We have a Human-centred Approach: Pratul Chandra Kalita

Meha Mathur Sep 29, 2022

What role does design play in everyday facets of life, and how do designers make products and experiences better? And what is the synergy between engineering and design in IITs? Pratul Chandra Kalita, Associate Professor, Department of Design, IIT Guwahati, answers some of these questions, in an interview with BW Education. Excerpts:

What is design as a field about, and what have been some of the major advances?

If you look at renowned companies like Apple or Samsung – how they gained a competitive advantage over others, it was the innovative and design thinking approach. That is why there is a need to have human capital in this area, wherein you give the students the right skills, expertise and knowledge. Design is driven by innovation and creativity and is a perfect amalgamation of technology, art and aesthetics. If you look at the entire course curriculum, you will find so many courses, from art aesthetics and technology, to also social science.

While products were being made earlier too, what is the new element that design has introduced?

We as the design fraternity are not into technology development. That is for people of hardcore technology. We use technology to come up with the best of the best products and services. In today’s world, how you make use of technology is a major factor. In comparison to the pure engineering way of looking at products or services, we have a more human-centred approach.

Can you give examples of such a human-centred approach to products?

We have to consider which particular demography are we targeting for a particular product. We apply a lot of contemporary research like ethnography. On the basis of that research, in the Indian context, we have to come up with solutions. To take the example of an ATM machine, I can’t straightaway a US-based design for a small town. Let’s take another example of healthcare, the cutting-edge technology would be available. But how do we use it in the Indian context, is an issue that designers have to address?

So, what are the areas of work in IIT Guwahati?

We have three branches – product design, or industrial design, the other is visual communication like graphic design and the third is human-computer interaction, which is about user experience.

There is a big synergy between the three fields. We are trying to make our products smarter. Let’s take the example of a refrigerator wherein the cooling function is the domain of engineers. But you can have the refrigerator interact with another device. Similarly, there are graphic design interventions on the exterior of it.

Is there a scope for non-science students in design? Some of the IITs do allow non-science students.

At IIT Guwahati, we are only restricted to science. There has been a lot of debate on this. Our take is for scientifically-driven design and technological intervention.

Can you elaborate on the thrust of the course at your institute?

The bifurcations I talked about earlier are not formal bifurcations. In BDes, there is no specialisation as such. But from second year onwards we have a basket of electives. In the first year, we have common courses and students start taking interest in a particular domain. Not only that, our students take electives from other departments too, like computer science and social science. Besides computer science, which is a favourite among students, students also take up electives in social sciences, like ethnography and psychology.

So that connection with other departments is very high, not just in terms of open electives but joint projects.

What is the kind of expertise available in this field? And do you face faculty crunch?

Honestly speaking, there is a huge faculty crunch. Design is a practice-based discipline unlike pure science but a PhD is a must in IITs, whereas in design, research is comparatively new. So, we are not getting enough applicants. We have adjunct faculties who are industry experts. We are also starting a new programme sponsored by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for masters in electronic product design. And we have a panel of industry experts. So, right from curriculum development onwards, we are taking inputs from them. For our regular BDes and MDes also we regularly interact with our panel of industry experts. We also have a workshop-based course where industry experts are invited to train students.

During Covid, what was the experience, especially in the workshop courses?

We faced tough challenges. Our programme is practice-based, with hands-on learning. Initially, we didn’t know the lockdown will get prolonged so we kept postponing the workshop courses. But such difficult times teach us a lot of things. So, we started developing modules in such a way that we could train students through different approaches. We made videos of our instructors doing those product models, and we listed the readily available material so that students could repeat those exercises. And we found some interesting results.