Note: This is an opinionated piece exploring the current state of design innovation in India. It is mostly based on my personal experiences, conversations with the design community and research across available resources. I’ve tried to back up my observations with data where possible, but this remains fundamentally a reflection on what I see happening in our ecosystem.
In the previous article (part 1), we talked about why India, despite its booming tech sector and massive digital economy, has not been recognised for digital design innovation. We looked at gaps in design education, the tendency to treat design as surface-level decoration in companies and the pressures on startups to prioritise growth over user experience. But, I also found hopeful signs of context-driven innovation, growing investment in design leadership and a new generation of founders who care about user experience. The question now is: what allowed mediocre design to persist for so long, and what’s finally shifting the landscape? Let’s explore!
Market Demand and User Maturity
The market scenario and user expectations in India have also played a role in shaping or we can even say constraining, digital product design. India’s user base is different from that of the U.S. or Western Europe in terms of digital maturity, spending power and preferences. This has a direct impact on what companies prioritise in design.
Based on patterns, historically Indian consumers have been highly value-conscious and price-sensitive. For the longest time, a large segment of users favoured products that were cheap or free, even if it meant enduring ads or a sub-par experience. This has given rise to apps overloaded with advertising, discounts and cross-promotions. A design choice driven by the need to monetise while keeping base usage free.
Over the last decade, users tolerated busy interfaces with banners and upsells because the app provided a free experience, cashbacks and a suite of services. Many Indian users prefer an app that offers Rs 10 cashback (even if it’s cluttered), rather than a sleek app with no rewards. Market demand often prioritised “more features, more deals” over refined design. In contrast, an average American user might prefer a clean, focused app and is more willing to pay for services or subscriptions to avoid advertisement annoyance. This difference in user maturity and willingness to pay led Indian companies to pack their apps with as many functions as possible to win users, sometimes at the expense of usability.
On top of this, for millions of new Indian internet users, especially the ones coming online via smartphones in the last 5–7 years. For them, any digital service was a novel experience and a huge convenience. Their benchmark for comparison was low, which meant tolerance for clunky interfaces was relatively high. Think about the case, you are booking your first train ticket online ever, you might be so happy that you didn’t have to stand in line. A poorly designed railway website will feel like a blessing. Companies rarely faced strong pushback for poor user experience, unlike in markets where digital consumers are more critical. In India, widespread low expectations meant that mediocre design often went unchallenged. This is evident in how common “dark patterns” tricks or manipulative interface choices have become in many Indian apps.
You won’t believe this, but a recent study from the Advertising Standards Council of India just confirmed what many of us have suspected: dark patterns are everywhere in Indian apps. We’re talking pop-ups deliberately placed to mislead, hidden unsubscribe buttons and auto-selected fees. Out of the top 53 apps they looked at, 52 had at least one sneaky, manipulative UI trick baked in. Yep, that’s a jaw-dropping 98%. So, chances are, if you’ve ever felt a little tricked or nudged into doing something while using an app, you probably were!
In more mature markets, users are quicker to call out and abandon services that pull such tricks. But in India, companies have gotten away with it, implying that consumer awareness and activism around UX is just beginning to catch up.
Another challenge is the vast diversity of India’s user base. On one side, there are tech-savvy urban users who are comfortable with smartphones and digital services. The other, rural users who may be totally new to both technology and literacy. Trying to design a single product that works well for everyone often results in user experiences that are either complicated or fall short for some groups. For example, an e-commerce app catering to pan-India audiences might include both a slick English interface for city users and a “Lite” mode or Hindi translation for small-town users, plus lots of explanatory tooltips for new users. The result can be a bloated interface as the app tries to be everything to everyone. Compare this to, say, Japan or Germany, where the majority of users are comfortable with advanced features and there’s more homogeneity in expectations. Apps there can afford to be more focused on design. In India, companies sometimes favour overloading the UI, fearing that a simpler app might be seen as lacking features or value. User feedback loops have historically been weak as well and many Indian users wouldn’t formally complain about UX issues. They would just adjust or give up, so designers lacked feedback to drive improvements.
Economic limitations also drive certain design decisions. Low-income users often share devices or have limited connectivity. This has pushed Indian apps toward features like offline functionality, SMS-based verification, small APK sizes and support for very old Android versions. All necessary innovations, but also constraints that Western designers usually don’t have to worry about. Ensuring an app works on a $50 Android phone in a patchy 3G network means designers must sacrifice some rich-media fanciness for reliability. These choices, while absolutely the right trade-off for the market, can make Indian apps appear less slick compared to an iOS app built for a market of iPhone users on high-speed Wi-Fi.
However, the market is maturing fast. With over 700 million internet users now, Indian consumers in 2025 are more aware of good vs bad design. There’s a growing cohort of users, especially younger, urban Indians who use global products (Instagram, Netflix, iPhones, etc.) and now expect similar polish in homegrown apps. Their voices are getting louder in demanding simpler and better interfaces.
Comparatively, markets like the U.S. or Europe benefit from a more demanding user base that forces companies to compete on design. An American bank or airline app, for example, knows that if its UX is terrible, customers will quickly switch to a competitor or flood app stores with 1-star reviews. This competitive pressure is only starting to be felt in India as sectors get saturated.
