My Window to Express Design Thoughts

Who Paid Tributes to Steve Jobs

2011-10-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) touched so many of us through his high-end consumer products. His early demise has created a big void both in technology world and in our hearts. Everybody - including fans and foes - came together and prayed for his soul.

Here is how Apple, Google, and Amazon paid tributes to this visionary -

And, here is how Microsoft's Bing ignored to pay respects -

*These screenshots were taken on October 6, 2011- a day after Steve's death.

Is Apple Going to Become Google of Voice Search

2011-10-05T15:43:00.002-05:00

Like everybody else, I was not disappointed by iPhone 4S announcement. Everybody was expecting Apple to upgrade the phone, which Apple did with: new processor, camera, iClound, and iOS 5; however, it still has the same look and feel. Perhaps, that's why it's called iPhone 4S not iPhone 5.

"Siri" is now trending on Twitter. Though, I did not like the name but the idea of having a "voice controlled" personal assistant is very powerful. Siri does not, just, parse the words in a sentence but also makes sense out of it. This is a huge improvement and - sort of - a dream come true for a lot of us. I am sure that after Apple's announcement others are going to follow its footsteps.

Apple really needed something to exist in business for long term. The most powerful companies, today, are the ones who know the most about us. Sounds creepy, but that's really true. Think of Google and Amazon, both the giants know so much about us. That's why they can tailor their solutions for each of us.

Everybody was questioning Apple after it opened its data center in NC. Now, everything "really" makes sense. After the launch of iCloud, Apple launched Siri yesterday.

Siri will remain a beta product for sometime. It may not be a perfect personal assistant that you dream of, but it's a great beginning in Natural Language Processing space.

Now, here is the catch - Apple's data centers will not only be collecting mountains of data from iCloud but also be storing, managing, and analyzing voice queries using sophisticated natural language processing algorithms. Siri could, potentially, turn Apple into Google in terms of voice search – the next wave in search technology.

It’s a win-win situation for Apple. Apple may use Google search to retrieve results but all the "rich" data queries from Siri will remain with Apple. Google will not be able to use that data in any way.

Is Apple waiting to become Google of voice search? Only time will tell....

Thoughts?

11 Big Google Plus Secrets Revealed

2011-07-18T16:46:00.011-05:00

Although, it is too early to comment on Google Plus's success or failure, it surely has become a talk of the town these days. Google has packed this product with some awesome features to deliver a powerful punch. Learning from its past failures - from products like Buzz, Wave, and Orkut - Google, this time, has meticulously worked for the success of every single feature on Google Plus.

Google Plus is packed with smart features. But, some features help it to stand out from the competition.

Scarcity

Like Apple, Google has its own way to intrigue people for its products. Google creates the desire for its beta products by creating scarcity. If your friend is on Google Plus and you are not, it definitely is a matter of grave concern. Scarcity makes Google Plus a highly desired product - money cannot buy you an account.

Virality

Google products spread virally through personal "invites," of course available in limited numbers per user. An "invitation" coming directly from a close-and-trusted friend to use a product demands more attention and quick action than any other existing form of marketing. The probability of the invitee using the product increases many folds. Through viral distribution Google Plus has amassed over 10 million users in just two weeks.

Adherence to Conventions

Google Plus does not have an uncanny resemblance to Facebook's design and interaction by accident. As a matter of fact, Google has stolen most of Facebook's design for Google Plus. Remember the saying, "good designers copy, great designers steal?" Google is aware of users comfort level and expertise with Facebook user interface; and, by stealing the design from Facebook, Google has ensured that Google Plus's design does not overwhelm the users with a "completely" new interface. Using Google Plus is a cake walk for Facebook users.

A Suite of Products with Single Sign On

Not all of us are technically savvy to efficiently and effectively manage plethora of username and passwords with a zen-like ease. Managing and remembering these growing number of sign-on credentials is a big pain among web users. Google offers a wide array of products, ranging from: Web, Mobile, Media, Geo, Home & Office, Social, Specialized Search, and Innovation. Google has perfected the complex art of single sign on; the user can seamlessly switch between Google products, if he is already signed on.

Our life goes beyond social networking websites. We routinely use email, documents, rss readers, maps, storage, etc. While Google caters to almost all of our online needs, Facebook and Twitter fail terribly on this front.

Google Bar

Often unnoticed, do not go by its size. Google bar, though, is still evolving, it definitely delivers a punch. It is both simple and powerful at the same time. Google bar not only provides access to all Google products/services in a single container but also takes a real time dashboard avatar - by providing notifications on Google Plus. For sure, in future, like Apple's new iOS 5 notifications, Google will start notifying across its entire product suite.

"Circles" Feature

Most of us face the perennial problem of differentiating between personal and professional messages. Some users use Twitter to market themselves and Facebook to communicate with family and friends. Others maintain two different accounts on Facebook and Twitter - one for personal and the other for professional use. Multiple accounts, obviously, are painful to manage and act as deterrents to many.

Though, applications such as Hootsuite provides an option to integrate various social media websites in one place, it, of course, does not allow adding other popular services such as: mail, photos, videos, blogs, etc. Also, most of the users are technically-challenged to use Hootsuite.

Google Plus seems to - gracefully - solve this tough problem by creating "Circles." Circles enables and empowers the user to create and share messages targeted to specific groups from the same message box with great ease.

Unlike Facebook "Groups," creating a new Circle in Google Plus is a piece of cake. Circle has a great visual interface with intuitive drag-n-drop features to quickly create and edit members.

Stream Filter Feature

The ease with which messages from various circles can be filtered in Google Plus is highly commendable. The quick filtering helps the user to quickly find the messages of his interest instead of mining for relevant messages by reading through a long scrollable list.

"Hangouts" feature

Facebook rushed to launch video chat soon after Google Plus launch. Perhaps, Mark Zukerberg's team needed something to compete with "Hangout." The beauty of "Hangout" is its ability to facilitate multi-party chat. This much desired video-chat feature was just not available for free to the masses.

With Hangout, one can create a live video chat session with multiple people without being a nerd - simply by using Hangout from Google Plus. According to Jay Morgan, a User Experience designer: "Group video chat has a lot of potential for getting people together to make a decision or have a conversation. It's better than a call, and it's better than many 1:1 conversations."

Invisible Chat

For many - obvious and vague - reasons, sometimes we just do not want to make ourselves available on chat. However, we may require to chat with just one person without making ourselves online. Facebook Chat does not allow a user to chat with other users in invisible mode, which is a big drawback. Sometimes, you just do not want to get distracted by other users. Google Plus, however, solves this problem by allowing its user to chat in invisible mode.

