjective way.

Thirdly visual language enable users to get a snap shot or overview of the entire composition at one go. This is quite unlike the traditional language where user needs to go through the entire composition and co-related the different statements to get a complete picture.

Looks like we are witnessing a rise of the visual culture.

Some of the proponents of the visual culture

International Visual Literacy Association
Visual Thinking School
Clement Monk
Idiagram
Xplane
The Big Picture

BarCamp Delhi was a captivating event. Even though I joined the group a little late, I experience new manifestations of the web 2.0 culture, explored new approaches to life and met an interesting group of people. And perhaps for the first time, I came across people who share my passion and interest and lives very much in and around Delhi. In the recent past such events and people were either in the far distant lands of Europe and America or in the not-so-distant lands of Bombay, Bangalore or Hyderabad.

I am listing some of the more exciting memories which are still lingering with me

Rohit Malik – devoted to Osho and events-in-Delhi with equal felicity
Amit Agarwal – “making his living out of blogging”, and have some exciting tips on blogging
Prashant Singh – a marketer by profession with a nose for technology and an instinct for entrepreneurship
Gaurav Bhatnagar – young director of a young company, with some hard learned lesson on start ups
Jonathan Boutelle – A principal at Uzanto Consulting and one of the core inspiration behind BarCamp Delhi
Ajay Sanghani – core team member “India first technology blogging network”
MindCanvass – “A web based rapid research service” from Uzanto
MyToday – a web based aggregator that enables you to have topic base RSS feeds

Against the backdrop of the informal approach, I would say this was a rather successful event. Looks like this event will go a long way in putting Delhi on the international map of IT events.

You can get a more detailed overview of the event from BarCamp Delhi on MyToday

Close on the heels of CeC & CaC 2006, there is another international event, BarCampDelhi, scheduled for this weekend for the geeks in and around Delhi. Perhaps one more reason for people to come together, express and exchange notes. The camp is described as

“BarCampDelhi is BarCamp’s first foray into Asia and we are proud to be the torch-bearers.
BarCamp is a new kind of technology ‘unconference’- organized by attendees, for attendees. It’s an open, welcoming, once-a-year event for geeks to hang out with wifi and smash their brains together. It’s about love and geekery and having a focal point for great ideas.”

Scheduled for this weekend (4th March), the event seems to have already created quite a bit of buzz. With an interesting list of presentations lined up, looks like it is going to be an engrossing weekend. You can register on the website to make a presentation.

Yes! Finally Delhi is catching up with its southern cousins, Bombay, Hyderabad & Bangalore, by playing host to events of significance and international repute. The fact that this event is by the geeks, for the geeks makes it exciting.

Looks like Google is setting itself on the path of philanthropy. Google recently hired Dr. Larry Brilliant to lead the company’s philanthropic arm http://google.org. I am not aware whether in the past Google had taken philanthropy initiatives to which print or digital space was devoted.

This press release caught my eye because of the prevailing mood amongst the netizens. I have been pondering, is the philanthropic instinct a reactionary development against the brewing bitterness? The growing clout of Google and the ever increasing possibility of it gaining a hold over the users’ data is a topic widely discussed across forums. Whatever be the case the initiative is an interesting development and I hope part of the philanthropy is devoted to creating awareness among the masses about the physical environment they work in and the socio-psychology implication on the mental health. Still quite a few organizations make their employees toil for hours without having any awareness or compensation program for CRI (computer related injuries) or ailments born out of overexposure to virtual world.

I hope Google, as an organization driven by an indominitable spirit of innovation; will set precedents in this domain as well. And I wish Google will take care to accommodate the concerns of the users who have helped build it.

At times I wonder what life would have been without Google? And I find the resonance of my feeling among lots of people around me.

You can read a related article which appeared on rediff.com

An interesting event CeC & CaC 2006 is schedule for the weekend. The event intent is outlined as “addressing the Creative Empowerment of Individuals by the burgeoning spread of Technology across multiple streams of Creative Human Endeavour”.

The Carnival of e-Creativity & Change-agents Conclave is spread over three days from January 27-29 and will be held in the IIC campus, Delhi.

The participants seem to be an exotic mix of musicians, digital artists, multi media experts, curators, photographers and media persons from across the world.

I am still wondering why the word on the event has not travelled around?

You can get the details of the schedule from the website.