My Dear Friends of Figma in Hello everyone i’m really excited to meet you all virtually today today we’re going to be talking about designing for new internet users who are these users and what are they and how do you design for them but before driving deep into them i just want to introduce myself my name is rahul garadiya and i’m a.
Product designer from india i’m currently working for microsoft but before this i was working at a company called me show where we built e-commerce solutions for these new internet users i want to talk to you a little bit about my background before we go dive deep into this so.
I come from the bar a city in india and i grew up in a middle class indian family where are all close together and live live together so in a typical uh indian family we tend all of us tend to live with each other so my parents.
Grandparents and sometimes even their brother and sister so it’s a very big happy family but while i was growing up my dad had to move to the us because of his job and although my grandparents were really proud of them and very happy for them they were a bit sad because they wanted to interact with their grandkids more.
I’m sure grandparents all over the world would love to spend time with their grandchildren but my dad seeing my grandparents sad he didn’t like it right so what he did i still really remember he bought them their first laptop and i think it was the first laptop in our home at that time and they still.
Remember it was a sony wire laptop right and so with the help of few mbps of internet and skype they were actually able to interact with us they were able to uh see us they would talk to us and they were stunned they could not believe.
What they were seeing they were like how is it possible that i’m interacting with you through a glass through a surface right and i still remember them calling it magic right and the internet has come a long way right so the internet now you can really.
Reach out to anyone uh across the world in a second through social media right uh children nowadays have access uh to internet and education right at the fingertips i mean people don’t need to go to school anymore on something new.
You can only try it at home uh you can literally shop for anything online from groceries to food to clothes you can have it right at your doorstep and even at times in need when you need attention medical attention you can get immediate help from the internet right so.
Now we’ve seen that the internet is extremely useful and we use in our everyday lives whether like you’re talking someone on social media or whether you’re designing on your favorite app right so the unit has come a long way and for some people who don’t have access to.
The internet it’s not fair and in the internet has now become a necessity right it’s something which we need to live our day-to-day lives right but what about people who don’t have access to the internet or who are just getting action on the internet how is their life and how do they.
Interact with the internet so let’s take a look at some of the places where the internet is emerging right so over here you have it’s basically a pictorial representation of uh the access of the internet across each country right and you notice that some countries in africa south asia indonesia just.
Slowly starting to uh get access to the internet so and this this this this is changing because governments want this right for multiple number of reasons so one it can help you lift the country out of poverty right it helps building digital payments digital.
Banking solutions for people to transact with other people to take loans right it also helps in education right as you see through the pandemic uh people can learn at the comfort of their homes right and just global participation in general.
Interacting on social media and other platforms right so this is increasing in fact you’ll be very shocked to know that around three billion people were on board to the internet from these emerging markets in the last 15 years which is a crazy amount of growth that we have seen right so.
Let’s zoom in a bit further as to why is this change happening like how is this change happening so today i’d like to talk about uh india specifically and how is it changing in india and why you should if you look if you’re someone looking to expand in this global.
Market here’s how it’s happening and here’s what you should do right so speaking about india so india’s had a massive growth uh even though only 50 percent of its population is online right now so close to around 40 50 which is around 749.
Million people are online right now right this has grown tremendously over the past few years but it’s even expected to grow even further to around 1.5 billion people by 2040 but what is powering this change right so let’s go through why is this change.
Happening so people in india are now having access to cheaper smartphones right so we might be using thousand dollar phones like iphones google pixels and stuff like that right people in india have access to 60 dollar smartphones right so they might not be technology as advanced as what we use but it gets the job done right they can.
Use the internet they can talk to friends and family who are moved away it’s very convenient for them and it’s very affordable for people coming from these emerging markets data has become significantly cheaper around 2015 1gb of internet which cost 206 dollars which is close to.
Three dollars right but because of the infrastructure change indians can now use it for only 18 rupees which is hardly 16 cents this makes internet affordable for everyone can i just tell them and a lot of companies like facebook google are doing a lot of global.
Initiatives to ensure that a lot they they acquire a lot of users as well right for example facebook is setting up multiple hotspots in multiple villages inside the country right google is hosting a digital literacy program for women so a lot of companies also see this market and try out different initiatives for them.
To allow people to get on board onto the internet right it’s it’s very fascinating so now that we’ve understood that this change is happening and there are a lot of people coming on the internet you might ask me rahul like what.
So what does this mean it’s okay that people are coming on the internet but why do we have to do anything differently let me tell you why so the way the people experiencing it for the first time is extremely different to what we.
Have done let me ask you guys a question when was the first time you experienced the internet i’m pretty sure it was on a desktop or a laptop where you were exposed to a website or you’re probably exposed to at school university where you interacted with an interface and.
