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Design for 1.2 billion people

‘Form follows function’ would probably be the foremost sentence that most designers swear by. Rupesh Vyas is no exception. Except that, when he talks of ‘form’, what he actually means here is the ‘census form’ that he designed for the mammoth exercise of the Indian Census. In a country where the word ‘Design’ still conjures up images of only beautiful projects in most minds, it is refreshing when the words ‘beautiful’ and ‘products’ don’t figure anywhere on the horizon in our conversation with Rupesh about his work.

After completing Masters in Applied Arts from the Department of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda, Rupesh had a brief stint in the industry as a Graphic Designer before he decided to join his alma mater as a lecturer. 4 years later, he joined the National Institute of Design (NID), where he pioneered the Information and Digital Design program.

You currently work on a lot of projects in the social sector and public domain. So did you go looking for these projects or did these projects find you?
NID has largely been perceived as looking at aesthetics and beautiful design. Not many people have even a vague idea about the final outcome of design. When we started the project on the Multipurpose National ID Card (MNIC), initially it was the same scenario. They thought NID would design some beautiful surfaces for the ID Card. But then we adopted a very holistic perspective and got into the entire process with a systemic approach.

Talking about the Multipurpose National ID Card (MNIC) project, can you tell us how you go about a project of such big scale and implications? What is the process and what are the key challenges?
For the MNIC project, we started the entire process with a systems approach. The moment one calls it the ‘National ID’, a lot of factors come into play because it is going to touch each and every person of India. We started with trying to figure out what is the perception that the ultimate person who is going to possess and use this card holds about national identity.

Then we looked at the visual language of India. We did not want to borrow visual influences from any other country. It had to be uniquely Indian. But India is so diverse that the visual language changes from region to region. So how to blend all these local influences was a key challenge. At NID, we have a huge repository of visual material from all over India collected by students as part of their craft study and other projects. We started by looking at these different visual references and validating them through user research. It was basically an exercise in inclusive design.

So initially we were given this project from a visual perspective. The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, was also doing a lot of research in terms of the implications of MNIC. Since it is a ‘smart card’, they had to consider the technological and security aspects very thoroughly. We worked with them on a lot of these things. You can say, we sort of grew together and all our work eventually culminated into visual design, information design and design of security features.

Also, our visual language had to go beyond all political boundaries so that these views and influences do not limit our designs. When we designed we did not think of this aspect. But as we started presenting our designs, we realized from the discussions that we have to very careful about the colors.

This project was initiated as a very short duration exercise. But then we started getting into these different aspects and they realized the value of the design process. When you have to get approval for such designs where everyone is a stakeholder, you go through several rounds of iterations and discussions with people in bureaucratic and political positions before things started materializing.

How did the Census 2011 project come about?
We designed the National ID card, which was definitely important. But ultimately a card has very limited scope in terms of information. What was more crucial was getting the correct information about the citizens of India. The census activity was coming up in 2011. So they decided to involve NID in the census activity too with the objective of getting quality data without any discrepancies.

It started with developing the census data collection forms. The census data collection forms are very elaborate with three sets of data collection. There is the House Listing that happens before the actual census. Then there is the National Population Register (NPR), which the Ministry of Home Affairs has brought in newly this time.

What were the major areas you were looking at for design intervention in the census forms?
Census forms are not filled up by people themselves, but primary school teachers go out in the field and collect this data. We did lot of ethnographic research in terms of how they handle these forms, what are the patterns of filling up forms and what kind of fatigue they feel while filling up lengthy information. And again, rural situations differ considerably from urban scenarios. Many times they don’t have even proper houses and enough illumination. In all these different conditions, how do you make your form readable, user-friendly and motivating was the challenge for us while developing the designs.

At the same time, we had to consider the technical aspects because this form is ultimately scanned and optical character reading happens after scanning. For Intelligent Character Reading (ICR) technology, you must take care to have enough space for identifying the characters, not use certain colors etc. So we did the entire end-to-end research – from filling up the form to scanning the form to retrieving the data from the forms – to understand how easy or difficult each of these processes would be.

I worked with all the different teams both on and off the field. There are lots of issues at every stage because of which data loss happens. Filled forms do not come back in proper condition; Papers are torn or forms are not kept in a particular stack. If they are not kept in a certain position, information is not read. We brought in small design interventions like cutting one edge of the form for ensuring correct order of stacking, and barcode for easier distribution and retrieval. There used to be a lot of discrepancies in terms of writing village names and their codes. We removed errors at this level by embedding a lot of information in the form itself through variable printing. Basic information like village and state level information and codes are pre-printed on the form now.

A lot of design interventions were given.But it all incurs a huge amount of cost because of the number of forms and the number of people and the volume of paper that is used. We had to consider all these factors before giving design solutions. Like, in many villages the houses don’t have sitting and writing facilities. So enumerators need writing pads. We suggested that the box used for delivering the forms itself could be used as a strong base for writing.

And how relevant was the visual aspect for this project?
In this case, the visual aspect was purely about functionality. The information hierarchy was very crucial in terms of what you should read first and what you should read second. We handled it with the use of proper typography; and all different language fonts were properly designed with this hierarchy in mind. It is not that we designed only English and Hindi forms, we designed the entire set of 16 different Indian scripts. Each language has a different space requirement; and on the form, we have limited space in which we have to fill up all this information. So it was quite a task.

