COMPREHENSION

The designer analyses all the information gathered and methodically lists out his observations and perceptions of the issues involved and the causes behind. We got five significant insights after observing/interviewing several people of different age groups:

• Reading with the fan on: While interviewing my(Navoday) maternal grandfather, he mentioned about this issue, that when a fan or cooler is switched on, it is challenging for him to handle the newspaper. He then has to either switch off the fan/cooler or has to move to another place.

• Handling with one hand: This is something I(Navoday) observed watching my father reading the newspaper with his morning coffee. Every time he was taking a sip of his coffee, he had to keep the newspaper aside or hold it with one hand, which results in either him jumping to some other page or getting lost in some paragraph. And if he waits for a complete reading of the newspaper, his coffee turns into cold coffee. He repeated this cycle for around 15 20 times. So, upon asking, he told me if something could to done to resolve this issue.

• Reading while travelling: It is generally seen that while travelling in Delhi metro or any public transport, people(especially older citizens) have the habit of reading newspaper. Due to the crowd, there is a lack of space, but the newspapers are generally of a standard size which is quite large and hence complicated to handle at such congested places.

• Reading on the table/chair: This was another issue with newspaper reading. If someone wants to read it while placing it on the table, one cannot read the upper half of the newspaper due to its large size. One has to hold it always at a certain angle to read the upper half, but holding it with hands just destroys the purpose of reading on a table.

• Reading on a bed: My(Ajitanshu) father is in his late 50s and he mentioned about this issue. He has a habit of reading on bed. While reading on a bed, due to the large size of a newspaper, he has to bend forward to read the upper half, which results in back pain, neck pain and also puts a lot of strain to eyes which is something he cannot afford.

These design insights thus arrived form the basis for our design intervention and the product thus needs to resolve all these problems effectively.