IESUP - About Us- Rationale

Rationale

We believe that there are three key reasons why India needs to embrace usability both in industry and academia:

because usability is essential to be a global superpower

to enable India to fully contribute to the global information society

Global Superpower?

In May 1998, the Prime Minister of India formed a National Taskforce on Information Technology and Software Development, the main objective being to help India emerge as an 'IT software superpower'.

Of course, India has a strong and developing 'software offshoring' industry undertaking projects for Europe and North America in both high quality and cost effective modes.

On the other hand as NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) acknowledge this strength is balanced by two weaknesses:

Firstly there is a low presence in the global packaged software market.

Secondly there is a lack of localisation of software associated with inadequate growth in the domestic market.

Usability is a critical marketing factor in packaged software. Full-life cycle development requires user centred design.
The localisation of software systems is a specialist branch of HCI - cross-cultural usability, in which there is much current research and development activity. India can offer much to the world's HCI community here!

Redfort in India

India: Global IT Superpower

In summary, India will not be able to claim genuine IT superpower status without addressing usability at a national level. To genuinely compete at a global level in full life-cycle product development with other key regions (most notably Europe and the USA) the effective integration of procedures for systems usability within both industry and education is beginning to be seen in India to be an important factor.

IT for the masses

Information technology products offer a great opportunity to provide information and services to the masses. This is true world wide, but particularly so in India. Whether it's e-learning to deliver education and training, or public information systems providing health information to remote communities, or indeed many other application, IT has the ability to combat 'social exclusion'.

However, with what is knows as the 'digital divide', it also has the potential to reinforce current disadvantages.

Much is happening in India already.

For example Sugata Mitra's NIIT's 'Hole in the Wall' experiment with computers in Delhi's slums has shown how un-schooled children are learning to use computers and surf the web.
One factor in determining how such systems are adopted is how usable they are. This is not just a matter of luck. Developing system that meet the needs of a very diverse user base is challenging, but a variety of human-computer interaction (HCI) skills and techniques can enhance success rates.

Hole in the wall

Hole in the Wall

Global information society

We do now all live in a global information society. Information can be exchanged across the word in an instant. Artefacts are being developed by multi-national companies for global usage. However ensuring effective, accessible and usable access to information and technology to all that can benefit is not simple.

Europe is a leading contributor to the underpinning field of human-computer interaction (HCI), which features highly in education programmes and in commercial IT development projects. Usability and HCI is not currently afforded the same priority in India.

Over the two-year project IESUP will develop active and sustainable links between the Indian software community and its counterpart in Europe, thereby promoting HCI / usability within India and facilitating the design of new generation artefacts for a global community.