Has probably studied it as well right so your experiences are built on websites but for these people it’s extremely different let’s look why right so the first experience are completely different because their smartphone first they’ve never seen any other interface as laptops and desktops try to are a bit more expensive they.
Don’t have access to these things so their first experience are generally on their mobile which they have used right secondly they interact with experiences which are in poor connectivity although they might be getting access to the internet they might not have as high speeds as we use so we use.
Around we use our data in 5g and 4g where they typically might use it in 2g right and their first questions are also not in their local language they tend to be in english or any common language and for a place like india which has so many diverse languages and dialects people are very accustomed to their.
Local language and they’re very comfortable in that so the literacy rate for languages like english is not very high in india right although some people do understand english but they might not understand it fully so these are the things you might need to keep in mind while designing first.
Experiences for them now we can also look at a mini framework uh which is what should you keep in mind while designing for them right so this is a mini framework it’s called three c’s and it consists of connectivity complexity and comprehension.
So we’ll dive a bit into each one of them and we’ll go through some examples right so this could be kind of a mini checklist you can have while designing for these emerging markets right so connectivity uh users are mostly on prepaid plans and these emerging markets right and they’re.
Very careful with the amount of data they’re using so prepaid plans are nothing but plans which where a person might give money for a certain amount of data so i might give you 18 rupees and i can use one gp of data right and people are very careful in using the amount of data that they use right they’re very conscious about the data they use right.
So they ensure that they use minimum amount of data for small things like videos downloading apps so what this means is you need to keep your app extremely light and extremely quick to use even in 2g networks for example the misho app is only 14.5 mb on the play store and it hardly has any updates.
They’re done automatically so comparing to any other e-commerce app on the market it’s extremely light and users are able to download it very easily not sacrificing their data at all and a lot of global players also are doing this uh just an example misho was the most downloaded app in october just because of this just because of its.
Sheer lightness all the other global players are following this as well uh companies like uber have also heavily invested into these ideas right so uber has launched called uber lite which is only 5 mb compared to its 300 mb counterpart right and what it is is basically it’s removed.
All the things which takes high data consumption so there’s no map there’s no mini cars very there’s no complex animations or transitions it’s extremely simple to use you just add in where you are at the place you want to go select your mode of transport and it’ll notify you when when the.
Driver is where the driver is right so this is like one of the things which a lot of google players are doing uh even uh facebook launched its facebook lite version here which is basically a web-based application which opens up right which doesn’t take that much time to load so ensure you solve for connectivity.
Let’s talk about complexity now so users tend to get anxiety when they’re bombarded with a lot of information need to understand that users are seeing interfaces for the first time and they’re extremely scared of what they see and they’re extremely cautious right so try to keep your design simple and.
Easy to use users should be guided and not overwhelmed don’t scare them teach them and help them for example this is the old me show card page for us it might seem pretty easy to understand i just need to select a payment method i have my price breakup details whatever items i’ve added to the.
Card and i can pay and proceed right but for someone coming from an emerging market who is who cannot read that much as well this is too much of a cognitive load you need to guide the user and help them so to reduce this user anxiety the miso team has divided the process.
Into four parts uh it might seem that it’s lengthy but this solves comprehension a lot right so this this allows people to go through it step by step and ensures that they know which step the payment is happening right so this is one of the things you can do you should also let the technology and design do the work for the user.
For example the incredible innovation done on the digital payment site in india is it’s extremely useful so if someone wants to get onboarded on the upi payments on the google pay app what you need to do is just add your phone number select your bank google will then verify with your bank and phone number if you.
Have an account and then you are ready to go you can literally start transacting with your friends it even shows the top most contacts you use to allow you for frequent transactions so over here technology and design is doing the work for the user.
If you’ve noticed user didn’t input any information other than his phone number and the bank but the design and technology did the work for them so try to guide these users don’t overwhelm them last but not least let’s talk about comprehension so like we discussed earlier a lot of.
Internet users struggle struggle with lower literacy especially in english they’re very comfortable in their local language right and you can try to solve this by using visual cues such as icons illustrations in fact if you can use motion with them that’s even better so let me tell you a small story so.
Filters right we all of us know how to use filters they’re basically used to filter out content right but people coming from emerging markets can’t read right so don’t they don’t use filters and know how to categorize them so the folks at me show what they did was they tried to imagine shopping in the real life experience.
Like like we discussed uh people aren’t seeing interfaces they aren’t seeing apps like amazon and then coming and shopping right so they try to ask themselves how do people buy while they shop offline so what you do is you go look at the material feel the material see how it feels right so that is what they want to do with filters and.
