Interaction Design & User Experience Design

Harry Potter - Marauder Map Application - UI Design

2011-10-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Introduction:
The Marauder Map is a magical map in Harry Potter series. At any given time, the map shows the location of the person in the castle. This quick design proposal captures the idea of porting the Marauder Map into a software application with the following primary and secondary goals.

Primary Goals:
- Ability to locate a person
- Ability to track the location history of the person in a time line

Secondary Goals:
- Ability to see the location history across various calendar dates.
- Ability to load / choose different maps

Description of Idea:
The Marauder Map application uses Search functionality as the main function, along with Time Line scroll. Like a typical map application (Google Maps) this app has the ability to zoom-in, zoom-out, drag-across-navigation. By default the user must Sign-in, to access the app. The sign-in is a security measure, to show only the user's friends' locations and time-line history.

The Screens

(The background pencil sketch art courtesy - Google Image Search)

After the user successfully signs-in, the following user interface is shown.

The UI explained (Showing where Albus Dumbledore was, at the beginning of the Time Line):

The Major Components:

The Search Box
This is a versatile search box. As the user starts typing the name, the map will populate the pics of people (from the user's friends list) and their location in the current time. The below shown example shows the suggestion as the name is being typed, and the location of people found in the search result.

The search result:

After the person is located, it shows the path he/she travelled across the castle.

The Time Drag Slider & Calendar:

The Time Drag slider has a marking to it's right, in terms of icons.
The time ranges from midnight (top moon icon) to Noon (mid sun icon) to midnight (bottom moon icon).
The time drag has two pearl shaped markers on top and bottom.
The bottom marker's position denotes the current time.
There is a slider on top which can be used to drag vertically across the time line. According to the handle's time position, the selected user / searched user's location will be shown in the map.
The Calendar (pop-open component) can be used to select a different date. Ideally the calendar should not allow the user to select a future date, or a day on which the recording / tracking was not performed.The UI shown above does not capture this consideration.

Other components:
The major other component is the SETTINGS UI for this app. This is where, the user can add / manage his friends list. Also changing the default map, the duration of time-tracking-to-be-done etc can be set here.

Human-Computer Interaction:
Mouse is the primary tool for interaction. Clicks and drags form the majority of action-metaphors here.

Possible Development Media:
1. Native Desktop application (Windows / Linux / OSX)
2. Rich Client Application (Flash)\
3. Web-only Application (HTML, CSS, Javascript) Note : Due to technical limitations with HTML and Javascript and browser issues, some UI changes may be required for proper implementation.

Car Pool - User Interface Design - Part 3

2010-10-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

So that was the attempt to capture some idea of how a web application for Car Pool management can be built.

I did not capture so many items in my mocks, especially
- Filters
- Advanced Search Options etc
- How this could be linked / data exchanged with Facebook / MySpace etc.
- UI mocks for Reports (Fuel saved, people travelled, etc etc)
- Settings UI

If time permits, I may work on this again. :-)

And here is a visual mock that gives you some rich visual feeling... Click to enlarge.

Car Pool - User Interface Design - Part 2

2010-10-04T22:11:00.000-07:00

Now that the flow diagram is ready, let's look at the mock ups..

Registration

Registration with Email ID as user name and preferred password.

More details like name, car, location etc

After registering successfully, the welcome screen appears...

Joining a Car Pool - Sketches

Starts with searching for a route...

Displaying search results... with 3 options to interact with. 1. View Route - opens a map. 2. Request to Join - Sends an online request. 3. SMS now - sends an SMS to the car pool owner. If the owner replies back with predefined set of keywords the request will be approved automatically.

Mock for sending an SMS . A Layer pop-up opens when the "SMS Now" link is clicked.

Online Request - A layer pop-up opens to confirm the request

UI - After joining a car pool. Shows the details of car pool, the days, list of people , option to send message etc

UI - Shows the list view of all "My Commute" entries

Creating a Carpool - MyDrive

End of Part 2

Continue reading :
Car Pool - User Interface Design - Part 3
Car Pool - User Interface Design - Part 1

Car Pool - User Interface Design - Part 1

2010-10-04T21:34:00.000-07:00

Was taking rest at home and then I came across the news that bus traffic was hit due to some strike by the drivers. Then it flashed - the Car Pool. How about designing a website that enables car pooling along with social networking features?