Disable Reshare

Google Plus allows its users to disable further sharing of their posts. This feature ensures that sensitive and private information remain in close circles. It enables the user to take control of the information that he shares with his circles.

Message Amplification

Google Plus informs the user about the amplification of a post by displaying the number of times a post is re-shared and the people involved. The names who re-shared the post help the user to identify the amplifiers in his circle, helping him to concentrate on these people.

For all the reasons explained above, it is clear that Google Plus has the potential to stick on the social media landscape for a long time.

Please read my previous posts in a series of Google Plus:

Post I - Is India Heading Towards the Biggest Virtual Migration?
Post II - Why Google Plus Will Click in India?

If You Were to Rename Google +1 Feature

2011-07-18T09:36:00.000-05:00

A buzz is going around in social circles about Google +1 feature. It seems that engineers at Google, like always, decided to use mathematics as a tool to quantify social interactions. Although, Facebook's "Like" does quantify the number of likes on a post or a picture, the term "Like" itself has been historically a part of our day-to-day conversations - unlike +1 from Google. The notion of "Like" has been so deep-rooted in our psyche that we automatically associate ourselves without thinking twice about it.

Steve Krug, the author of the book "Don't Make Me Think," advocates design with minimal cognitive strain. Google's +1 on the other hand, makes you think twice about its usage and intended notion.

If I liked a car, I never say, "I +1 this car." +1 is a mathematical concept; and, is so far away from vernacular.

A successful website sticks with the existing users mental model.

If you are given an option to rename Google's +1 feature to make it more "humane," what would it be?

Why Google Plus Will Click in India

2011-07-15T16:36:00.012-05:00

This is Part II in the series on Google Plus: Is India Heading Towards the Biggest Virtual Migration after Part I.

Though the post investigates India's potential adoption of Google Plus, it may be a big hit in other countries too. However, examining cultural and contextual nuances for every country is beyond the scope of this post.

Demographic Make-Up of India

A Big Pool of Technocrats

India has one of the biggest pool of technocrats; with most of them working for global IT firms as software developers and engineers. People in IT are not afraid of trying new technologies; as a matter of fact, they are the "innovators" and "early adopters" of adoption curve.

The young crowd in India loves technology, trusts Google products, and adopts new products real fast. They loved Orkut at one time, therefore, they will be more than willing to try Google Plus.

Age of the Targeted Population

India has one of the biggest population of youngsters and young adults. According to Wikipedia: India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% hovers below the age of 35. Younger population exhibits curiosity, experimental nature, and higher risk taking ability with new things. According to a study on age related difference in risk taking: when compared to their younger peers, older adults are supposed to prefer to make safe as opposed to risky responses.

With such a young population the chances of number of users trying Google Plus increases manyfold - and, therefore the chances of conversion.

No Language Barrier

India speaks and understands English. India is second largest English speaking country with 11.38% eligible speaker population after USA.

Therefore, India can quickly embrace any new service - in English - without waiting for local translations. Google Plus is good - as is for Indians.

Existence of Collectivistic Society

Unlike West, where the society is "Individualistic," Indians are motivated by group needs. In these societies, kinship ties are much stronger and may take precedence over expertise in matters of appointments and promotions.

Indians are more likely than not get influenced and persuaded by trusted recommendations. The more the number of people recommending Google Plus, the more will be the number of users adopting it. Once this process gets into infinite loop, Facebook will be out of the picture.

Huge Overseas Population

Many Indians have migrated abroad. The NRI (Non-Resident Indians) and PIO (Person of Indian Origin) population across the world is estimated at over 30 millions. Most of them are still in active contact with their friends and family back in India; and, many rely of social media websites for real-time news and updates from their near-and-dear ones.

Sometimes members of the same family live in different countries and cities. Talking to all of them at the same is a big technical challenge. Skype allows video chat with one person at a time and so does Facebook. Hangout feature from Google Plus allows such geographically distributed families to video chat at the same time. Certainly, this feature is going to attract the attention of these families.

Migrate Orkut Accounts to Google Plus

Although, as of today, Google has not announced any migration option to Google Plus for its Orkut users. But sooner or later Google will allow Orkut users to port their data to Google Plus - after all, both the products come from Google. This will help Orkut users to carry over all their photographs, contacts, posts, and other details to Google Plus without any data loss.

Considering that India is the second largest user of Orkut in the world, the migration option will certainly work like a charm for Orkut users. Imagine moving your entire history on a click of a button. This will not only help Google to consolidate all its Orkut user base on Google Plus but also increase the number of users dramatically.

For all the reasons mentioned above, I believe that Google Plus will certainly usher in a new dawn of social networking in India.

In my last post in the series on Google Plus, I will be discussing about Google Plus features.

Building Mobile Applications Using Web Technologies

2011-07-14T15:22:00.003-05:00

Most of the IT companies have large development teams that focus primarily on web technologies. These teams are ultra smart and efficient in building web based applications. However, with the advent of mobile, more and more clients are demanding and investing in mobile applications development also.

There are number of mobile platforms choices available to a user. Therefore, most of the times, clients demand for cross platform compatibility. Of course, all the mobile platforms provide developer SDK to build native applications. But with so many platforms, the real challenge, for the IT organizations, is to perfect all of them.

It does not make sense for the large IT organizations to create platform specific teams – the overhead will be huge. And, it does not make sense for the client to approach different vendors to develop applications that run on multiple platforms. It, therefore, makes sense to develop mobile applications leveraging the existing web technology know-how in the organization.

This is a win-win situation for all the parties. IT companies can use their existing pool of developers without getting them trained on specific platforms. Clients can continue working with their existing IT vendors without seeking out for small time mobile application development shops.

The very first thing is to get the client’s buy-in on the choice of application type – native vs hybrid vs web.

Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages:

	Native	Hybrid	Web
Speed/Performance	Almost Instant	Almost Instant to Slow Depends where the content is served from – Local Vs Web	Fast to Slow Depends on Network
Offline Mode	Yes	Yes For local content only	No
Findability	Fast – click an icon	Fast – click an icon	Slow Requires the user to open the browser and type the web address
Hardware API Access	Full Access	Full Access	Restricted to Limited
Sell on App Store	Yes	Yes	No Access could be sold to the user but the process is not as seamless as 1-click download from the app store.

