The high tech and world class IT Corporations in the rapidly growing city of Pune, India and its low-tech Government organizations serving the public form a striking contrast. The gap in work cultures between the two makes joint projects a challenge, even though much needed and apparently feasible. In this poster we present an approach where an intermediary role was adopted to bridge the gap in work cultures and a user centered design methodology was adopted in the interests of the common citizen, to successfully complete two projects, the Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) website and the Pune Garden Department website.

Click to enlarge the poster.

Jhumkee Iyengar is a consultant in User Experience. She initiated the User Experience Engineering and Design service at Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd, based in Pune, India and presently focuses on new initiatives and research and long-term interests of the effort. Her interests are usability in e-Governance and offshore usability. Jhumkee holds a Masters in Human Factors Engineering Design from Tufts University, USA, a Masters in Product Design from the Industrial Design Center I.I.T. Bombay and a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering, Pune.

Ranjit Gadgil is Programme Director at Janwani, an initiative of the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce. His interests are in improving governance through policy advocacy, people’s participation in governance and e-governance. He has a special interest in sustainable transportation and urban waste management. The “Participatory Budgeting” initiative of Janwani has become regular event in Pune. Ranjit graduated from IIT Kanpur majoring in Physics. He pursued a PhD at Cornell before working as an IT Consultant.