So picked up a notebook and prepared some sketches for an application that attempts to answer the questions like
- Joining a carpool instantly (Via SMS)
- Creating a carpool and inviting people

I could think about extending the basic scope of the application by porting a version to Facebook, MySpace etc and making collaboration more fun and easy. For the initial sketch, I preferred to go with a standalone web app, that could do both features mentioned above.

So here are the flow - diagrams

User Registration

Creating a Car Pool - My Drive

Joining a Car Pool - My Commutes

End of Part 1

Continue reading :
Car Pool - User Interface Design - Part 3
Car Pool - User Interface Design - Part 2

Is burrp.com going too heavy? Time for acquisition?

2010-01-28T04:54:00.000-08:00

Ever since I noticed burrp.com launched, I was following it curiously. But recently I can see so many changes. Burrp.com has become overloaded and slowly deviating from their main focus. What started as a Restaurant and Spa review has now become a central place for Entertainment that includes selling tickets, shopping yellow pages and more.

Lets say, they launched the site and people are "wow"... and soon they offered widgets to enable other site owners to feature burrp.com contents, which was really great. But then, the focus slowly changes and new tabs gets added into the system. Shopping is one category which I do not think has any sensible meaning with the theme "burrp". Looks like, Burrp.com wants to capture all categories or just that they are listening to every feature request they receive from the users making the site looking "TOO MUCH".

Why does burrp.com going heavy?

For Sale - Looking for possible acquisition by some big names
Poor Focus leading to loss of unique identity (yet another site that rides on 2.0 wave)
Trying to please all their user base

Right now I do not find any major difference between the crap sulekha.com / justdial.com and burrp.com. Just that burrp.com has a clean UI and has some social networking elements.

Usability in Automobile - a thought

2010-01-19T22:26:00.000-08:00

Car - Mobile Phone Holders
Mobile Phones are part of everyday life now. Many times, I've seen drivers (including myself) struggle to take the phone out of pant pockets, shirt pockets while driving. Like ash-trays and lighter-sockets became part of standard equipments, why not a universal mobile phone holder can be standardized in all dashboards.

USB Flash Drive Booting & Installing Windows XP in your Netbook, Laptop and Desktop

2009-11-20T00:22:00.000-08:00

It took a couple of hours to figure out there is a simple and new way to boot and install OS using USB flash drives in Netbooks, Laptops and even our desktops.

Note : Hardware that are older or that doesnt support Booting from USB ports cannot be used. So make sure your hardware's BIOS has support for booting through USB Floppy, USB Disk options. Consult your hardware's manual to find out.

Items needed:
1. USB Drive (more than 1 GB)
2. Your Windows XP installation Disk
3. WinToFlash - Free utility to make a USB drive bootable (NT, XP, Vista and Windows 7). Also it copies the OS installation files
4. Obviously a prep hardware - a working desktop or laptop with CD Drive.

How to make a bootable USB Flash drive?
Earlier, creating a bootable USB flash drive involved a tedious process of downloading a HP flash drive format utility and working with BartPE utility. But now, WinToFlash has been launced. The 0.5 beta version is really good and conveniently stable, such that it works as a final release version. WinToFlash saves the cumbersome process of formatting USB drives and copying disks with its own Wizard.

Phase 1 - Preparing USB Flash drive with OS install files
1. Download WinToFlash and run it
2. Proceed ahead with the default wizard option. It will automatically detect the USB drive and confirms with you to format it. Once permitted, it will format the USB drive.
3. It will ask for OS CD or the folder where OS installation files are stored. When the folder / CD Drive is selected, it will create the bootloader in USB drive and copy the OS installation files (In my case, I tried Windows XP). Thats it! Your USB flash drive is ready.
Phase 2 - Booting and Installing OS using the USB flash drive
4. Plug-in the USB flash drive into the target netbook, laptop or desktop's USB port (this is the computer you wish to boot with USB flash drive and install OS)
5. Make sure the computer supports booting through USB and you have changed the BIOS settings such that the boot sequence order is set to USB Floppy or USB disk first.
6. Restart / Switch on the target computer.
7. As per BIOS settings, the BIOS will try to locate the presence of a USB disk, floppy drive. When it finds the boot loader in the USB drive, it will start booting from USB drive. Once booted, an option screen will be displayed.
8. Select "Text GUI setup" option (usually #1 in the list) to install XP or the OS from scratch.
9. Untill the first set of files are copied, the process is very slow because the USB ports in 99% of hardware works in only in USB 1.1 mode. It may take nearly 20-40 minutes to see the welcome screen of Windows XP Graphic installation. From there it goes in rocket-speed and things get installed in less than 12 minutes. :-)
10. Thats it!

