In order to engage HCD with the defence sector successfully, there is a need to understand the sector itself along with the manner in which HCD has developed globally in the past five decades. The defence sector is a complex systemic sector that involves designing technologies for people as well as supporting change in people’s capabilities through training. Thus, at an abstract level, both the human and technology have to be jointly optimized. In addition, the performance of the soldier on the field is shaped by a number of personal, environmental, situational, and extra-situational factors beyond the immediate realm of operations, including the constraints imposed by teams, organizations, and military doctrine. Therefore, when we have to design for the soldier in context, we are taking into account the performance-based challenges of the human as well as the sectoral challenges of Indian defence. This outlook poses a different provocation for design as it has traditionally developed in India. In other words, we are designing for sociotechnical systems that involve a consideration of both people and technologies, as hybrids, enabling the movement beyond the realm of artifacts.


Figure 1: The full breadth of the complex sociotechnical systems of which the end- user is a small part. HCD for Defence often requires an understanding of the overall sociotechnical system to design for the end-user

The study of sociotechnical systems grew as a part of the discipline of Human Factors. Human Factors is an area of study and design that takes into consideration the capabilities and limitations of people while designing for their well-being, productivity, and safety. Human Factors grew forth in a significant manner globally in defence during the interwar years of the World Wars and also WW II. In the 1980s onwards, with the use of computers, there was a prominent growth of Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design as disciplines. Finally, in the past two decades, with the upsurge in systems engineering concepts and the need for design for complex sociotechnical systems, defence forces worldwide have started to invest in understanding how to leverage HCD with systems engineering in the form of Human Systems Integration.

Due to these large-scale disciplinary changes occurring globally, in order to successfully integrate HCD into the Indian defence, there is a need to move beyond the traditional design discipline of industrial design towards a more significant category that starts from the viewpoint of the human.

This human-centric approach starts with the people first and moves towards technology. This viewpoint is thus in contrast with the technologically centered design, which starts with technology first and then searches for a connection with humans. Currently, due to the intensive technology development, the Indian defence sector is dominated by technology-centered designers who are primarily engineers or belong to related subsidiary disciplines. As a result, they have a limited understanding of designing for humans or using tools and techniques that support this approach. Therefore, there is a need for HCD as a discipline to be carefully balanced with technology-centered design in Indian defence.

Figure 2: The landscape of the current origins of HCD for defence

A related challenge is the nature of the end-user itself. Unlike defence most civilian sectors, the defence sector deals with a highly specialized “morale and the will to fight” and an adjusting population that will not complain despite any hardships. The soldier who has a gun will fight; the soldier who does not have a gun will also fight. As a result, from the viewpoint of human centric design, poorly designed and unusable products continue to be accepted and used by the forces. The cost saved on removing HCD considerations in defence products is paid by the end-user’s ingenuity. In short, If we have well-designed products, then the soldier can concentrate on the battle and not compensate for the technology. In this milieu, the key challenge is not only to emphasize HCD as providing value to combat productivity but also to emphasize that HCD will impact the overall defence sector in terms of production, deployment, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning.

HCD, in defence should be characterized as a hypernym that encompasses the sub- disciplines of interaction design, service design, strategic design, and speculative design, amongst others. These different design-oriented disciplines will have to be taken together with the disciplines of Human Factors and Systems Engineering for a coherent and symbiotic growth of design in the defence sector. In the rest of the policy report, HCD will serve as an encompassing category that considers different viewpoints within the design while recognizing that they together address and design for the human.


Figure 3: Need for a balanced understanding of HCD in Defence

In addition, a few notes are required to understand the Indian defence sector in order to properly engage HCD. Since the inception of the establishment of defence technological setups in India, the defence sector in terms of design and production was conceptualized as a government-driven sector (with government-owned R&D labs along with manufacturing). These R&D labs, as well as industries, are primarily staffed with scientists and engineers who have been involved in indigenous development, as well as technology transfer from other countries. In addition, defence acquisition and procurement of technologies and systems from foreign countries have also been a mainstay in the defence sector in India. With the change in the outlook towards greater self-reliance, this sector has opened up for private industries.

The defence sector in India is currently in a rapid state of flux with a change in the roles and activities of the government-owned labs, public sector defence industries, private defence integrators, as well as MSMEs and startups. Within this milieu, the role of HCD has to be charted for an overall growth of design in the entire sector. With this viewpoint, the current policy brief takes a sectoral approach that goes beyond individual industries and organizations to take into account a holistic basis for implanting HCD into the Indian Defence sector. Based on the existing state of Indian defence and global changes in disciplines under the purview of HCD, the next section outlines the challenges and barriers to HCD inclusion.


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