CHALLENGE HALF – vedas

vedas is a narrative mobile news platform for a low-literacy audience in India. The goal of vedas is to transform news into a conversation. The interface leverages the behavior and design patterns of popular messaging apps, like WhatsApp, in order to tell stories about current events in an easily understood fashion.

New stories become active narratives. Minimal images and text serve as an quick-to-produce and highly legible information service. Users can gain further details through conversational interactions — essentially, asking simply questions like “why” or “how.”

The design of the platform draws inspiration from the prominence of portrait headshots on newspapers in India. vedas is a multi-headed personality, where each icon speaks to a different portion of the news (politics, sports, finance). The name recalls the four knowledge texts that originated from each face of Brahma.

Within vedas, the interface removes unnecessary choices. Where conventional news platforms might requires multiple successive selections of region, subject and article vedas sticks to the principle of telling one story per day. Users can refresh content either through an online data connection, or through localized Bluetooth transfers at street vendors. The platform itself could be popularized through strategic advertising at these local venders. Rather than a pure digital experience, part of vedas can exist in the real world and fit into daily behaviors.