Indian Scenario / Article 11. First published in Nov. 2006, HCI Vistas Vol-II Author: Dr. Dinesh Katre

Big Picture

Indian software exports and services has already reaped $ 23.6 billion and is expected to touch the total of between $ 29 and $ 31 billion by March 31, 2007 as reported by InfoWorld. The domestic market for software and services is also projected to grow by 20% on account of e-governance projects and investments in IT by the health care and retail sectors. As per the estimation by Jakob Nielsen, Indian offshore IT and BPO segments will require to employ 400,000 Interaction Designers and Usability Professionals to generate $ 63 billion export earnings by 2008.

The valley of difference between demand and supply

As per Nielsen’s estimate, India should have recruited at least 150,000 Interaction Designers and Usability Professionals by now. But in reality, Indian IT industry has employed somewhere between 1500 to 3000 Interaction Designers and Usability Professionals [1] so far. Unfortunately, we are nowhere near the estimated projection. I suggest the readers to not take the projected figures literally but use them as approximate indicators.

Design Institutes

Presently, the Indian community of Interaction Designers and Usability Professionals is growing by rate of 20% annually which is far too less. Around 6 to 8 new design institutes have suddenly opened up in past couple of years (to name a few- Symbiosis Institute of Design, MAEER MIT’s Institute of Design and Creative-I College, Pune, Raffles Design International, Mumbai, IILM School of Design, Gurgaon, Wigan & Leigh College, New Delhi) But all these are indirect contributors to interaction design, as they do not offer education in that area.

Industrial Design Centre, Mumbai; Department of Design, Guwahati; National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and Srishti School of Design, Bangalore are among the few design schools who have introduced training programs in interaction design. Human Factors International (HFI), Mumbai along with individual initiatives from usability experts supplement the usability education through workshops. But all of them clubbed together can contribute hardly 250 to 300 usability professionals annually. Hundreds of multimedia and web content creators are getting trained by Institutes like Aptech, Edit, NIIT and many local training institutes. Some portion of these students eventually migrate to interaction design. But they need formal training. Logically, it seems that India can sustain at least 500 design schools. But where are they?

Usability Conferences and Professional Societies

Let us look at the number of conferences we have in India. India-Human Computer Interaction (I-HCI) conference happened only once in 2004. Easy conference by CHI-South India is the only consistent annual event. Usability Matters Organization (UMO), Hyderabad has been regularly organizing lectures and participatory events for awareness creation. Professional bodies like UPA, Pune and more recently, UPA Hyderabad has surfaced on the Indian map.
Obviously, there is a valley of difference between demand and supply of Interaction Designers and Usability Professionals. India offers this huge opportunity to domestic and foreign universities, design institutes, usability consultants, professionals and trainers.

Small Picture

I have personally conducted many surveys during 2005-2006 that involved Interaction Designers, Usability Professionals, Software Developers, Business Analysts, Technical Writers and Project Managers. I am presenting this data with my observations.

What usability professionals think
This is a survey that I conducted over a sample of 28 usability professionals from 5 IT companies. It also includes some User Interface Design students.

Need for Corporate Training
	79% of usability professionals think that their knowledge and skills are not fully utilized by the company.
	61% of usability professionals think that senior management in IT industry is unaware of Usability Engineering or Interaction Design.
	85% of usability professionals think that corporate training in Usability Engineering is a must for IT industry.
Need to Train the Trainers
	86% of usability professionals think that academic institutes need to study, research and practice usability engineering before training others.
	56% of usability professionals think that “guidance” is the bottleneck in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) domain.
	85% of usability professionals think that Ph.D. research in HCI will add value to their skills; and if given an opportunity they would like to go for it.

Recently, I delivered a seminar on Pragmatic Approach to HCI Education. It was attended by the faculty members of software engineering from 10 Engineering Colleges. Some of them have already introduced small modules on HCI. But many faculty members expressed difficulty in teaching human factors and usability engineering. They also mentioned about disinterest of computer science students in learning the subject.

What software developers think
I conducted this survey over a sample of 51 software developers who were fresh computer science graduates and some of them had 1 to 3 years of professional experience. The survey was conducted before starting the usability seminar.

Need to induct Usability as part of computer science syllabus
	62% of them had heard the term “Human-Computer Interaction”.
	39% of them had heard the term “Usability Engineering”.
	For 96% of them, “design” in software development meant functionality and architecture.
	For 4% of them, “design” in software development meant functionality, architecture and user interface.
	12% of the software developer had seen the software product being tested for usability.
Need to focus User Centred Design
	Most believe that about 10% of project resources should be allocated for requirements engineering phase.
	85% of them agreed that too many new requirements get added and modifications are asked towards the end of project.
	88% of them think that user manual and user training are adequate for achieving acceptability to software product.
Their response after completion of usability seminar was as under-
	80% of them felt that a dedicated team of usability engineers should be involved in the project.
	100% of them agreed usability as the critical factor of success for software project.

Summary

Both big and small pictures undoubtedly substantiate that India has major potential for Training the Students and Professionals, Training the Trainers, Corporate Training and Consultancy in the domain of Interaction Design and Usability Engineering. Visionary investors and professional organizations are needed to tap this hugely potent market.

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[1] I have indicated the range of usability professionals in India as between 1500 and 3000 on the basis of the count of members on Indian usability related e-mail discussion groups. The reason why I indicated the range is because some have membership of multiple discussion groups. It is also not possible to go by the number of trained designers, as there are many from different academic backgrounds who have now migrated to usability.

News reports published based on this article:

Easy to use products are in

Rediff News

Offshoring Times

Dr. Dinesh Katre presently heads the National Multimedia Resource Centre of C-DAC, Pune, India. He is the principle designer of many software products that deal with digital library, cultural informatics, e-learning, multimedia authoring and computer game design. He has special interest in the cognitive study of technology users and behavioral design of products. Journal of HCI Vistas is his community building initiative. It is meant to promote research oriented, multi-disciplinary thinking in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. This e-publication is open for usability practitioners and UX designers to publish short articles.

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