If you plan developing a native application

Appcelerator Titanium Development Platform: Titanium makes cross-platform native application development easy. A free and open source application development platform, Titanium lets you create native mobile, tablet and desktop application experiences using existing web skills like Javascript, HTML, CSS, Python, Ruby, and PHP.

If you plan developing a Hybrid application with a native wrapper for multiple platforms

Web applications do not get full access to the device API. Phonegap bridges this gap by allowing developers to author native applications with web technologies and provide access to device APIs and app store.

Phonegap allows to package Sencha Touch code and resources into a binary app – ready to distribute to Apple, Android, Palm, Symbian, and BlackBerry devices.

If you plan developing a web based application

Sencha Touch: Sencha Touch allows you to develop mobile web apps that look and feel native on iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry touch devices.

jQuery Mobile: jQuery mobile framework takes the "write less, do more" mantra to the next level: Instead of writing unique apps for each mobile device or OS, the jQuery mobile framework will allow you to design a single highly branded and customized web application that will work on all popular smartphone and tablet platforms.

But keep in mind: Web apps do not get full access to the device API.

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Further reading

Here is a great discussion between Phonegap Vs Appcelerator

http://savagelook.com/blog/portfolio/a-deeper-look-at-appcelerator-and-phonegap

http://savagelook.com/blog/portfolio/appcelerator-vs-phonegap-vs-adobe-air

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1482586/comparison-between-corona-phonegap-titanium

Here is a wonderful presentation on Native vs Hybrid vs Web: http://www.slideshare.net/fling/native-v-hybrid-v-web

Six Rules to Designing Mobile Apps: http://www.slideshare.net/fling/6-rules-to-designing-amazing-mobile-apps-media-2011

Is India heading towards the biggest virtual migration? - Part I

2011-07-13T13:42:00.005-05:00

We Love Opportunities

Migration is an intrinsic part of human nature. We have, historically, migrated to various parts of the world for various reasons ranging from opportunities to war. Wikipedia defines human migration as: a physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups.

However, a virtual migration is slightly different - it happens over the web. One just needs to create a username and password on a new website and stop using the current one. Again, innovative & distinguished features of the website and social pressure are the two main factors that fuel virtual migrations - much like the physical migrations.

Why India

This post talks about India for one obvious reason: its population. Today only 8.4% of Indian population has internet access; still, India has around 100 million internet users. With just 50% internet penetration, the usage will shoot to 600 million users. The size of the market in India is huge and the opportunities for online revenues are endless.

A brief History of Social Networking

The world around us changed in 2002 when Friendster was launched - the social world around us had become virtual, for the very first time. Friendster, therefore, could safely be considered as the grandfather of social networking.

Just a year later, Myspace was launched in 2003. Certainly, it was Myspace that truly revolutionized social networking among teenagers and young adults. It soon became a hosting place of millions of gaudy homepages. In 2005, Myspace had over 27 million users and a 400% growth since the last year.

Given Myspace's unprecedented success, who would have thought of its demise as a social media superpower. But, it happened; and it happened a lot sooner than expected. On Sep 26, 2006, Facebook opened its door for the general public - to everyone of age 13 and older.

What Facebook provided to its users was a new, clean, and fresh user interface. Facebook provided a clean white "wall" for status updates. The new Facebook look soon won over the immature, gaudy, garish, and sometimes repulsive - full of intimate pictures - Myspace homepages. Facebook also provided more mechanisms for collaboration over Myspace pages. With smart features such as: Wall, Chat, Photos, Groups, Events, Games, and Applications, in a well designed user interface, Facebook overthrew Myspace from its number one spot in 2008.

For some unknown reasons - perhaps, a topic of anthropological research - Facebook remained less popular in big developing countries such as India and Brazil during 2006 - 2009.

The choice of Social Networking platform by users is, somewhat, mystical. It is largely based on the preference of the masses - and, not you as a person. Back in 2006, when I created my Facebook profile in India, I had nobody to talk to. All my friends were hanging out on Orkut. Ultimately, I had to abandon Facebook and join Orkut. At that time, users in India and Brazil were going crazy over Orkut - a social networking service by Google.

Orkut was created by a Google engineer - Orkut Büyükökten, and launched by Google to general public in 2004. Only three years later, in 2007, according to comScore social media statistics, Facebook had only 7.1% usage compared to Orkut's 43.0% from Asia Pacific region (primarily from India).

But, the change happened in India - finally. Orkut lost its number one status. For the first time, in July 2010, Facebook surpassed Orkut to become number one social media site in India. According to comScore: visitor growth to Facebook.com was up 167 percent in September 2010 versus year ago reaching 24.3 million visitors, with Orkut witnessing a 19-percent increase to 18.7 million visitors. In year 2010, Facebook witnessed the third biggest 228.28% growth in India, just behind Thailand (259.60%) and Brazil (270.01%).

Google Plus - A New Kid on the Block

Currently, Facebook has amassed more than 30 million user in India. India is the third largest user of Facebook as social media platform, just behind USA and Indonesia.

The migration of users from Orkut to Facebook, in India, was certainly a great - but widely unnoticed - event. Had it been a physical human migration, it would have leapfrogged all migrations till date in human history.

With the arrival of Google Plus, are we going to witness another great virtual migration of users from Facebook to Google Plus?

I strongly feel that users in India will certainly migrate to Google Plus in the coming months. I will be discussing number of reasons to support my argument in Part II - Why Google Plus Will Click in India of the series on Google Plus.

How to run Axure prototypes on iPad

2011-06-15T16:05:00.005-05:00

As a User Experience Architect, I create and present Axure prototypes, on a day-to-day basis, for various platforms. Axure generates HTML output which can be rendered with ease on any browser.

These days I am working on a a couple of iPad applications; which requires me to present Axure prototypes on iPad. Safari is an option to run the HTML on iPad but the browser's header and footer make the demo look more for the web than the iPad.

Here is what you can do to get the true iPad app experience. Get rid of the browser.

How?

Download goodreader from the App Store. It costs only $4.99. Install the app on your iPad.

Once the app is installed - All you have to do is:

Connect the iPad to your computer that you sync with
Open up iTunes
Select the iPad from the devices on the left sidebar
On the right pane of the screen, click on "apps" and scroll down the page until you see the last section called “File Sharing”
Click on GoodReader
Click “Add…”
Browse to and select your zip file with the demo in it

Once added:

Launch the GoodReader app on your iPad
Click on your zip file on the left
Click on Manage Files on the right
Click on Unzip

This will create the directory structure for the app.

