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Management Team |
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Apala Lahiri Chavan,
MA, MSc, CUA
Vice President, Asia
Managing Director
HFI India, Pvt. LTD.
Course Instructor
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Job at HFI
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- Full responsibility and authority for the entire operation in Asia.
- Presents, teaches, scopes and manages projects. One of the most dynamic speakers at HFI.
- Develops new methods; especially in contextual innovation and cross-cultural design.
- Does advanced research in rural and emerging markets.
- Works with "Dr. Eric" (our CEO) to craft strategy for offshore usability, Asia, and more...
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Experience
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Apala is without question the most experienced usability professional in India. Before HFI she operated ZindaGUI which was at that time the only specialized usability firm in India. Since joining HFI in 1999 she has been the entrepreneurial leader of the operation in India; growing it to its current incredible strength and capability. She has lead hundreds of projects including expert reviews, structural design, localization, standards, and detailed design.
An award winning designer (International Audi Design Award 1996), she has led teams spanning design, development, testing, and deployment of software products. She has a special interest in the issue of designing for emerging markets and internationalization of products and has presented several papers on the subject.
Apala developed the contextual innovation suite of services in HFI and is now leading HFI's initiative for "contextual innovation" services.
ZindaGUI — Bombay India
September 1993 — January 2000
User Interface Design Consultant
Chrysalis Multimedia - London, England
April 1991 — August 1993
Multimedia Program Designer
Tata Interactive Systems - Bombay, India
March 1990 — March 1991
Manager CBT Development
Tata Unisys — Noida, India
January 1989 — February 1990
Manager Technical Training
Project 21 — Delhi, India
January 1987 — December 1988
Manager Training
Fashion Industry of India
April 1972 — Present
Major Financial Supporter
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Education
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MSc, 1994 London Guildhall University, London, Distinction in User
Interface Design B.A. Delhi University, Mathematical Statistics
MA, 1990 Defense studies., University of Chennai
BA, 1984 University of Delhi
Recipient of the prestigious National Talent Scholarship, 1980
Won the International Audi Design Award, 1996
Member, Association for Computing Machinery
Visiting Faculty, National Institute of Design
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Favorite Projects
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Cell phones in the Indian market (they better handle local trains, and switch their labels to current Hindi)!
Microcredit system, managing small loans to farmers and small businesses, with operators who could not read text, but only numbers (and they did not get the concept of numbered menus either). Keep the hardware costs under $30.
Researching media applications in rural markets. How do we share the power of the Internet with rural families living on 12 cents a day?
Applying Handwriting recognition in small businesses in India.
Unusual applications of ATM machine. (How DO you make one work for a user who can not read?) |
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Areas of Interest and Design Orientation
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Apala is one of the world's leaders in cross cultural design. She is also very interested in building effective offshore usability engineering. Apala is currently working on methods for originating new technology products for emerging markets.
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Hobbies and Special Interests
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Apala is fascinated by Indian history and culture. She loves ethnic outfits. She loves traveling; seeing temples, historical sites, beautiful landscapes, and buying fashionable outfits. She also loves traveling outside of India. She has been all over Europe, the USA, and Asia... finding many additional outfits. Apala loves dance. She is trained in classical Indian dance and is learning international ballroom dance. Of course dance requires many additional dance outfits. |
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Favorite Food
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Not vegetarian. Loves Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian. Not wild about American food. Being Bengali by birth will eat fish 4 times a day happily. Add mustard sauce and she is ecstatic (even for breakfast we think). Eats with silverware, chopsticks, and bare handed (as per Indian tradition). |
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Character
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Apala is first and foremost a great communicator. She is dynamic, clear, and inspiring.
Apala is a great leader. She thinks strategically and acts decisively. She manages with wisdom and compassion. She has wonderful analysis and design skills |
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Publications and Presentations
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Designing for emerging countries – is it new wine in a new bottle?, HCII07, Beijing.
Innovative Design for Social Change, HCII07, Beijing.
Emotion in a ticket, CHI2004, Vienna.
Creating recipes for culture curry – is that the road ahead?, IWIPS 2003, Berlin.
Design considerations for a financial management
system for rural, semiliterate users, CHI 2003, Fort Lauderdale.
User Needs Research, Special Interest
Group at CHI 2002, Minneapolis, Tom Plocher, Honeywell Labs, Minneapolis
and Apala Lahiri Chavan Chavan. Human Factors International, India
Innovative methods for usability evaluation
– the Indian experience, HCI 2001, New Orleans
Cross Cultural User-Interface Design: What?
So What? Now What?, CHI2000 panel, The Hague
Culturally adapted products in the global
market: Dealing with the Naysayers, CHI2000 panel, The Hague
Another software for another society,
HCI99, Munich
A quick and dirty user profiling technique
for cross cultural design, IWIPS 1999, Rochester
One size fits all? Cultural diversity in
user interface design, CHI99 panel, Pittsburgh
Pranks to Keep Staff on their Toes,
HFI Staff Meeting 2003
Alternative MS Windows interface for Indian
users, MS thesis, 1995, London Guildhall University (MS with
Distinction in User Interface Design)
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Personal Album
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Our intrepid Apala is once again backing up our CEO. This time
on a CAMEL.
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Apala contimplates yet another addition to the HFI India art collection...
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Did we mention OUTFITS?
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Researching media applications in rural markets.
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Management Team |
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