Hope this quick and dirty guide gives you a good idea. Booting and installing OS using USB Flash drives comes in handy when you have a failed CD Drive or to replace Linux OS with XP / Vista in Netbooks.

Blog sanity..

2009-11-15T22:48:00.000-08:00

Those days when internal blogs were introduced, it was fun. People shared information, wrote their own articles, various subjects, unique bloggers and a whole new dimension of noon-time-wasting opened out.

Now as more and more people join the company, and many new people think that blog is more of a making-fun of others place. It's so sad, that only a few is continuing to post, while new people just copy-paste for the sake of posting. Also there is a new breed of comment-vultures, who vent out all their alter-ego's posing as "GUEST" in the comments section.

Altogether, the blogs is more of a trash now. Did I mention that I stopped blogging in our company's internal blogs?

The Half-hour guide to jumpstart with Zoho CRM

2009-11-10T05:06:00.001-08:00

Under construction...

Usability Meet 2009 at iNautix, Chennai

2009-11-06T03:20:00.000-08:00

I am attending the Usability Meet at iNautix on November 7, 2009 at Ascendas IT Park in Chennai. Some 13 companies are participating in the meet. 2 years ago, Satyam hosted such a meet, but it didnt catch up well later.

Anyone who likes to attend pls contact Mr. Arun of iNautix. Contact details below.

Arun Christian
Assistant Vice President
Usability and Graphics Team
iNautix Technologies India Private Limited, an affiliate of Pershing LLC, a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
http://www.inautix.co.in
Office: 91-44-22546000 Extension 1390, VOIP: 5064
Fax: 91-44-22540661

- Rajesh

Rebooting the mind at work!

2009-10-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

Stack overflow, overload, system critical... all such alerts come up when a system is overloaded. And sometimes, a re-boot is very much necessary. Not only this applies to the non-life forms like Electronics, it is applicable for humans too.

For the past 20 days, I was very much in a state of "Mental Overload" at work and now slowly re-booting to start up fresh ! Some people take up vacations, they explore new interests, talk to friends etc. But in work, such a thing is not possible for everyone. During the past 20 days, I was down, tired and did only the basic jobs at work. After the 20 days, now I feel a lot better and my mind is fresh, thinking clearer, and feels energized. Unicorn is getting ready!

You don't need a Landmark Forum to re-build yourself... :-D

Maruti Suzuki Cars - Price List in 2D Map

2009-10-15T05:14:00.000-07:00

Thought of preparing a 2D price map for all car models available from Maruti Suzuki India. Maruti aims for the mid-range to premium hatchbacks it seems. Click the image below to open full size.

Prices collected from www.marutisuzuki.com as on 15 October 2009. Accuracy not guarenteed.

One reason why Sulekha sucks sometimes...

2009-09-29T03:00:00.000-07:00

I do use sulekha.com occasionally to sell my old items. Now a days, Sulekha.com has transformed into a aggressive Business directory along with a Classifieds section.

One reason I find that Sulekha.com sucks is because there is no clear welcome page for a visitor. There are 3 possible visitors for sulekha.com

1. One who comes looking for Online Classifieds
2. One who comes looking for Business Directory
3. One who comes from some other linking site knowingly or unknowingly.

The home page or landing page is a clear mess of everything. By throwing all the links in the home page, they have created a tough navigation for a classified seeker and Business seeker. You cannot predict which link will lead to what section!

Had there been a clear classification of services or atleast a search that has options to choose my search between Classifieds or Yellow Pages or Both, life would be much more easier in the home page. Right now, I have to click on the BUY/SELL tab or link in order to access classifieds. Oh, I just found now. There is a link on top,just below the Sulekha.com name. Nice, but not enough.

Long way to go.

- Rajesh

WordPress 2.8.4 - Setting up Unicode (multilingual) support for Tamil, Hindi, Kannada etc

2009-09-18T02:39:00.001-07:00

[Coming up.. ]

Temporarily you can find out my quick and dirty guide for configuring WordPress to support Unicode fonts here.

How to buy a UPS for your home computer?

2009-09-11T05:24:00.000-07:00

UPS is a must have accessory for every computers in India. Sudden power failures and surge in supply are common everywhere. To protect valuable data from getting corrupted, it is a must to buy a good UPS. Before we go into the topic, it is essential to understand the types of UPS.