To launch the demo all you have to do is:

Launch the GoodReader app on your iPad
Select the proper directory for the demo
Click on index.html (and then you are in). Or, to get rid of Axure frame, click on home.html or whatever your first Axure page is.

Voila, you just created a true Axure prototype for iPad.

Note: To avoid GoodReader toolbar to appear while demo-ing, try pressing and holding the buttons/links in the prototype instead of tapping it. It works for me.

Are you afraid of Twitter?

2011-06-13T12:05:00.001-05:00

This post is, certainly, not for tweet-o-holics, who wakeup and sleep with smart-phones on their sides. The post, also, respects an average Joe who manages to Tweet at least twice a week - either to report on their pathetically depressing meals or extremely ecstatic moods.

Believe it or not, even today, we have some social-media phobics - for obviously good and bad reasons. Be careful on social-media but paranoid. This post is one more attempt to motivate them to engage with twitter-verse.

As I am writing this post, I have 3748 Tweets and 286 Followers on Twitter.

My first tweet was tweeted in 2008. Then, like most of you, I gave up after my 10th tweet. "This ain't for me," was my response to myself. However, as Twitter grew more and more popular, I felt tremendous pressure from my User Experience (UX) community to become part of it - again.

Believe it or not, UXers are made to work on the bleeding edge of technology. They craft new experiences that leverage and explore the true potential of technology. I started again on Twitter in mid 2009 and never stopped after that.

Here is how I am benefitting from Twitter:

Network with my UX community in and outside Keane.
Learn about new articles, news and publications on UX and other areas without Googling about them.
Hear people's opinions on various topics.
Guage trends in technology, social media, and other areas.
Sell my thoughts, ideas, and opinions on UX and other topics.
Participate in discussions, debates, and sometimes just fun stuff.
Hear about new job opportunities from my friends and followers.
Believe it or not, I have got job offers through DM feature in Twitter.

Overall, it's a great tool with lot of potential. You will benefit from it only when you use it.

Let us discuss. Why do/do not you use Twitter?

And, of course, if you are/or going to be on Twitter, do not forget to follow me. My username is @praveenkvma

Paper Blinds

2011-06-07T16:46:00.001-05:00

Scenario: New home. Forty one see-through glass windows. No blinds. The blinds installation guy takes three weeks.

Problem: How to protect the privacy of occupants?

Tools: A pair of scissors, duct tape, staplers, some architectural drawings, and a designer mind.

Steps:

Attack one window at a time.
Measure the paper size, just once - of course, the size of paper will stay the same.
Measure the window size.
Use duct tape to stick the paper to create bigger surface area to cover the entire window.
Use scissors to cut off extra paper.
Use extra paper to create top and botton borders for extra stability and strength. This will help the blinds to stay straight.
Staple the borders and tape them to the paper.
Hang the freshly made paper blind using a step stool and duct tape.
Voila, you just created your first paper blind.
Keep repeating steps 1 through 10 until you have covered all your windows.
Sip a cup of green tea, appreciate your creation, and wait for another three weeks to get "real" blinds.

Here are some of the pics:

Social Media for Organizations

2010-09-29T16:23:00.001-05:00

I created this presentation to explain why Social Media is important for organizations. It is no longer about asking, "What social media will do for us," but, it is about asking, "What Social Media will do to us?"

View more presentations from praveenkvma.

How to Design a $100 Tablet – A Quick Overview

2010-08-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

Intel's Classmate PC (Eduwise) low-cost PC revealed (May 04, 2006)

The head of the world's largest chipmaker unveiled a mobile personal computer Wednesday designed to provide affordable collaborative learning environments for teachers and students around the world.

Intel Corp. Chief Executive Paul Otellini said the $400 machines, code-named "Eduwise," will feature built-in wireless and will be able to run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows or the Linux operating system.

"What we want to do is accelerate to uncompromised technology for everyone in the world," Otellini said during a demonstration at the World Congress on Information Technology in Austin. "No one wants to cross the digital divide with yesterday's technology."

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/268946_techcon04.html

http://www.intellearningseries.com

How to Design a $100 Tablet – A Quick Overview

The Context

Education is one of our most fundamental needs that help us to live with respect and dignity in society. It is the gateway to vast knowledge that ultimately leads to wisdom and virtues. Despite of education’s profound importance in our lives, not every is fortunate enough to receive it. Access to education is a grave issue in developing nations. The other important issue to ponder about is the quality of education.

Some Quick Facts on Education in India (Based on 7^th All India School Education Survey)

· Less than half of India’s children between the age 6 and 14 go to school.

· A little over one-third of all children who enroll in grade one reach grade eight.

· At least 35 million children aged 6 – 14 years do not attend school.

· 53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate.

· In India, only 53% of habitation has a primary school.

· In India, only 20% of habitation has a secondary school.

· On an average an upper primary school is 3 km away in 22% of areas under habitations.

· In nearly 60% of schools, there are less than two teachers to teach Classes I to V.

· On an average, there are less than three teachers per primary school. They have to manage classes from I to V every day.

· High cost of private education and need to work to support their families and little interest in studies are the reasons given by 3 in every four drop-outs as the reason they leave.

· Dropout rates increase alarmingly in class III to V, its 50% for boys, 58% for girls.

· 1 in 40, primary school in India is conducted in open spaces or tents.

· More than 50 per cent of girls fail to enroll in school; those that do are likely to drop out by the age of 12.

· 50% of Indian children aged 6-18 do not go to school

(Data extracted by Tarang.org)

The Intervention

A marketing team in a large computer chip manufacturing company assessed the education situation in India and other developing countries. The team proposed using technology to increase the effectiveness, quality, and reach of education. Further research, by the team, on economic scene and expenditure capacity of people in these countries suggested an opportunity to introduce an inexpensive futuristic device to support educational needs of students.

The Design Brief

The chip maker approached a human-centered-design firm to design a breakthrough product – A $100 device that would use the client’s chipset. The product was positioned somewhere between a Smartphone and a Laptop.

A team of researchers (including me) was created to conduct user research and design. The main focal points were:

· How students learn at school, home, and tuitions

· What are student’s motivations, goals, aspirations and needs

· How do students interact with their parents and teachers

· How teachers interact with students and within themselves (Teaching Methods and Sharing of Information about students)

· How teachers could best introduce technology into the classroom

· What are parents expectations from their children’s school

· How the new product fits in the education eco-system (Home – School – Tuition; Parents – Students – Teachers)

The Process – Contextual Design

According to Wikipedia: Contextual Design is a user-centered design process developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. It incorporates ethnographic methods for gathering data relevant to the product, field studies, rationalizing workflows, system and designing human-computer interfaces.

