KR Market

Market Secrets. All of us go to markets and supermarkets to buy products and services. But if you are in a highly competitive field of designing products, testing prototypes  and user interface for electronic gadgets in India's IT Capital - Benglur, you go to a traditional market to borrow ideas and learn tricks. 

My friend Vivek Dhage designs and tests proptypes of of new products, user interfaces and usability functions in gadgets like mobile phones that are made in Finland and China. When he pulled me along to the market to study patterns, I tagged along. And suddenly, I'm looking at the marketplace in a new light. 

It wasn't just the patterns in the marketplace that he was studying, it was the pattern around which we humans function. He pointed out methods honed over centuries in the madness known as the  market. Little tricks of the trade to trick our eyes into noticing things on sale and convert that interest into a transaction. Tricks and methods that Vwake and his colleagues will use, improve and use on the next generation of gadget interfaces and designs.   

Here's a simple and effective trick used in the City Market that has a fancy name: Contextual Innovation. He pointed out a big mound of coconuts on sale. In between the coconuts was a black mobile phone attracting eyeballs. You will be surprised how well it works in attracting attention to the mound among the tens of coconut mounds around us. By far, this is the most commonly used trick in the market these days. 

Click here for Vwake's pictures: Patterns

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