They launched high visibility filters which basically also shows the material how it looks i mean we have we can’t tell users how it feels but people can actually look at the material or the clothing item and select it very easily and they saw an eighty percent option increase in the use of filters isn’t it crazy just by using visual cues you can.
Get such great improvements right now we’ve discussed that people can’t usually read so what are the mediums that we can drive right so voice is a very interesting medium uh which a lot of companies are trying right now right and it’s especially helpful for people who have.
Lower literacy levels voice input also also spelling complexities india has a lot of languages right and so spellings translating to english might might vary a lot right and even if users are using different keyboards it’s very hard to type in them for example hindi has a lot more letters.
Compared to the english alphabet right so it takes a lot of time for it for users to type as well it can be extremely frustrating so you can solve this by using voice for example uh at mission we’ve incorporate this search using voice features so people can just tap and then search through that voice so this.
Reduces any spelling complexities as well and try to keep all these points cohesive as you’re seeing over here we’re also using visual and motion to tell the user that they have to speak by clicking on this icon making this experience extremely comprehensive for the user they understand what they have.
To do in this step and even google assistant right so google assistant for emerging markets has also made it offline so there’s a toll-free number which people can call and the google assist assistant can aid them so a lot of companies at google as well are heavily investing into voice with the google assistant.
Right so to summarize with you need to take into account loan trend speed connections ensure your app is light and fast right tightly reduce text-based dependencies try to support them with icons illustrations animations if you can right.
Don’t shy away from using voice right voice can be used to solve a lot of complexities and immediately try to handle users for success try to guide them right don’t let them get scared right so these are the things uh i have learned but how did i learn them right so.
This can also vary from different cultures to different markets right so to ensure you have your own learnings the best way i would say is again just talking to users and testing your designs at an early stage of a design process right this can help you maximize your learnings so.
Let’s talk about how we use a test right so before you you would test face to face but now with covad and the pandemic all of us are at home so right but i think that’s also a pretty good thing where we can test right at home and a lot of benefits for uh testing with users at all right.
You’re at the comfort of your home uh it’s also uh inclusive so you can talk to a lot of people from the country sitting at home right you can get different opinions from different people it’s also cheap and efficient right so a lot of benefits to remote user testing and these are some of the challenges you.
Might face while interacting with these users in user testing from low emerging markets so like we mentioned or we discussed like apps like zoom skype uh google meet are very heavy apps right so they would not be interested in downloading 200 300 apps you need to.
Keep it very light right and they don’t understand things like screen share right so these are challenges you might face while talking to these users right you need to keep uh sometimes a prototype might not load as well so these are some of the challenges you might face and.
These are the things you can do to solve them right so uh i recommend using look back for recording so look back on the mobile app is hardly a six mp app so users can still download it and for the team using it as well you can enter your figma.
Prototypes and you can also record these sessions take notes right so it’s a really great tool for you to use so that you can record your call as well and it’s very easy for the user installing the app on their phone to install as well so i’d recommend a look back uh compress images if you can so the.
Lighter the prototype the easier it is to load and essentially main data comes from images which they might have download so just a pro tip you can download this tiny image compressor which compresses all the images at one go and you can just press command shift k to then keep adding in your prototype right so.
Ensure you use this comparison images plugin if you can so if there are really long flows right for user flows try to break them down if you can and test them in multiple parts so this not only allows the user to test all of these very easily and it’s not too much a heavy load for them to load on right so these are the ways you can.
Solve these small problems while for these emerging markets right so uh so now that we discussed right we discussed a lot of things from uh how are people getting onboard the internet why is this change happening and some of the things you can use to.
Design for these emerging markets right and i believe that the responsibility for designers is just increasing right because because of the pandemic this importance for designing for new entrant users has increased a lot for example people who are going to school before.
Might it might have stopped or not going right so what can we do for those people right things like that so uh yeah this makes designers are more vital than that before and i i wish everyone designs for social good and helps.
People like these in these tough times right uh yeah and with that we come to an end uh i really hope you enjoyed this talk and i really hope i was able to add value so thank you guys for joining uh if you guys want to you learn more about these initiatives a lot of companies are doing it so feel free to.
Check out google’s next billion users initiative or even stuff microsoft is doing for inclusivity right uh you can also check out check out the mesho tech blog so they have uh these blogs that are in detail about their user studies and stuff like that so feel free to check those out uh you could also follow me on twitter and instagram.
Where i keep posting about these uh design hacks and things for these new internet users so thank you so much for joining and it was please a pleasure meeting you all thank you you
Rahul discusses how the team at Meesho leverages the power of design thinking in congruence with technology to build an …
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