What are the types of UPS available?
For consumer use, 3 types of UPS - Online, Off-line (stand by) and Line-interactive UPS are available.

Online UPS:
To explain in simple terms, this UPS supplies AC power to your computer which is converted from the power produced by the battery connected to it. The battery is
constantly re-charged by a AC-DC convertor on the other end.

Offline UPS:
When the mains supply is on, the UPS will pass thru the mains supply to the computer. If mains is cut, it will use a DC-AC convertor and produce power from the attached battery.

Line Interactive UPS:
Uses a combination of invertor/convertor circuit. When the mains is on, it recharges the battery and produces power from the battery at the same time.

Which one is best for home computer?
Line interactive is the modern implementation, and is better than the old Off-line UPS. Line Interactive UPS are available from 600va to 2kva max. They are economical and has less circuitry making a compact product. Online UPS are good but they are a overkill of home purposes.

How do I calculate my UPS power requirements?
To calculate check the components individually and sum up.
1. SMPS - 250-300w typical (some true gamer SMPS may consume more than 400w and more)
2. Monitor - 90w (17" CRT), 45w (15" CRT). 11 to 55w (LCD)
3. Modems - 1w to 10w max.

It is safe to assume that a normal home computer may consume close to 400 to 450w power.

How do I find out the right UPS power handling?
Check the UPS power output rating. Usually it is mentioned in VA (voltage ampere). For example 600va, 800va, 750va, 1000va etc. Multiply the power with 0.6 and the result is the true power handling of the UPS. For ex 600va UPS can handle a load of upto 360w (600 x 0.6 = 360)

For a generic computer with 400w load, a 800va (480w) UPS will suffice.

Should I go for internal battery or external battery?
Nowadays, over-the-shelf consumer UPS are available only with internal batteries. Internal batteries provide power from 6 mins to 20 mins max depending upon the battery's condition.

Custom built UPS and a few select models come with external battery options. Go for custom built UPS if you want hours of backup.

What is the average life expectancy of a battery?
Normally all UPS use sealed batteries, which are more of use-and-dispose type. These batteries run for about 12 to 18months in good condition. After than they need to be checked and replaced if necessary.

- Rajesh Sundaram

Eureka Forbes - Pre-sales experience and their attitude!

2009-09-01T00:08:00.001-07:00

Eureka Forbes - India's leading provider of consumer Water purification treatment, Vacuum cleaning solutions and Air purifiers uses the old direct marketing / selling technique. ,For everything - right from demo, purchase and support, you interact with a proper sales guy. Well this is far better than interacting with a show room sales guy right? Yes it is. But sometimes it is awfully pathetic when dealing with Eureka Forbes people.

Let me give you my experience. I was interested in knowing the price of a newly launched Wet & Dry vacuum cleaner. Their website quoted - Rs.9990. Then, I wanted to check if there is any EMI options available for purchasing. Sadly, there was no details about that. Finally I resorted CONTACT EUREKA FORBES through the online form.

After submitting the form asking for EMI options and details, I received a call from their chennai office the next day, informing that a sales guy will meet me for giving a demo. I told the caller that I was not asking for a demo, but for some information about EMI options. She was taken back, and then replied "Sir, our sales people will give you the information you ask for". Knowing that she will not give any information further, I said - "Fine. Then ask you guy to meet me tomorrow".

Next day, promptly around 9.10am the sales guy met me, along with his partner. I told him that I am interested in the Euroclean Wet & Dry vacuum cleaner and wanted to know the complete price and EMI options available. He started by preparing for a demo. Then, I told him DEMO is not needed and I seek only the EMI details for now. He then opened his bag and produced a brochure of the product. I found that the Wet & Dry is not like the industrial cleaners which spray water and then suck it. Here, you need to spray water manually in the floor and this vacuum cleaner will suck it. Nothing really great anyway.

After reading the brochure, the sales rep gave me a scheme that runs for 6 months. Upfront I have to pay Rs.3480 and for the next 6 months I should pay Rs.1200 appx. Eureka Forbes does not offer any 0% loan. So at the end of 6 month, you will end up paying Rs.1000 extra. More or less similar to credit card billing. As a promo offer I am entitled to receive a suite of free products including life-time free AMC. The sales rep started asking if he can proceed with booking right away. I told him that I cannot proceed right away, but I need to consult with my wife before deciding. He tried to push me to book on the spot, so that the offers doesnt expire. I can sense that he is trying to get a deal closed as it was the end of the month, 31 August. Somehow, we both agreed that I will convey my decision by 5pm evening.