University of Twente, New Zealand, goes further and breaks apart Contextual Design into seven parts:

1. Contextual Inquiry: uncovers who customers really are and how they work on a day-to-day basis to understand the customers: their needs, their desires and their approach to the work.

2. Work Modeling: capture the work of individuals and organizations in diagrams to provide different perspectives on how work is done.

3. Consolidation: brings data from individual customer interviews together so the team can see common pattern and structure without losing individual variation.

4. Work redesign: uses the consolidated data to drive conversations about how to improve work by using technology to support the new work practice.

5. The User Environment Design: captures the floor plan of the new system. It shows each part of the system, how it supports the user's work, exactly what function is available in that part, and how the user gets to and from other parts of the system.

6. Test with customers: Paper prototyping develops rough mockups of the system using Post-its to represent windows, dialog boxes, buttons, and menus.

7. Putting it into practice: Prioritization helps the transition to implementation by planning your system implementation over time. Object-oriented design helps you move from systems design to design of the implementation.

Our Process

It is one thing to read the process in books and it is another thing to implement the process - in practice. Every project comes with its own uniqueness and requires custom solutions. Given the constraints of time, context, and nature of project the design team had to tailor the design process to suit project requirements.

The design team, obviously, had Contextual Design experience from other projects and clients but this project required a different approach. It was a large scale and face paced project for a large client. Also, the introduction of the product would bring about a major social change to the lives of many students, teachers, and parents. The design team’s responsibility exceeded far beyond traditional professionalism norms and blended into moral and social responsibility. The team was in the process of designing the future of students and their lives in developing countries.

The tailored Contextual Design process consisted of following steps:

1. Identify the Design Team

2. Recruit Participants

3. Conduct Contextual Inquiry

o Document pictorial artifacts of physical spaces that students interact with (Home, School), materials, objects, technology

o Document various observations during contextual inquiry

o Interviews with Students, Parents, and Teachers

4. Analyze and Interpret Contextual Inquiry Data and Create Affinity Notes

5. Create Affinity Diagrams using Affinity Notes

6. Create Personas based on Research

7. Envision Future

o Analysis – of all dependencies and relationships in the system

o Ecosystem – with all the entities and establishing relationships between them

o Future Scenarios – initiating the process of change

8. User Interface Requirements and Design

9. The Product Conceptualized – User Testing and Refinements

The design process worked successfully for the team. The process helped the team accomplishing the design goals: in time, with great quality control, and without personal biases.

Identify the Deign Team

Five design teams were created to conduct user research. Each team had three researchers. The research informed the design and development of the product.

Team Structure:

· Moderator (Interviewer)

· Observer (To capture behavioral, emotional, and contextual aspects)

· Recorder (To transcribe the interview)

Recruit Participants

Forty five participants were recruited for the project. The human centered design firm hired an external vendor to take care of the recruitment process. Of course, the design team provided the vendor with details of user group profiles.

Forty five user interviews of two hours each were planned across all the stakeholders: Students, Teachers and Parents. Three distinct categories were created to cover users and schools across various economic strata in the society.

Conduct Contextual Inquiry

The design team observed participants in the context of their work environment while participants were busy doing their day-to-day education related tasks. The team documented the observations (including pictures and drawings of workspaces) related to participant’s core educational tasks. The team captured explicit and implicit aspects by probing and discovering.

All user interviews were non-technical in nature. Interviews were primarily designed to capture user needs, motivations, goals and desires.

The team briefed the participants – about the nature of interviews and project focus – at a very high level without revealing any information about the product itself. The team never mentioned “computer” or “technology” in their design briefs to participants in order to avoid biases in the data.

Analyze and Interpret Contextual Inquiry Data and Create Affinity Notes

The team collected large amounts of data from forty five interviews. It was essential to share the data across the core design team. Every evening the team would meet for couple of hours in the meeting room to analyze the data collected during that day.

Affinity notes were created on post-its to capture: important observations, issues, breakdowns in work, insights, and design ideas. The average number of affinity notes for forty five interviews were sixty per interview. Given the number of interviews and humongous data sets, the team decided to capture only important aspects of the interviews as affinity notes.

Create Affinity Diagrams Using Affinity Notes

Affinity diagrams were used to make sense out of this large data set. Affinity diagrams helped the team to find patterns, hidden connections, and driving themes from large information set. It provided great insights into unseen linkages of information and helped the team identifying issues and gaps.

Create Personas

Personas are a great tool to communicate understanding of users to clients and other teams involved in the process. Also, it keeps the design team focused on user goals. A persona for every user profile was created. Overall, fifteen personas were created to represent all user categories. All personas were backed by exhaustive user research.

Envision Future

The team visualized how the new technology could fit in the existing eco-system. The eco-system consisted of: students, parents, and teachers. The ecosystem depicted flow of relationships, hierarchies, and dependencies, and information between each of its user profiles. It helped the team understanding the dynamics of the ecosystem. The team wanted to design the new device in such a way that it would meet everybody’s needs and goals without creating negative interference in the ecosystem. The new device should solve all the issues and gaps uncovered in the affinity diagrams.

The team created future scenarios with the help of personas. In the scenarios, the stakeholders of the ecosystem used the product to accomplish their common goals. The “product in use” scenarios helped the team in creating “winning” features and functionalities for the product.

After five grilling weeks, the team produced three concepts depicting both the user interface and product design.

The client finally picked one of the concepts for final product development.

Yes, a-hundred-dollar-tablet for education was born!

A chart depicting the design process:

How to Kill the Death Grip - A humble design suggestion

2010-08-23T17:28:00.001-05:00

Design is the intrinsic element of lifestyle - the essence of living. The more we talk, the more we explore it. This is the one-liner on my blog header. I firmly believe in design discourses as an exploration and discovery tool.

Lately, we heard a lot about Apple iPhone 4.0 antenna design flaw. Apple never accepted the flaw and orchestrated a big cover up, until lately, when it succumbed to deafening media coverage and continuous customer complaints.

It surprised me how Apple could create a product with such a basic design flaw. The wrong placement for the joint of antenna is definitely not an engineering flaw but a design flaw.

