Sheetal Elangovan

Hi, Im Sheetal. I come for the land where snake charmers and Outsourcing companies peacefully co-exist. I previously worked with an Indian company, Photon Infotech as a Business Analyst. During my stint with the Internet Consulting Company, I was at the forefront of interacting with US clients, some looking to move to new channels of promotion and some looking to make it big with their spark of genius.

Cognitive Blindness, Conceptual Design, Contributor, Cultural Bias, Cultural Differences, Ethnographic & User Data, Group Decision Errors, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Product Design Strategy, Users

Lessons to be Learned from the GAP Logo Debacle

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Geoghegan, T. (2010). “Lessons to be learnt from the Gap logo debacle.” BBC News Magazine. Retrieved on October 12, 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11517129 A new logo can brighten up a company’s image or enrage loyal customers. In the case of GAP, the latter was obvious. The release of the new logo led to a huge online backlash from customers on FB and twitter conveying how unhappy they were with the logo. Within a week of release, GAP chose to revert back to the original logo after a slew of criticism. GAP LOGO The importance of being an iconic brand has been severely undervalued. The association of the image and brand is overlaid in the minds of people for the last 20 years. Changing the visual must have pre empted GAP to have tested the logo with focus groups and understand the reactions of the audience.  The changed their visual imagery without upsetting customers. The logos below have retained their sense of familiarity which is refreshing and yet without really giving customers the need to process an all together new image to associate with the brand. Companies uniformly moved from serif font to a more elegant Helvetica. MSNBC LOGO GE LOGO Product Positioning:…

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Conceptual Design, Contributor, Cultural Bias, Interaction Design, Product Design Strategy

How to brand a disease — and sell a cure

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Elliot, C. (2010). “How to brand a disease—and sell a cure .” CNN. Retrieved on 11 October, 2010: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/11/elliott.branding.disease/index.html?hpt=C2 Carl Elliott in his article for CNN cites examples of how pharmaceutical companies sell a cure by disease branding. Drug companies today are embracing the ideology that Edward Bernays’, the father of PR proposed—The public relations business was less about selling things than about creating the conditions for things to sell themselves. Why disease branding works? As Carl Elliott states in his article, disease branding is particularly effective in two types of situations. Let us consider the first situation, a shameful condition that can be de-stigmatized through disease branding. If a condition, however shameful, is prevalent enough in the common population then a ready market exists for the cure. It is the rare shameful condition for which a market typically does not exist where disease branding will help ‘create’ a market. Individuals with this rare condition would need to overcome the stigma attached with such conditions and discuss them with their health care providers. By branding a disease and de-stigmatizing the condition, the pharmaceutical companies act as catalysts and enablers to the process of individuals coming forward and discussing the condition…

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Background Knowledge, Conceptual Design, Contributor, Cultural Bias, Cultural Differences, Flow, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Product Design Strategy

Using Computers to Teach Children Without Teachers

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Johnathan, F . (2010). “Using computers to teach children with no teachers” BBC News. Retrieved on 21 July, 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10663353?print=true Summary of the article: The article summarizes studies conducted by Prof Mitra on the learning curve of children using computers for education with teachers. Results of the study prove that the teaching methods employed have been quite successful based on the fact that: Children who are not exposed to computers are highly motivated to teach themselves skills they want to learn Children have had a steep learning curve in picking up complex tasks with minimum supervision Learning by discussion and in groups ensures that content is retained and not skimmed through by children. Motivation levels of students are kept high with a grandmother figure in the picture. The best results of the study have been combined to create Self Learning Environments where children in groups of 4 share a computer to assimilate information. Virtually present volunteer grandmothers keep the student motivated and support the learning process. On Environment: The need for self-organized learning essentially arises in developing nations and the ones who do not have access to education. Children living in such conditions have a natural survival instinct, which keeps…

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