The Retail Boom in India is giving push to many different businesses, one of them being the Design Solutions Firms like Co-Design, Idiom among others. Yesterday, Economic Times carried an article on how these firms are engaged in designing Retail Spaces using emerging techniques like Interaction design.

The Rivet in Bangalore's Leela Palace Hotel is not your usual Levi's brand store. Step in and you are sure to be taken in by the 34-feet-long Heritage Wall - a visual and virtual walk through a hundred years of Levi's heritage and corresponding world history. With touch-sensor links depicting individual decades from the 1850s to the 2000s, the installation is a virtual scrapbook on Levi's past.
The Rivet is the iconic denim jeans maker's first heritage store in South-east Asia. And the man who created this installation is Rajesh Dahiya, founder of Co-Design.
Dahiya specialises in interaction design, an emerging tool that's catching the fancy of retailers these days. Simply put, it's about exploring new ways of enhancing the experience of interacting with other individuals, with products and with the environment by blending traditional design techniques, an understanding of human behaviour and modern technology.
"The user-centric nature of interaction design makes this new field important for retail development. An interaction designer has a strong understanding of the customer, the client's needs and the latest technology," says Dahiya.
Among the scores of retail designers who are sprouting across the country, Dahiya's work symbolises the change that's sweeping the Indian retail landscape. Retail design has come to mean more than wall graphics, in-store displays and signages. With availability of technology tools, designers are now helping marketers and retailers create unique experiences that connect with customers on a deeper, emotional level. Ergo, plenty of small design firms are gearing up to deal with this growing opportunity.