So what happened next? Once I told this, the rep took the brochure and put it back into his bag, and he didn't agree to give me the price calculation which he scribbled in his notebook (i wanted to show that to my wife and discuss with her). All I was given in my hand is - his visiting card. Wat an attitude? wow! That bothered me and made me think whether I will get a customer friendly after-sales service from Eureka Forbes? I am not sure. But judging a company by the action of their sales rep is not wise.

Today morning the sales rep gave me a follow-up call and I decided not to buy. I told him that I am not buying and he cut the call immediately. Now Eureka Forbes lost a sales deal, just because of their sales rep's attitude. It appears that Eureka Forbes's sales guys are focused only in achieving the target and doesnt care about Customer satisfaction during pre-sales.

A winning sales rep would have left the brochure in my hand, would have provided me the EMI calculation details and when I said I am not buying the cleaner, he would have asked me if he should contact me after a month or two, just in case if I have changed my mind. This guy needs a lot of training and Eureka Forbes should educate their sales force properly. Or else, they will start losing precious deals.

- Rajesh Sundaram

areapal.com - Hacked

2009-08-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

Looks like it is hacking season. Most of the online social networking sites are being targeted like this. Recently areapal was hacked and my contacts received a lot of spam messages.

It appears that hackers are becoming more and more painful by hacking sites and stealing users data. Beginning this month, Campaignmonitor.com was hacked and many users received spam messages. Though campaign monitor was able to fix the security breach, the damage done was done.

More and more the services get networked, the security issues becomes a problem.

Rediff Shopping needs an Interaction Designer badly...

2009-08-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

It is high-time for rediff to think about hiring a UX / IxD guy. Looks like the recent rediff redesign is aimed at keeping things simple. And that was taken way too seriously. The Rediff shopping is a clear example of how narrow navigation affects the user experience of a site.

A shopping site should offer a quick, go-anywhere type of accessible navigation. The new rediff instead, focuses on narrow navigation. Once you select a category, your stuck into it. You cannot come back to the previous category or main category. Now to come back, one must use the browser back button or click the Rediff shopping logo to reach the home page. The categories are a next PITA thing. Look below. Do you think you can find Womens Earrings easily?

I believe the new Rediff Shopping is one of the best live examples of "how not to design a online shopping site?".

Too bad, they need a couple of Interaction Designers and UX guys!

- Rajesh Sundaram

Redesigning http://rajesh-sundaram.com

2009-07-22T01:23:00.000-07:00

After many years, presumably some 4 years, I am updating my website. It took 3 months for me to finalize a couple of designs to go with. Even this time I am not opting for a Content Publishing System. Just plain PHP and HTML. All updates are done manually. Hopefully in the later update, I will be using a CMS to manage the website.

Currently I am considering Expression Engine and WordPress CMS kits. Will evaluate them first and finally decide if they meet my requirements or should I consider other CMS kits.

Well, the first re-design I tried is http://rajesh-sundaram.com/v10 and then http://rajesh-sundaram.com/v12 and now I have finalized the v12 design.

- Rajesh Sundaram

Characteristics of User Experience Design - PDF

2009-07-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

Interesting to read. Found in one of the IxDA discussion threads...

The topic discusses a more precise and new explanation of User Experience. Read the PDF to understand it much better.

http://mauvyrusset.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/theessentialcharacteristicsofux1.pdf

- Rajesh

Firefox 3.5 - Insanely fast rendering!!

2009-07-01T06:10:00.001-07:00

Just updated Firefox 3.5 and checked the usual website. One big difference noted is the rendering.. insanely FAST! Whewww!! thats cool.

- Rajesh Sundaram

UI Flow for a no-nonsense Online Meeting UI - Part 1

2009-06-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

Online Meeting is a buzzword today. Why? it saves a lot of money and time. And it helps to deliver support instantly. Here is a no-nonsense UI flow which is simple and intuitive to schedule an online meeting quickly between the Presenter and the Participant.

To explain in layman's terms imagine this scenario. John is a support engineer and works for a software company. Kathy is their customer and one day, she finds some issues with the software. She sends an email explaining the problem and John attends it. John finds it is a simple problem that arise out improper settings in their software. So he decides to instruct Kathy via Online Meeting. John opens the Online Meeting page and selects the "Instant Meeting" option. Instant Meeting is where you schedule a meeting for immediate participation.

