Debayan Dhar

Experience

Associate Professor
Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
2023 – Present
Dr. Debayan Dhar currently serves as an Associate Professor at the Department of Design, IIT Guwahati. In this role, he continues to advance his research in Human-Centered Design, User Experience, and Human–Computer Interaction, while also contributing to academic leadership through curriculum development, interdisciplinary collaborations, and mentoring of graduate and doctoral students. His work spans both foundational theory and applied design research, with a strong emphasis on socially impactful and technology-driven innovation.

Assistant Professor
Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
2017 – 2023
During his tenure as Assistant Professor at IIT Guwahati, Dr. Dhar established himself as a leading voice in the fields of UX Design and Design Thinking. He was instrumental in initiating key research projects, supervising multiple funded initiatives, and publishing widely in peer-reviewed venues. He played a pivotal role in shaping the department’s pedagogical direction and integrating advanced design methods into the curriculum.

Head – Department of User Experience Design (UxD)
MIT Institute of Design, MIT Art, Design and Technology University, Pune
2014 – 2017
Prior to joining IIT Guwahati, Dr. Dhar headed the Department of User Experience Design at MIT Institute of Design. In this leadership role, he led academic strategy, course development, and industry partnerships focused on experiential design education. He played a foundational role in building one of India’s early full-fledged UxD programs, nurturing a generation of UX professionals equipped with both creative and technological fluency.

Education Details

Courses

Dr. Debayan Dhar offers a diverse portfolio of courses that reflect his expertise in human-centered design, interaction systems, and applied design research. His teaching practice combines conceptual clarity with hands-on engagement, preparing students to tackle real-world design challenges with rigor, creativity, and empathy. Courses taught include:

1. Design Methods
   Introduces foundational frameworks and techniques in creative problem-solving, emphasizing design thinking, ideation, and iterative prototyping for innovation.

2. Interaction Design
   Focuses on the design of digital interfaces and user interactions, addressing usability, affordances, feedback, and user flows through both theoretical and applied lenses.

3. Usability Engineering
   Equips students with methods to evaluate and enhance usability, including heuristic evaluation, usability testing, and standards-based assessment of interactive systems.

4. Design Research Methods
   Covers qualitative and quantitative research techniques, including ethnographic studies, interviews, surveys, and mixed-method approaches to inform evidence-based design.

5. System Analysis and Information Design
   Merges systems thinking with information design, teaching students to model, interpret, and visualize complex data-driven systems for clarity and user comprehension.

6. Systems Approach to Design
   A graduate-level course that employs systems theory to address large-scale, interdisciplinary design problems—highlighting interconnectivity, feedback loops, and socio-technical contexts.

7. Design Evaluation Methods
   Offers frameworks for systematically evaluating design solutions across cognitive, emotional, and performance dimensions. Methods include cognitive walkthroughs, task analysis, and field usability studies.

8. Information Visualization Using Storytelling
   Focuses on transforming data into compelling narratives. Students learn to design data-driven visualizations that are not only informative but also contextually meaningful and emotionally resonant.

List of Projects

Journal Publications

1. Misra, S., Dhar, D., & Nandi, S. (2025). Decolonising Design Ethics–An Indian view of the nature of impact of designed artefacts. Design Studies, 98, 101304. [April, 2025], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2025.101304

2. Kumar, R., & Dhar, D. (2024). A think-aloud study: Exploring the effects of digital vs. print comics on reading efficiency and comprehension. Education and Information Technologies, 29(10), 12143-12166. [May, 2024], https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-12281-8

3. Jetti, R., & Dhar, D. (2024). Design-Durability: Insights from Product Case Analyses. Archives of Design Research, 37(5), 131-172. [November, 2024], https://doi.org/10.15187/adr.2024.11.37.5.131

4. Jetti, R., & Dhar, D. (2024). Product Durability: A Systematic Literature Review. Archives of Design Research, 37(5), 93-128. [November, 2024], https://doi.org/10.15187/adr.2024.11.37.5.93

5. Dutta, N., & Dhar, D. (2024). Understanding Medical Technology Innovation in Low-and Middle-Income countries: factors, impact, and a model proposal. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 10(2), 192-222. [November, 2024], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2024.07.002

