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Netflix on How Small Features go a Long Way

Netflix does something admirable with its listing thumbnails. it toggles the image thumbnails of many of its movie and series listings, and also the hover preview clips, from one of 2-3 different ones. While it might make finding a specific movie or series just by scanning thumbnails a bit tedious for some, in general I…

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The Invisible Emotional Tug-of-war between Indian Parents with Kids abroad

Once I started noticing contrasting oddities in our human nature and behaviour a few years ago, a bulk of them ended up in the book ‘Main Batata Hoon’. The thing is though, once you start noticing them in your own life and in your network and surroundings, it is impossible to switch off. One instance…

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My Second Book – Main Batata Hoon

My recently published book, ‘Main Batata Hoon’, is now available in paperback and Kindle formats on most if not all regional Amazon sites around the world. An aunt was so amused with the title, she said she couldn’t wait to read the stories themselves. I clarified that I had used all the humour in the…

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Product Design should factor Human Forgetfulness

Product design should factor for human forgetfulness where possible. This is a picture of the detergent tray from a leading brand, top-loading washing machine. The hole in the tray is where detergent, mixed with water, drips into the drum during a wash cycle. However, when the tray is opened to fill detergent, you notice it…

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An Indian Survivorship Bias Example

Many of you must have seen that drawing of a World War II plane with red dots on it. It explains Survivorship bias, a bias that statistician Abraham Wald figured out. Pic: source Simply put, survivor bias is our tendency to view a situation or pattern as a comprehensive representative sample, often without considering what…

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How About a Mass Behavioural Improvement before India’s 100th Independence Day

  The beautiful tri-colour waving at Connaught Place, Central Park, Delhi. It’s 75 years since India got Independence! A proud milestone for all of us Indians. Also one to reflect on and carefully choose the path forward. I happened to read a 75th Independence Day post on Instagram a short while ago, that took a…

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A Forward: What is Butt Dust?

Image: link I had shared this forward on social media a few years ago, and it popped back up today. Apart from the innocence, simplicity and being purely hilarious, it is a nice example of the recognition stage of ’empathy’, a term we behaviour and design thinking folk throw around a lot. Situations we accept…

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Behavioural Law

The field of economics is steadily realizing the importance of behavioural economics as a more accurate model for policy and economic modeling. It is time the legal education ecosystem factored behaviour into their courses too.