1. In that page, John (Conductor) enters Kathy's (Participant) name and Email ID.
2. The system sends an Email to Kathy along with a URL and Key to participate in the meeting.
3. Kathy receives the email, and clicks the URL.
4. The URL opens the Instant Meeting page.
5. A smart Javascript searches for necessary plugins. Every Online Meeting requires a small software to be installed in the client Machine. This software will enable the desktop sharing so that the Participant's (Kathy) desktop is viewed in the Conductor's (John) monitor.
6. If the plugin is found, the browser will automatically start sharing the desktop to John.
7. If not, the page will instruct Kathy to download a small plugin in order to start the Online Meeting. Once the plugin is installed, the meeting will be initiated.

The flow diagram is shown below:

In the next part, we will see how the highlevel mocks of the UI...

- Rajesh Sundaram

Zoho Writer 2.0 - User Interface idea - for Collaboration support

2009-03-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

I was talking to Bharath on the other day, we discussed how simplistic UI's make a big impact for targeted users, and also about software that offers user-focused UIs . IOW - Software that changes or offers different types of UI that are suited for various types of usage. For example, who's usage revolves around collaboration, they may expect immediately accessible tools / links like "List of other users to whom this document is shared to", A status box showing who are viewing this document, who edits this document etc. . For people, who rely mostly on document writing, they expect tools/links like "Export to", "Spell Check", "Indexing", "Email to" etc

Thinking on the same line, I re-designed (actually part re-design, part fine-tuning) the new UI of our Zoho Writer 2.0, which is immensely popular among Zoho Enthusiasts. Here is the first cut I arrived at.

I re-done the tool-bar with new color and rounded corners. My idea is to offer simplistic UI, and maximum UI area to the EDITOR and remove the not-so-used left side document bar. IMO, Opening a file is a less-used action. So, I wanted to get rid of the left-side document bar. I then shifted the editor towards left, and added a list of boxes to the right. For the first iteration, I fixed upon "SHARED TO", a list of user names along with status icons to their right, showing whether they can edit or not. And link to add another user etc. I also included a box to Add Task/Event pertaining this document. Finally, it is the TAGS which many users always look for.

The UI shown below is a quick sketch, removing all unwanted tool-bar icons. I wanted to keep the toolbar minimum with only the MOST USED, & HIGHLY NECESSARY tools. Thus a pack of 6 + 2 icons are shown. Next I just copied the MenuTab style categorization as it is. The Create new Document, Open etc are moved under the "Zoho Writer" yellow button.which is actually a drop down that contains "Create New, Open, Exit etc" - much similar to a typical binary software model.

Click to enlarge

The drop-down in the document name tab, can be used to show additional links/tools / shortcuts that pertains to document properties like Header, footer, page size etc.

I still feel there is a lot of room to improve this UI. Being the first iteration, it lacks some fine details and has its own issues too. May be the second iteration should yeild a much better User interface for Zoho Writer 2.0

- Rajesh

Buy Intel Dot PC / Dot Station in India

2009-03-19T04:24:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I was looking for a site / dealer who sells Intel DOT Station in India. Looks like ThinPC is a reseller for intel DOT Station. Here is there website link.

Intel DOT Station, apart from its outdated PIII based hardware, seems to be a right fit for the Internet tasks. It can be used as a complimentary internet browsing computer at home. Even as a dedicated download machine! :-D

Whats more, it is compact and even comes with network support and a standard CD Drive. :-D thats cool.

Oh btw... the Intel DOT Station costs Rs.6000 (or) USD 125 only.

For those who are interested in SPECS:
Processor : Intel PIII (appx 900 mhz)
RAM : 256
CRT : 14"
Optical Drive : CD
Hard Disk : 10 GB
Keyboard with integrated trackpad.
Speakers, Soundcard, USB and Ethernet built-in

- Rajesh

ISO 20282 - Measuring Usability of Everyday products

2008-09-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

Userfocus.co.uk has published an article about the ISO 20282 - A ISO standards guide to measure usability of everyday products. It is published in 4 parts and David Travis discusses the guides here.

User focus link - http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/ISO20282.html
Guuui.com link - http://www.guuui.com/posting.php?id=2174

- Rajesh Sundaram