That is because drivers over the years have grown comfy with it, and today’s designers have to supply what the users require. So, electronic systems make way to provide a circuit and a buzzer just to give drivers that click-click alert.

It’s about what users want. Technologies are mere enablers. Remember, the most popular video game today is the over two-decade-old Tetris, not some 3D offering. Intelligent systems are already part of our lives. There are, for instance, lights that switch on just as one enters the room and switch off as one goes out. Today’s modern technology makes it possible to have a fridge to sense if you are stocked with, say, vegetables or not. If you are not, it can send an SMS to your vegetable vendor. Then there are devices that can control heating in refineries. There are more advanced systems coming up for day-to-day use. Nissan is developing an intelligent transportation system to reduce congestion and prevent accidents. With communication between vehicles and traffic lights coordinated, the system can warn drivers if they are speeding, for instance, in a school zone or find them the quickest possible way out.

Closer home, HCL is working on a collision warning system. Gauging the flow of traffic, the system can note if the distance between your vehicle and the one in front is reducing. It can, then, warn the driver about an impending collision. What next? "Now, people want to get rid of computing," says Dinesh Katre, who heads the National Multimedia Resource Centre of C-DAC, Pune, as group coordinator. That would be possible by making tools usable by anyone who wants to develop an application. This is a reality in Web design. "Increasingly, others will also have such tools," says Katre. Such work needs to be centered around the user. You have to "conceive such interfaces and find out how much a user can handle," says Katre.

With companies under pressure to develop products faster and cheaper, design is becoming

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template-driven. "The tools are available and the level of automation has increased," says M Venkatesan, Associate VP, Embedded Systems at HCL Technologies. However, segments such as medical products are still cagey about automation, he says. The market demand for ‘quicker’ and ‘cheaper’ products is changing the design process itself. The upcoming design trend is simplicity. Gone are the days when everything was started from scratch. Increasingly, "the accent is on leveraging several products from same platforms. This reduces complexity," says Nagesh Basavanahalli, Executive Director of Ashok Leyland.

"Sharing the same components (fuel umps, mirrors, etc) across vehicle brands, and ensuring that the ‘preferred parts’ are re-used gives companies an advantage of leveraging volumes, leading to savings, and better quality. The ‘reuse’ of preferred parts leads to less of re-inventing the wheel and hence greater speed to market," says Basavanahalli.