Behind the scenes into the creation of Matnsaz
A new essay I’ve authored on the creation of Matnsaz has been published by the Harvard MDE program.
In this essay I cover the motivation behind Matnsaz:
Where technology is used to publish Urdu text, it exists in an almost parallel-reality. Urdu newspapers use specialized desktop publishing software built in the 90s, and which has since not received the advances made in software for other languages. Nearly all Urdu text is published in one font, which in its early years couldn’t be used to type new technical vocabulary. And average users do not go through the many hoops needed to type in Urdu effectively. The technological barriers are so high that the culture is adapting faster than software is iterating. If necessary investments aren’t made to halt this trend, we may relegate an entire population that does not speak English natively to remain outside the benefits of modern technology, not to speak of irreversible loss of cultural heritage.
While human-centered design is considered fundamental to modern technology, on close examination it becomes clear that an empathetic design lens has never been applied to many parts of the world:
Software built in the West understands the needs of Western users well. Unfortunately as it is spread to other parts of the world, the whole process of understanding the needs of non-Western users is not conducted. Instead, already built technology is retro-fitted with translated language or simple transformations. Inevitably, this lack of focus on non-Western users means that the nuances of their traditions are not accurately represented in published text.
A few examples can illustrate these issues. Existing standards for fonts cannot accommodate the rules and nuances of calligraphy in the Arabic script, which date back 1000 years. Pakistani audiences are particular about the exact calligraphic form that Urdu text is published in, and as a result Pakistani newspapers hand wrote their newspapers until the late 80s, rather than using subpar fonts and typeset them. The most commonly used Urdu keyboard layout in Pakistan phonetically maps Urdu letters to the English keyboard. In both cases, the end user was envisioned as someone who would behave like someone already familiar with Western technology, rather than a user with their own social context and needs. Further research revealed that these were hardly the only examples and such compromises could be seen all the way back to the very first developments in printing the Arabic script.
The essay also details how we created new interaction models for typing the Arabic script, and the infrastructure and community we have built to catalyze further innovation in Urdu software.
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