Urbanization in Design
Urbanization in design is nothing more than crossing boundaries and reaching the other side, which is the rural side. Making the rural counterpart accept and adapt to the changing world scenario and acting in pursuit. With technology as a backbone, many interesting and cost-efficient measures can be brought to the use of rural markets. The idea is to make the rural markets reach larger audiences with their products, make use of design technology to redefine the way things are done, and offer newer and better avenues to wipe out the line between urban and rural business transactions.
But how is this possible?
Alone technology is the answer to this question. With companies exploring improved markets in terms of products and pricing, the gap between urban and rural markets will shortly diminish with the advent of online markets for the rural crowd. Where at once the products exchanged multiple hands before they met the right audience, and affect a sale, now the middleman is slowly being replaced by the online markets. The time to go to market has reduced and better prices and direct interactions are now defining strengthened bonds between consumers and sellers.
Rural markets are now slowly penetrating urban markets with products and offerings, and
urban markets are penetrating the rural areas for expanding their consumer base. In this
scenario how technology and design can create an efficient ecosystem? What do designers
need to be wary about while creating designs? What are the major gaps that demarcate the
rural from the urban markets? And what should be the approach towards catering to such
markets is what we will see as urbanization in design.
Language
In India alone with innumerable languages and dialects, the need for something standard to address the masses is important. While we consider Hindi as a National language, it is not even a language everyone might understand or speak. So, while developing designs it should help to identify the regional language and have communication set to it.
Illiteracy
When you are creating a solution for an audience that is majorly illiterate, the alternative to
reading is speaking. Designers are seeking AI-based voice solutions and other avenues to make the applications communicable. Although this could be an additional design expense. Having said this, the rural crowd is not highly literate and therefore their learning potential can be considered slow due to a dearth of facilities. In this scenario, designs need to be created for a longer time frame keeping in mind that modification or upgrades are not easily possible.
Commercials
Most of the rural crowd come in a minimum wages commercial bracket and thus to be able to afford solutions that can ease their work but charge a bomb would certainly be met with a No. Commercials cost while designing for the rural offerings should be well-budgeted and presented. Sometimes, phase-wise project scalability can be considered in the case of bigger and more promising projects.
Connectivity
The rural areas are not yet backed by good mobile and internet networks. The sites designed should therefore be highly optimized for better navigation and visibility.
Community
The community system is highly prevalent in Indian rural landscapes and thus community comes to form a strong peer group that can influence buying decisions. To be able to capitalize on this parameter means to do extensive research on the current solutions used before launching your offerings.
Mobile vs Desktop
Mobile as a device has highly penetrated the rural markets and finding easy acceptance over desktops. There seems to be a larger transition from legacy mobile phones to smartphones in the recent past. However, the number of smartphone users is still minimal. In such a scenario creating apps that are mobile-based and not web-based should be an ideal strategy. The mobile platforms are easy to update and can be used to create a faster penetration in the rural markets.
Customer Support
Designs for the rural masses should be backed by a mammoth customer support platform. The rural masses will not be in a position to interact with chatbots and pre-recorded automated IVR messaging. The need to address such masses is a human-to-human contact for faster and more efficient resolution.
Rural Products Market
While designing solutions for introducing the rural product's market to the urban clients would also mean not only setting up the logistics network but a strong payment gateway. The rural vendors should be able to receive online payments and be well connected to accept payment through different avenues including UPI, banks, online, and even cash.
The growth paths
Technology today is the way to capture markets and bring in growth. To be able to adapt is to accept and be in line with the technical requirements. The seeding of the idea is important in the major chunk of the rural population, followed by satisfactory experiences that technology can generate.
The Future of Technology & Design for Rural Markets
While technology has the power to influence a lot of lives, how it is used and projected is a
matter of in-depth discussion. We understood the rural markets at large and their spending
potential along with their limiting parameters. Urbanization In designing such a scenario, creating solutions that
accomplish all the challenges as well as offer a scope to grow is the work of a good UX designer. The usability factors need to take a step ahead and work on the TAPE (trust, attachment, persuasion, and emotion) parameters to be able to create user experiences and capitalize. The major chunk of India is rural and to tap such a huge market is to bring a fundamental change that will bring a shift in the paradigm. Urbanization In design To be able to create such a change is to introduce designs that are relatable, purposeful, and living to the client & expectations. The clear distinction between audience persona and markets should be the primary demarcation factor that can be achieved through thorough research and understanding of the audience behaviors and expectations.