Someone in the design team did mess up user research. He forgot to perform contextual inquiry with the users while they used the product. Or he did not write enough future scenarios depicting the usage of this product. Something certainly went terribly wrong somewhere in the design process. Otherwise, Apple wouldn’t have to teach us how to hold mobile phones or give away free jumpers. A good design fits itself seamlessly in the user space in all usage scenarios.

All these years, Apple thrived on its outstanding user experience and high quality products. One design flaw has significantly tarnished its clean image. People are afraid of upgrading their phones to iPhone 4.0 from iPhone 3.0. Instead, they want to wait for a new hardware release with the problem fixed.

As a product designer, I also thought about the flaw and looked into different ways in which my friends and I use our mobile phones. I came up with a quick sketch based on my observations. The best place for the band seems to be top center.

I would love to get your feedback, suggestions, and criticisms on the design.

Learn to Get it On Paper

2010-06-08T11:45:00.000-05:00

Visual thinking is an important weapon in the arsenal of a designer. It not only helps solving complex problems but also helps in depicting complex relationships, task-flows, processes, etc. in a simplified manner.

Two days back one of my project managers came to me and requested help for a production support model, which he himself created in Microsoft PPT and was not happy with. He told me that his boxes/blocks model that spread across three slides was not really convincing and presentable. It not only lacked important relationships between components but had some of the components spread across multiple slides. He was not sure how to fit them together on a single piece of paper.

The crux: Information was in his head but not on the paper.

I decided to take the challenge. I sat with him for 2 hours where he explained me the entire model and the components associated with it.

My task was to:
1. Simplify the complexity
2. Establish clear hierarchy and relationship
3. Represent all the components
4. Make everything look presentable to an EVP
5. And create a single diagram.

This is what I created…

And here is the response from my PM after looking at the new diagram:

“This is exactly I wanted and it looks awesome. Thanks a lot!”

Not a bad day, considering that all this happened on Monday.

How did I do it? Here is a simple process:

Jot down all the components on a piece of paper.
Draw all these components on individual 3M Post-Its. Draw people as people and not as boxes; servers as servers, etc. You do not have to be an artist for this. Use simple graphics. Post-Its allow easy movement of components without drawing them all over again.
Paste the Post-Its on a whiteboard or a big sheet and using markers try to draw lines to establish relationships between them.
The art is to minimize the number and criss-crossing of lines.
Move the Post-Its if the current relationships do not make sense.
Keep on repeating step 3,4 and 5 until you have got what you wanted.
Whoa! You are done. What a nice job! :)

Remember, this is an iterative process. The more the time spent on thinking the better the end product gets.

Do You Want to Become a Leader?

2010-05-14T21:37:00.001-05:00

Over the course of my career, I have come across, seen and heard many management people. For some strange reason, some of them really inspired and motivated me. If you are working in User Experience (UX) domain, then leadership really becomes an important trait for you. Selling and champion UX in the organization is part of our day-to-day job for all UXers.

Therefore, I decided to pen down my thoughts and definition of leadership. Here is my definition of true leader with which you may agree or disagree.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "A true leader is someone who creates new leaders." This holds true for today's corporate context also.

A true leader mentors and provides exciting opportunities to others.
A true leader is never afraid of losing his position because he is continuously growing and educating himself with others.
A true leader is devoid of any ego, proud, or superiority complex.
A true leader understands the power of one-to-one human bond and believes in life-long personal relationships that go beyond professions.
A true leader knows you as a person and not as an employee/worker.
A true leader treats everyone equally and fairly.
A true leader is both a great listener and speaker.
A true leader does not command respect because he earns it.
And lastly, a true leader brings smiles, joy and hope.

As true User Experience professionals it is important for all of us to instill these leadership values to grow ourselves and the organization.

(Photo Courtesy: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_416/1246919002m7z0lD.jpg)

The Two Hundred Thousand Dollars Mistake

2010-05-04T20:11:00.000-05:00

The definition of business according to Wikipedia: A business (also called a company, enterprise or firm) is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers.

My definition of business is slightly different. You may consider it inappropriate and skewed but to me real businesses are the ones that make profits by improving the quality of life of their customers. However, most of the businesses these days work on maximizing profits by taking short cuts so that the senior executives could make their CEOs happy. The shortcut formula does not stop at the senior executive level but trickles down and mixes with the life-blood of the organization culture. Ultimately people become myopic and look for short term profits which cost them miserably in the future.

The Context

This is a story about three companies:

Financial Services company (Let us call it FS)
IT Solutions company (Let us call it IT)
User Experience Design consultancy. (Let us call it UX)

As a first step to design its application Suite, FS invites companies to come and assess their existing systems. Finally, IT gets the approval to develop its suite of applications. UX, which does user experience work for FS was not invited for two reasons: first, it would increase the cost of the project; and second, they were designers (who made things look beautiful thus not required at the start of the project).

Process of Assessment and Business Requirement Document (BRD)

IT sends two of their Business Analysts to FS for system assessment.

In case if you are not aware of system assessment, here is a brief description:

“System assessment begins with the evaluation of the system to collect and analyze information on current system design, existing task flows, system performance, and technology. Later this information is used to identify existing pain points, gaps, and improvements that will optimize the system performance. It also includes additional recommendations for improving resource utilization, and improving environmental performance related to the assessed system(s).”

The BAs work relentlessly day and night to study the existing systems, create “existing” business process model, discuss and document the new functionality that FS seeks in their new suite. The assessment exercise lasts for two months. Everybody works overtime to complete the assignment and to make it “happen” and “successful”.

The documents that were created as part of the assessment exercise were:

Business Process Model (in MS Visio)
Business Requirement Document (BRD) (in MS Word)

Just to give you an idea of a *BRD, it consists of:

- Introduction
- Document Purpose
- Project Overview and Background
- Impacts (Users and Characteristics)
- Business Requirements
- Attachments
- References
- Modifications
- Approvals

(*BRD format is company specific and may differ from company to company)

The Project Starts

Everybody celebrated the success of completion of BRD. Project managers from IT sat together with their Business Analysts and designed phases of the project. The project team divided the BRD functionality in terms of use cases. They further divided the use cases on the basis of their complexity and prioritized them in chronological order for development. The project plan was ready and the project got kicked off.

At that point of time, one senior executive at FS realized to include UX to add some design and colors to their new product suite – yes, design and color stuff (at least that was the perception). What the executive had missed was the second point made by Roberto Verganti in his article in Design Mind. “Designers have an amazing capacity to get close to users, understand their needs, and then creatively generate countless ideas,” Professor Roberto said.