6. Dutta, N., Dhar, D. (2024). Investigating Usability of Conversational User Interfaces for Integrated System-Physical Interactions: A Medical Device Perspective. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 1–34. [October, 2024], https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2298534

7. Kumar, R., Dhar, D. (2023). Unraveling the potential of immersive virtual environments for behavior mapping in the built environment: A mapping review. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2023, 1–19. [August, 2023], https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/8871834

8. Mallampalli, K.C., Dhar, D., Pal, S. (2023) A User-Centered Ergonomic Design of Cashew Nut Sheller to Mitigate Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Cashew Nut Shelling Workers. Journal of the Institution of Engineers (India) Series C 104, 909–923. [May, 2023], https://doi.org/10.1007/s40032-023-00966-5

9. Chaudhuri, N.B., Dhar, D. (2023) Digitizing creativity evaluation in design education: a systematic literature review. International Journal of Technology and Design Education. [November, 2023], https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-023-09846-6

10. Chaudhuri, N. B., Dhar, D. (2023). Designing deep-network based novelty assessment model in Design education. Applied Soft Computing, 134, 109966. [September, 2023], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2022.109966

11. Mallampalli, K. C., Dhar, D., Pal, S. (2022). Ergonomic design and simulation-based evaluation of a new cashew nut sheller. Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, 39(8), 629–643. [September, 2022], https://doi.org/10.1080/21681015.2022.2059792

12. Chaudhuri, N.B., Dhar, D., Yammiyavar, P.G. A computational model for subjective evaluation of novelty in descriptive aptitude. International Journal of Technology and Design Education 32, 1121–1158 (2022). [October, 2022], https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-020-09638-2

13. Chaudhuri, N. B., Dhar, D., Yammiyavar, P. G. (2022). Automating assessment of design exams: A case study of novelty evaluation. Expert Systems with Applications, 189, 116108. [August, 2022], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.116108

14. Chaudhuri, N.B., Dhar, D., Yammiyavar, P.G. A human-centred deep learning approach facilitating design pedagogues to frame creative questions. Neural Computing & Applications 34, 2841–2868 (2022). [April, 2022], https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-021-06511-8

15. Mallampalli, K. C., Dhar, D., Pal, S. (2021). Work posture and risk factors associated with work-related musculoskeletal disorders among cashew workers in Eastern India. International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 8(1), 44. [September, 2021], https://doi.org/10.1504/ijhfe.2021.11504

16. Chaudhuri, N. B., & Dhar, D. (2020). Self-explanatory interface: embedding visual and aural syntax to improve usability. Procedia Computer Science, 171, 1898-1907. [May, 2020], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2020.04.203

Awards

• BRICS Young Scientist Award (2018)
  Selected as one of India’s representatives at the 3rd BRICS Young Scientist Forum held in Durban, South Africa, in recognition of contributions to interdisciplinary design research.

• Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship (2012–13)
  Awarded the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship to pursue doctoral research at the School of Information, University of Texas at Austin, USA. The fellowship supported advanced work in Human-Centered Design and Information Studies.

• Distinguished Paper Award, ICORD 2019
  Received the Distinguished Paper Award at the International Conference on Research into Design (ICORD 2019), hosted by IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay, for outstanding scholarly contribution to design theory and practice.

Patents

• A System for Evaluating Novelty of Creative Write-Up
  (Indian Patent No. 445752, Granted in 2021)
  Co-invented with Prof. N.B. Chaudhuri and Prof. P.G. Yammiyavar, this invention provides a computational system to assess the novelty in creative writing, supporting creativity assessment in educational and research contexts.

• Apparatus and Method for Screening of Gynecological Conditions of a Subject Body
  (Indian Patent No. 457400, Granted in 2023)
  Developed in collaboration with Neelarnab Dutta, this invention introduces a novel diagnostic apparatus aimed at non-invasive screening of gynecological conditions, integrating human-centered design for improved usability in clinical settings.

• Multi-Therapeutic Wound Healing and Diagnostic Device and Method Thereof
  (Indian Patent No. 562698, Granted in 2021)
  Co-developed with Neelarnab Dutta, this patent presents a multifunctional device that enables simultaneous wound diagnosis and therapy, facilitating effective treatment in resource-constrained healthcare environments.

Current

Completed