Overview
Hastshilp is a digital information desk at the exhibition centres and craft bazars, where the visitors can learn about the crafts in detail. Also it helps bringing in business for craftspeople.
Hastshilp just aims to spread awareness about traditional handicrafts and craftspeople in the urban sectors and also build a sustainable work environment for Indian artisans by connecting them to producers and consumers.
Context
The crafts sector in India has vast potential to improve livelihood opportunities, generate additional income and strengthen the purchasing power of rural communities.
Various exhibitions and craft bazaars are organised to promote Indian handicrafts and to help the craftspeople to make their livelihood through their inherent skills. But there is always a gap between the consumers and the craft because of lack of knowledge on both ends. Most of the consumers are unaware of the authenticity, value and importance of the craft because of which they are confused and unsatisfied while purchasing, also because of the gap between the contemporary requirements of consumers and the traditional craft products, the market suffers.
Role & Process
The project was a part of my data visualisation module at National Institute of Design. It took 4 weeks to come up with the idea. The idea came into picture as a result of my visit to a craft bazar in Bangalore. As a UX designer, I identified the need based on my research and tried mapping the different crafts of India. I followed a User Centric Design process:
01 Research
The research phase was about understanding the problem and identifying the needs and the stakeholders. It helped me figuring out- What is the scope of this market? Who can be the potential stakeholders? What are the major requirements of the stakeholders? What are their behaviours and motivations?
I started with comprehensive literature reviews, to understand the need and scope of an online information and business portal. This was followed up by data collection and in depth study of the crafts and craftspeople of India.
I also studied about the major NGOs and government organisations which are supporting the cause and mapped them with the craft value chain in order to identify the scope and impact of my project. Following are the research findings:
Insights
For harnessing the potential of crafts sector, different types of investments are required which can preserve traditional crafts, strengthen the sector and improve the incomes of artisans. Such investments should focus on building the four cornerstones of artisans’ sustainability:
02 Data collection
Data collection was the most important stage of the project as this was the only method of conveying the information and hence bringing together the consumers, producers, NPOs and artisans on a single platform.
I went through the reports by Crafts Council of India, Craft Economics and Impact Study, books on Indian Handicrafts and crafts statistics by Government of India and many more in order to collect the data, where “Handmade in India” a book by M.P. Ranjan, had a major contribution. Here are a few numbers identified in the Indian craft sector as per the above mentioned resources:
03 Experience strategy
03.1 Defining user-types through personas
Craft sectors has extremely heterogenous group of stakeholders. To be really effective, Hastshilp needed to target the potential users first. To understand who they are and what challenges they face, I developed 2 personas (2 primary user & 1 secondary user). The goals and challenges of these personas were informed by my user interviews.
03.2 Defining approach for NPOs with scalable interventions
In order to have a more focused approach to non profit activity, I tried defining six high impact and scalable interventions found in the top right quadrant of the matrix, as described below.
03.3 Finding common ground
Once I understood the persona/primary user’s goals, I mapped them with Hastshilp’s business goals to see how they met and aligned.
03.3 Key features
I analysed the features of the main competitors which helped me outlining the features of Hastshilp, which can make it’s experience more valuable and distinct to the stakeholders.
03.4 Storyboarding
After defining the features of Hastshilp, I did a storyboard exercise to quickly come with an idea that how and at what level Hastshilp can be introduced. I took the approach of introducing it at a consumer level so that it gets maximum promotion and exposure, from where it can be taken further to meet the ultimate business goals.
03.5 Information architecture
To structure Hastshilp’s content, I first needed to understand what information do the visitors in the craft exhibition look for. Through the interviews of the visitors at Bangalore Dastakar exhibition I figured out a pattern that helped me outline the task flow of the information portal.
04 Design
After determining the task flow, I worked on applying it to the wireframes and visualizing the data. Here are the initial iteration screens showing the task flow of the portal.
04.2 Validation
Testing the above low-fi mockup I could figure out how well is the interface working and the areas of improvement. To perform the test I gave two tasks to the users- (A) Learning about the craft (B) Connecting to the desired NPOs for business. I analysed and documented the findings through an affinity map. Based on the feedback from user testing, I refined the wireframes further.
05 UI design
Designing the complete interface of the portal involved creating a visual identity and working on the micro interactions. I ended up creating a high fidelity mockup of the information portal for Hastshilp which could be used on any digital screen that are used to display advertisements in the various craft bazars.
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Future goals
There is still a lot to work on this project like categorising the craft distribution according other broad categories material and product wise might make it even easier to find the craft. Also bringing in technologies like augmented reality which could facilitate in identifying the craft and looping in more and more stakeholders which could help in further research and dissemination.
