DISHA- An Indoor Navigation Design Thinking Case Study

The future of indoor navigation.

7 min readJul 10, 2020

Disclaimer: The following project is based on foresight of the technological advancement in the time to come.The aim was to be speculative designers, designing for a near future (in terms of infrastructure) and straying away from the school of thought that an application is the answer to all life’s problems. So yes, while the objective was to be radical, all concepts are functional in theory but due to Covid 19 physical prototyping was not a possibility.

Now that that’s out of the way, the question arises..

Why indoor navigation?

The denser our concrete jungle becomes the more relevant is the cause of creating an efficient indoor navigation system. Indoor navigation as been a long standing problem with GPS signals hardly ever proving accurate within enclosed structures. This, however, was an even bigger problem in hospitals than we realized.

The Problem Statement

How might we aid the process of navigation in hospitals non-emergency patients to increase efficiency of patients, doctors and hospital staff?

If you’re wondering why this specifies non-emergency cases it’s because oftentimes the Emergency ward of a hospital was well located to the entry/exit and easy to navigate as all related emergency wards were positioned close by. The real struggle were those that were not in immediate life threatening situations but still found it very difficult to find the specific doctor, dispensary, X-ray room or department.

The reality in India

We explored several public & private hospitals in Mumbai to better understand the problem of indoor way finding. We saw one too many people running from watchman to passerby to anyone reassuringly wearing a white coat to ask for directions only to be forget a couple of minutes later- was it a right from the water foundation or the Oncology department? And there started the search for yet another stranger that could help. The hospital signage was disorganized, campuses felt like mazes and we spent more time than not trying to find someone that “looked” like they knew which way our destination was.

Signboards in a disarray and gate posts used as signs

An example of bad signs, all pointing to one direction.

Signs did very little for navigation at these hospitals, it was as if there was underlying understanding that they were but pieces of decor. Signs were hidden, vandalized and positioned at least possible convenience to a navigator.

We tried to test the system ourselves and and tried to navigate to a particular department from the other end of the campus. Even with hand drawn map (a serious upgrade from the apathetic one-line direction usually given) navigating was an uphill battle.

The Journey

We then spoke and shadowed doctors, nurses, admin staff and even patients/ visitors navigating to get a more holistic opinion on the problem since it had multiple stakeholders. Here’s a brief understanding of our observations:

Insights:

A few observations from our on-ground research were:

Visibility & access of navigation aids
Signs were broken, hidden, illegible and often very ineffective.
People’s first instinct to always ask for help
The hospital is an environment of high stress levels and often people were not in the mental state to read and navigate through signs alone. Additionally, asking people gave them a sense of calm , like someone was there to solve their problems.
Language barriers
With 27 official languages, this was a particular concern in the Indian context. Often people travelled across borders for treatment and it was not feasible for signs to be available in so many languages.
Unique naming systems
Each hospital had its own naming system for buildings, wards, etc. Some were named after the benefactors of the hospitals, some after freedom fighters but unfortunately none were named keeping in mind ease of recall as a factor.

Now came the fun part of any problem solving process- the ideation! But before moving on to solutions, the team sat down and chalked out some guiding principles (a checklist , if you will) to make sure that our idea was out of the box and effective.

The Ground Rules ☝

1) No Apps. A risky call, this was taken as practically all navigation solutions resorted to applications and apart from it being the obvious choice, it was specifically not suitable for the target audience in public hospitals that will not be comfortable using apps with AR, etc. That and it just wasn’t fun!

2) Minimal learning to use. Flatter the learning curve, the better. There is already too much going on in the head of a person trying to navigate a hospital and added to that stress would be counter intuitive.

3) It should act as a companion in the stressful process of hospital navigation and should give feedback accordingly to further establish this connect.

4) It should be able to communicate despite the language barriers.

5) Environmentally conscious.The team believed strongly in belief that solving one problem of navigation should not further another problem ( E-waste) and so we decided to be mindful to have the least impact possible.

Brainstorming

During the ideation stage the team sat together and brainstormed using many methods of ideation including, but not restricted, to Round Robin and Random Association to help us think out of the box in order to devise a unique solution for this problem.

We dabbled with product concepts spanning across all 5 senses as indicators, wearable technology, hospital kiosks and interactive signage. The aim at this stage is to not restrain with “is this really possible?” because often crazy ideas serve as an inflection points to the best solutions.

The Final Idea

After an immense round of prototyping, we arrived at our final idea by marrying different elements from various ideas into one concept.

DISHA is essentially a thin, dissolvable bandaid-like sticker that displays directions to guide you to your intended location. It is light, easy to use, gives real time feedback and nudges the navigation to be a smoother process without being distracting. DISHA’s USP however is that it is completely dissolvable and therefore no matter the scale at which it is adapted it will never be a burden on the environment.

Here’s a quick story board to better understand the process of navigation with DISHA.

The DISHA navigation process

I know what you’re thinking, that’s ridiculous! Is it really possible?

Technically, yes. DISHA is made of 3 main components:
1. Dissolvable microprocessor
Made from a combination of silk and silicon. The conventional circuit is covered in a layer of silk protein, which is manipulated to make it dissolve at a given time. The silicon, when exposed to water, dissolves depending on its thickness. [1], [2]

2. Light emitting diode LED paint
The new LED technology uses a combination of inorganic and organic materials that dissolve and can be applied like paint. The material shines a white, red, green or blue light and can be used for making a light bulb.[3]

If you’re struggling with the possibility of this one, you’re not alone. But an inspiration was the very popular electricity conducive paint Bare Conductive. (If you haven’t already, you need to check them out- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HdRGaZ0bIQ)

3. Zinc air batteries
Since they use air to provide oxygen as one of the reactants, zinc air batteries can be made very light. This is the component however that would be the most difficult to construct as dissolvable.

These functional electronic components are built via an additive processes onto a film made of silk protein.The device will remain stable until ambient moisture triggers a chemical breakdown that digests the inorganic electronic materials and components.

When the electronic device is no longer useful, it will biodegrade into non-toxic components that are harmless to the human body and environment.

Features:

With basic arrows as indicators, following directions are easy.
Accurate positioning and and navigation.
Real-time- as the anchors measure the time between the transmission and reception of the signals and estimates how far away from the tag they are
Biodegradable and non-intrusive- because silicon is naturally abundant in the environment and the conducting material, magnesium is bio compatible and naturally occurs in the body that means the circuit will not harm health or the environment when it dissolves.

Learning:

Although abruptly interrupted by Covid-19, the DISHA project has been a real eye-opener in the innovation process. It taught me that while creating the wheel is innovation, bringing 4 wheels together to be used in symphony is also innovation and both have their time, place and importance. If you’ve reached the end of this, I truly hope that the next time you have a ‘whacky’ idea this inspires you to entertain that thought a little while longer.