Young Designers 2011

		Young Designers 2011
Home \| Messages \| Design Faculty Chairman’s Message Director, NID Activity Chairperson Communication Design I.T. Integrated Design Interdisciplinary Design Industrial Design Textile Design

Mayukhini Pande | mayukhini@gmail.com

A Study to Inform Design for Informal Retail

Strategic Design Management | PGDPD
Guide: Dr Jignesh Khakhar
Sponsor: Hewlett Packard (through HP - SP - NID Global Studio Project), NID, Gandhinagar

Keywords
Informal retail
Alternative modernity
Contextual design
Business decisions

My study, inspired by an ‘alternative modernity’, aimed to understand what comprises information for people involved in the business of informal retail, particularly shopkeepers, to help them make their business decisions. I had to come up with technology-based design directions which were acceptable and beneficial to such users.

Though informal retail is usually associated with inefficiencies, suggestions for its ‘modernization’, may be counterproductive because its dynamics are different from those of its formal counterpart.

The research methodology followed in this project was Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Semi-structured interviews, participant observations and photographs were used to collect information and draw insights. Then, technology-based design directions were outlined, which pointed towards a device which would fit the users’ ways of conducting business and help them take quick notes and manage them. It did so by retaining the familiar and natural practices that are intrinsic to the nature of informal retail such as writing and gesture-based inputs, while accommodating for the network of personal relationships and flexibility of operations, and augmenting them with appropriate technology.

I now understand how the IPA methodology can be applied to design research and biases may be overcome to appreciate the alternative points of view and rationalities.