China, after initially emulating Western apps, rapidly iterated to out-design them in many respects. Apps like WeChat and Alipay have set global benchmarks in integrating services (super-app concept) seamlessly and Chinese users now expect world-class convenience and design from local apps. India is catching up to this level of user expectation, but it was delayed by a decade due to later internet adoption and lower incomes. As Indian users gain experience and choice, market forces will increasingly punish bad design and reward good design. This is a healthy development: it means Indian companies can no longer rely solely on captive market advantages or price. They will need to deliver user delight too, which will push more innovation in design.
Talent Pipeline and Brain Drain
Innovation depends on people, and here’s the paradox: India produces a vast number of engineers and tech professionals, but many of its most creative minds in design and innovation end up working elsewhere. Some move abroad, while others join foreign companies. As a result, the flow of talent into design and research in India faces both quantity and quality gaps when compared to global leaders. (I have been complacent in this, but in the coming months. I’ll share what brought me back, mostly it’s the same reason I’m writing these essays).
If we look at the numbers, the difference becomes even clearer. India invests much less per capita in advanced technical education and research training. The World Bank estimates there are about 259 R&D researchers per million people in India. For context, China has around 890–1200, the United States nearly 4,825, Germany about 5,787, and Japan more than 5,660 per million. This includes scientists, engineers, and designers who shape new ideas and products.
Brain drain has long been a story for India. Top students often pursue master’s or PhD programs in the U.S. or Europe since local postgraduate seats are few and even the process of getting into one can be questioned in ways, hence many end up building careers overseas. We see this in the tech sector broadly, look at how many Silicon Valley firms have Indian-origin engineers and leaders. It’s estimated that “India alone accounts for more than a quarter of the global STEM workforce”, but a significant portion of those scientists and engineers work outside India. As Outlook Business noted, “across research labs, tech start-ups and economic hubs, the best Indian minds are designing the future, but not for India.” This summarises the brain drain: India’s talent often finds its fullest expression overseas, contributing to innovations in the US, Europe and even the Middle East’s tech scenes. For example, many designers go on to work at companies like Meta, Google, Microsoft, Adobe or at design consultancies abroad because those environments offer better pay, cutting-edge projects and greater respect for design roles.
A clear consequence of this is a design talent vacuum at home. Companies in India sometimes struggle to hire experienced designers, product managers and experts. Those with top skills have either relocated or are working for multinational companies (which, even if based in India, often build products for global markets). The indigenous tech companies then have to either train fresh graduates themselves or make do with fewer designers per team.
A recent article on India’s UX sector highlights a persistent challenge: the shortage of well-trained designers. While design schools are emerging across the country, their graduates are still too few to satisfy the needs of a rapidly growing industry. The demand for experienced designers is so intense that global companies operating in India often recruit aggressively, drawing talent away from independent studios and startups. This makes it increasingly difficult for local teams to hold on to their senior designers, deepening the talent gap.
Perceptions and incentives shape the flow of talent in quieter ways. Indian designers have a mixed reputation: they are seen as hard-working and technically strong, but quite often lacking the kind of portfolio that comes from shipping world-leading products because those opportunities were scarce locally. As a result, many ambitious designers look to join companies with a strong reputation for design, which usually means moving abroad or working for foreign employers. The domestic industry has until recently offered few iconic design-led brands where a designer might dream of working (unlike in the US, where a young designer might aspire to join Apple or Google). This is slowly changing as firms like CRED, Swiggy etc. build reputations for good design internally, but it will take time for an ecosystem of multiple design-driven product companies to form and provide appealing careers.
Looking at countries that successfully foster innovation, they usually find ways to retain and bring back skilled people. In the 1990s and 2000s China also saw many of its students and researchers go abroad, but in the past decade, they have aggressively incentivised people to return through programs like “Thousand Talents.” As a result, since 2015 China has seen tens of thousands of experts trained in the West migrate back, fuelling its rise in AI, biotech and design. These people often bring global experience to domestic companies, raising the innovation bar. India, on the other hand, has no such comparable national program to lure back design/tech talent in large numbers. There are anecdotal cases of Indians returning, but not a mass reverse brain drain. Now, we see new destinations like Dubai or Taiwan actively attract Indian professionals with visas and benefits. The competition for Indian talent now stretches across borders, and it’s up to our research and industry ecosystem to rise to the challenge. Raghuram Rajan, former RBI Governor, put it plainly: India doesn’t have a single university among the world’s top 100, even as it tries to match China. Building stronger engineering colleges, research labs, and institutions is essential if we want to keep our brightest minds at home.
Let’s be clear, talent drain is not permanent, though. Indian designers working abroad often contribute back in indirect ways, via open-source projects, mentorship, or even by eventually establishing design teams in India for their global employers. The Outlook Business article optimistically noted that many who migrate “also over time nurture and mentor our young brains” from afar. The diaspora can thus be an asset if India engages it well through conferences, collaborations etc.
In the next part, we’ll look closely at some of the success stories shaping India’s digital design landscape and what’s on the horizon. We’ll also reflect on how our progress compares with global design leaders and what that might mean for the future of design in India.
This is a work in progress. I’m curious, what have I missed? So if there are factors or examples you think belong here, I’d love to hear about them. If you’re a designer or product thinker working in India, your perspective would be especially valuable. Feel free to share your thoughts.