UX team arrived on site with their bag of tricks and tools. The UX team was told to design the solution without contacting the real “users” as the project was in stealth mode. The UX team was granted permission to talk to Subject Matter Experts (SME) and employees of FS.

From MS Word to Whiteboard

The project started with Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions. In JAD sessions, FS's SMEs and some managers, IT consultants, and UX team participated. They would start the session discussing the use case assigned for the session and later look into the BRD for the functionalities mentioned – bullet-by-bullet to detail down requirements as per BRD.

The problem with the UX team was that it did not think of the project in bulleted points as defined in the BRD. UX approached it in terms of scenarios and stories (yes, even when they had no access to users) and looked at problems from holistic perspective. The UX team started weaving a story around the bulleted points of BRD. The team did not stop here but start to these stories on the whiteboard.

As Dan Roam has mentioned in his book “Back of the Napkin”

Visual thinking means taking advantage of our innate ability to see – both with our eyes and with our mind’s eye – in order to discover ideas that are otherwise invisible, develop those ideas quickly and intuitively, and then share those ideas with other people in a way that they simply “get”.

The JAD session turned into brainstorming sessions. Brainstorming sessions broke the team hierarchy and brought everybody on the same platform. Everybody was freely expressing his ideas. Great! The project started rolling but there was a problem.

When FS executives started seeing the BRD on whiteboard, they soon realized the gaps in the BRD. As a consequence, the BRD was updated not once or twice but again and again. Whenever the team discussed a use case, BRD was updated with some or the other missing functionality. FS was neck deep in problem because it had already signed the BRD and every change to it was costing them money. The BRD was full of requirement gaps.

Not only FS faced the requirement gaps problem but IT also realized that the order of their use case for development did not make sense anymore. The detailed scenarios revealed that some of the dependent use cases were planned before the parent use cases. It was like expecting a child before the parents were born.

Both FS and IT were in deep mess. FS had to sign a couple of change requests to BRD, which not only impacted their scheduled launch of the web application suite but costs also.

IT had to alter development schedule and ate up some of the added scope to maintain good relationship with FS.

If all the damages - both money and time - to both FS and IT are quantified, it will run in excess of two hundred thousand dollars.

Where the heck is the problem?

BRD was not the only problem. BRD was the outcome of a closed requirement gathering session and not an open brainstorming session. Nobody was made to thought out of the box. The process happened to be a traditional and liner question and answer session (mostly one-to-one); instead of a vibrant and participatory group brainstorming session.

Clients can articulate their “wants” but not every “need” and “goal” that they have. A Consultant’s job is not only to elicit visible but latent requirements also - using his expertise and experience.

Because the clients want something does not mean that they need it. Most of the times, clients do not ask for what they actually need. Often, clients miss on their needs and jump straight to the solution that they have in their minds. They tend to state the same solution as a list of requirements that are not really requirements that they “need”.

IT did not have the same tricks and tools that UX team had. If UX team were brought onboard during the BRD phase, this sheer waste of time and money could have been avoided.

Designers bring Design Thinking?

Tim Brown of IDEO has rightly said, “Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy. Great design thinking results in functionally and emotionally satisfying solutions where the emotional value is generated through the creation of meaning.”

He also mentioned in one of his other posts, “Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.”

In Roberto Verganti words, “Now that designers have become highly effective at being creative and user-centered, they can pursue an exciting new challenge that taps into their unique cultural background: that of being radical researchers.”

Executives do not have time to train themselves as a designer; therefore, the best bet for them is to hire a design firm. Designers save waste of money and time and also bring in terrific user experience to improve end user's quality of life. As an executive it is important to look at the long term profits and not to repeat the “The-Two-Hundred-Thousand-Dollars-Mistake.”

References:

Wikiepdia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_analysis

Dan Roam: http://www.digitalroam.com/

Brainstorming: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2006/id20060726_517774.htm

Design-Driven Innovation: http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/work-life/design-driven-innovation.html

Agile and User Experience Design Bookmarks

2010-04-10T11:44:00.000-05:00

Agile and User Experience are like two opposite corners of a room. They will never meet. On one hand we have Agile which proposes building the system feature by feature. On the other we have User Experience which thrives on holistic approach to product development to bring in seamless experience for the user. It is difficult to marry them together and the industry is still experimenting to get the best of both.

This page as a repository of bookmarks to articles that talk about UX and Agile:

* Integrating UX into an Agile Environment - http://fwd4.me/KxT

* Cooper's Q&A "Integrating User Experience and Agile" on video - http://fwd4.me/KxU

* Burndowns and Flareups in Agile Design - http://fwd4.me/KxV

* Twelve emerging best practices for adding UX work to Agile development - http://fwd4.me/KxW

* Agile Usability: Best Practices for User Experience on Agile Development Projects

2nd edition - http://www.nngroup.com/reports/agile/

* Agile Development Processes: An Interview with Jeff Patton - http://www.uie.com/articles/patton_interview/

* Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-Centered Design - http://fwd4.me/KxZ

* Bringing User Centered Design to the Agile Environment - http://boxesandarrows.com/view/bringing-user
* Agile Personas - http://www.andersramsay.com/2010/04/12/agile-personas

Looking Beyond Heuristics

2010-03-19T15:11:00.000-05:00

Despite of the fact that User Experience (UX) discipline requires specialist to do the job not all companies embrace it. These days I have seen lot of requests coming from non User Experience (UX) people (managers, marketing executives, software engineers, etc.) to guide them to perform Heuristic Evaluations. These folks work in companies that do not believe in spending on User Experience Design teams. Certainly, without training these people would not produce the best of the world results but with proper tools in hands they may deliver “just good enough” results.

Heuristic Evaluation provides an immediate tactical analysis of the user experience of Web site, Web application, GUI application, or Intranet. It provides a prioritized list of changes to correct confusing elements of the current design. The result is a redesign solution that leads to an enhanced user experience.

Here is couple of links which may be handy for your heuristic evaluation:

25-point Website Usability Checklist - http://ow.ly/1nzTp

Research based Web Deisgn and Usability Guidelines - http://fwd4.me/IM6

Ten Usability Heuristics by Jakob Nielsen - http://fwd4.me/IM7

Heuristic Evaluation – A System Check List - http://fwd4.me/IM8

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If you are an executive champion in your organization read further:

If you are not Leonardo da Vinci then better leave Monalisa for him. Let UXers do the UX.

