the next billion

I was recently listening to 99% invisible by Roman Mars, and the episode is titled ‘The Next Billion Users'. This piece is my reflection on how the podcast makes sense when we think of digital culture transcending boundaries.

Every week, millions of people come online. Irrespective of geography or language they speak or their level of digital literacy.

The original typewriter was flawed, which led to the invention of the qwerty keyboard. It stuck around on smartphones as well. However, there was no overwhelming pressure to push the keyboard design on the mobile phones in a new direction. Especially redesigning keyboards for Indian languages is a design challenge because of the complexity. 

This implies that the majority of the digital growth will happen around the world - outside of the US. For the same, people around the world need to be understood. New technologies are built on carcasses of older technologies, and if the next billion users have no experience with the older technology, the leap to a new device needs to be very intuitive for the user. 

There is anxiety amongst users (who have never been exposed to digital devices) about using new technology. There has been an example of someone from Mexico City. She did not understand ‘Unlocking a phone' - and she mentioned it does not seem to have a key. She is aware that people swipe on phones, so she does the same. It looks great - but doesn’t mean anything for her, and she loses her confidence in the process. 

Something as simple as pinching and zooming is intuitive for a user adept with the digital space. But this feature is limited and doesn’t transcend cultural boundaries. Making things digitised for all problems maybe is not the correct answer.

But over and over again, people all over the globe have shown that the way they want to make their lives better is through pleasure and leisure. Internet is boring for people who do not understand it, and information deficit is not why people live in poverty. 

A key highlight of the podcast was that when we design things for the most extreme use cases, we can make things better for everyone. The relationship of how people behave with data in a rural town in India is very different, which led to Google launching a product called files - to help people manage free space. A product built for India had greater uptake in the US and Brazil. The digital culture is not the same for everyone. Designing a standard digital world should not be the norm.