Also, in the earlier forms there was a lot of chaos in terms of information structuring. You asked a certain question and the related notes would be in a different corner without any relevance or connection. Those issues were also taken care of this time. The proper use of color was also important. But not in terms of the joy or experience. Normally in design, people bring in experience at the first level. In this project, experience was just a by-product.

How long was the entire process?
It took almost 7 to 8 months for the entire process– from the first form to the final pre-census forms. The pre-census activity was a major exercise they did where they printed almost 2 million forms and tested them out in the field. So there was this large scale testing of the whole cycle. The first pre-forms were designed within 6 or 7 months and incorporation of feedback from the field took almost another 2 months after the testing.

How big was the team?
On the design front, 5 to 6 people were involved in the whole process. But from the Registrar General of India (RGI), a huge number of people were involved in terms of the language aspect. The translation had to be appropriate. The questions have to be composed in a particular manner because the space is limited. If you increase the space, you increase the volume of paper also. These are all very crucial decisions. You have to consider space as real estate.

Do you think there is a possibility of involving students in projects of this scale and scope?
Definitely we involve students. Like, we involve students for user study because they are very sensitive and have a very good perspective of understanding people at field level. But we cannot involve them at each and every stage because a project like this typically goes on for 8 months or even a year. And students cannot keep working on just one project; they have other scheduled tasks and scheduled courses.
The census project did not have any students on board. The MNIC project too did not directly involve students but we used the visual material repository that has been collected by NID students over the years.

On a project like this with different teams and different stakeholders, where many of them don’t understand the ‘design language’ per say, how easy or difficult is it to get your ideas across?
It is definitely very challenging at every stage. The moment we would decide on a certain color there would be a lot of questions. Or the moment you decide on a certain way of structuring information. We gave a lot of input on clustering of questions – that is, which questions should come together. But people had different views; and these were people with long years of field experience. So we had to convince them about our ideas.

But in terms of certain visual design decisions, they were very open. They considered us as specialists and never intervened in these aspects. And NID has a history of working with them. We have worked with them earlier on projects like the MNIC project. So they know what we do and understand the value of design and design intervention.

Besides these, are there any other interesting social sector or public domain projects that you would like to share with us?
I am also very closely working with the National Informatics Center (NIC). NIC is the backbone of all ICT interventions for the government. All the websites and software used by the government are developed by NIC. I am working with NIC on a couple of projects like the Unified Driving License. Seven states in India have already introduced smart cards for driving licenses. But every state follows a different visual language and has a different set of information on its card. We are trying to unify all these into one. So eventually all the RTOs in all the states will issue this unified driving license called the Indian Union Driving License.

Having worked on all these projects in the public domain, do you think design in India is finally being seen as having a much greater scope than just beautification?

Absolutely. I believe that the government is still a big change agent. It is a very big organization with huge infrastructure and scope. The corporate sector cannot match with what the government is doing in terms of scale. In my opinion, if you can do design intervention at that level, it can really touch the common man of India. And definitely, if design can influence their thinking, it is a very good sign. I can see that happening already.

JAM (just a minute…)
What is the best moment of the day?
When I am really involved in my teaching or when I get a very good challenging project. The Census project has definitely been one of the most challenging projects for me. I was very happy when I started working on it

If there were one person for whom you would like to design a thing. Who is the person and what would you design?
I would like to design public toilets. I really feel bad about people not having these basic requirements. Atleast in rural areas, people can go out in the woods. But people in urban areas face a greater problem. So if I can utilize my design skills in any way to tackle that problem, I would be happy.

If there is one aspect of design that you would like to teach everyone, what would that be?
Empathy towards all different kinds of people. We talk of being sensitive towards disabled people or impaired people. But each and every person has some form of disability or impairment. As a designer we need to be really sensitive and empathetic towards all people.

One word that would define your designs/style?
Design for all.

As a design educator, one thing that you would like to change in the present system?
If I can divert the youth, the new breed of designers, into looking at real issues and ground realities and not just following what is happening in the west or in other countries; If I can make them look at our own issues through my education, I would be really happy.

If you were an animated character, which character would you be?
Mowgli.

Any role models?
Yes, definitely. From Mahatma Gandhi to Nandan Nilekani to Sam Pitroda. You can see the dedication in the kind of work that Nandan Nilekani and Sam Pitroda are doing in the public sector and the way they are changing the entire societal situation.

What are you afraid of regarding the future?
When I say future, it is about design and the impact of design. The impact of what is happening in other countries on India. I am really worried about the way the youth in Japan is going. They are indulging in gaming, entertainment and all sort of virtual reality and detaching themselves from reality. It really worries me. I hope that does not come to India.

What are the challenges you are facing in the present context?
Actually, I think challenges are all good opportunities. I don’t look at them as challenges.

One design-related book you highly recommend to read?
Tom Kelley’s ‘Art of Innovation’. The people at Ideo are my role models. ‘Designing Interactions’ by Bill Moggridge, founder member of Ideo, is also a very good book.

One public project that you would rather do than anybody else?
Income Tax Returns. I would like to look at issues related to it. I always fumble when I have to file my returns. Although they claim that they have a lot of facilities online, all those don’t really work well.

One motto for anyone working on design projects in the social sector or public domain?
I would say, look at India’s diversity. We can keep on learning from our own diversity and our own challenges. We don’t need to shirk from this diversity and say that we cannot handle it. It is a positive aspect. If you don’t have diversity, you don’t have inspirations.

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