At our most recent BTN event in Munich, Rachel Ilan Simpson, UX Designer at Google, spoke about one of the most important topics in technology and design today: “Designing for the next billion users”. The talk was focused on the needs of users in emerging markets such as India and Indonesia, who have never used a desktop computer and only know the online world through a phone connected to a 2G network.
Main takeaways:
Rachael and her team at Google conducted extensive research over the past few years and identified the following main challenges when designing for emerging markets:
Connectivity: Internet connections are slow and not reliable
Costs: Being online is incredibly expensive and flat rates are very rare
Complexity: Users have never used a desktop device
In order to overcome those challenges, they have established 3 main principles: The device and design have to be offline friendly, fast and intuitive.
As part of the talk, Rachel shared some examples of what Google has started doing in order to reach and cater for those markets, including the introduction of new download features as well as progressive web apps.
In case you missed the event, you can listen to a radio interview with Rachel here. At the time of the recording, Rachel was at the beginning of her work on the “Next Billion Users” and gave first insights into her research and its findings. Thanks to Rachel and all attendees for your valued contribution and we look forward to our next event in Munich. Keep an eye on www.thebtn.tv for our next event announcement.