User Experience Design is not mathematics where every time 2 and 2 makes 4. In UX things are based on context rather than content. It is about converting science and technology to arts in such a way that it brings joy and delight to people. This magic of converting left-brain logic to right-brain creativity comes with lot of experience, education, practice and time.

It is one thing to rate an application against a set of heuristics and it is another to add tremendous value by looking beyond heuristics. An expert User Experience professional not only looks at the heuristics but also at Users, Context, Competition, Brand and Client’s strategic vision. He provides a solution which not only improves your system but ROIs and brand image too.

Why designers are Innovators also?

2009-11-26T21:51:00.000-06:00

Researchers say they have identified five skills that drive innovation.Here is my take on this.

Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.

A true designer studies people habits by observing them in their context. He studies people's behaviors, needs, motivations, and latent desires. Any design activity begins with Users Research and completes with it.

Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields.

A designer possess inherent ability of creating and recognizing meaningful associations from different fields. If he had not had this ability, he would not have become designers in the first place. To solve a problem he needs to know latest trends in: cultures, technologies, material sciences, fashion, markets, and what not. The designer then connects different variables from different fields to create his best concept.

Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom. They ask "why?", "why not?" and "what if?"

No designer can create a new product without questioning. Questioning is an integral part of design process. The more he questions, the more layers he peels off towards success. Challenging common wisdom is another trait of a successful designer. He constantly challenges the society and breaks the norms. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the Juicy Salif, designed by Philippe Starck in 1990. It is considered an icon of industrial design that has been displayed in New York's Museum of Modern Art.

Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.

Prototyping is a common practice in design industry. Nothing is produced without prototyping and exploring concepts in all possible ways. A good designer needs to know prototyping and it is a necessary part of his job.

Networking: innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives.

Designers network with people from different fields and domains. For example: To design a world class automatic hair cutting machine, the designer needs to understand the latest robotic technology with best robotic scientist and at the same time to understand hair cutting he needs to talk to the best hair dressers. Both the scientist and hair dresser will bring their perspectives and ideas to the problem, which will help in the best solution.

Therefore, we can safely infer that when you hire a designer, you get an innovator for free.

(Photo Courtesy: http://fwd4.me/636)

World Movie Map

2009-11-07T23:29:00.001-06:00

I received this image in email. There is no information about its source but it is pretty good information visualization. It does not provide any information about the designer, nevertheless, he deserves due credit. I am hosting his amazing creation.

Office Wall After Brainstorming Session

2009-11-05T23:47:00.000-06:00

Last week, I conducted a brainstorming session, "Paint the Wall", at office. It was designed to get ideas about the Dashboard for client's new web-application.

After the meeting the management got stunned to find that the users were demanding very different features than what the managers of users have contemplated in BRD (Business Requirement Document).

Lesson of the day: Always talk to the real users of the application. Once again, always talk to the real users of the application. Such a simple sentence but nobody follows that.

Products in Use - Handheld or What?

2009-11-05T23:28:00.000-06:00

It is pretty common to see many Americans driving with GPS in their hands. Obviously, it was never meant to be used that way.

Not that the designers of the product did not think about its mount, of course, they did. But probably, they missed user testing.

It comes with a suction pad that could be attached to the windshield. However, the GPS device is too heavy for the suction pad to keep the GPS stable on windshield. Whenever the suction decreases it falls down, which is annoying to the driver.

The suction decreases for couple of reasons:

* As suction pads go old, its vaccuum generating capacity deteriorates.
* Large potholes shake the GPS so hard that the suction cannot bear it
* Variation in temperature and pressure also affects suction capacity

Therefore, most of the drivers end up using their hands to hold it.

Annoying, but that is the truth.

Lessons for us: Usable Design and Rigorous Testing

The Death of Outlook Calendar

2009-10-30T08:44:00.000-05:00

How do you schedule a meeting? Pretty straightforward question it is, right? Send the person a meeting invite on MS Outlook or any other calendar program. The whole purpose of sending the invite is to block her calendar and not give her a last minute surprise.

However, the question becomes pretty difficult to answer if we ask it in India. The possible answers would be: Inform the person about the meeting time in a mail; show up at her desk; give her a call; call her on your desk, etc. Notice that there is no mention of sending an Outlook meeting invite. People in India do have access to Outlook but it is about the culture and traditions.

In India, the office culture is pretty informal. People do not manage their day to day activities on calendar. In fact, they tend to keep things in their head. My parents never had any notepad on refrigerator to create grocery list. In fact, on Sundays, my father would sit with all of us and brainstorm about all the things we need for home and create a list impromptu. He never used calendar and marked times on it: Take dog out for walk or Dinner at In Law's place. This is not just my parents story; it is everybody's story in India.

In India, we do not call people before we go to their homes, we just show up and surprise them. Since, it is part of the culture for thousands of years nobody gets offended or angry with this practice.

IT revolution took place and globalization happened in a split of second. People were exposed to lucrative jobs and started working with global teams - US in particular. In US calendar is non-separable part of the culture which is not true for India. The teams in US always schedule meetings in advance with Indian teams using Calendar. However, teams in India would either not accept the invite or accept it without ever checking their calendars back. In short, even if there is an invite sitting in the calendar people are least bothered about it because they never see it.

Intra-team collaboration in India using Calendar is even more pathetic. Nobody ever uses Calendar or creates meeting invite. Most of the people have never created meeting invites in their entire lives.

Take my example, I was afraid of creating meeting invites initially because nobody around me ever used it or taught me how to create one. As a matter of fact, I created my first invite after spending 2 years in full time job. Today, I cannot do anything without Calendar and depends solely on it. Part of the reason for this change is my US exposure. I have spent significant time working with people in US. When you work in a new culture you learn new things and "adjust" yourself.

Slowly things are changing in India as the exposure to outside culture is increasing more and more. Hopefully, one day people in India would start using Outlook Calendars. That day Microsoft would be happy to see rebirth of Outlook in another culture.

Free Time Tracking System - User Feedback Required

2009-10-21T20:26:00.000-05:00

Download Free Time Tracking System: Time Tracking System v0.1

"Filling up the timesheet never interested me and the thought of remembering what I did through out the day and putting time against each one of them was a pain. I always wished if there is an easier way to do it or in a way automate this redundant task. There are many tools available to track time but for some reason I always found them a bit complicated and time consuming" in Jai's words.

So, Jai Chandra (a highly skilled developer in Flex technologies) decided to develop an application to keep track of time. Jai works on bleeding edge of technology and currently involved in creating Flex platform for applications. More About Jai>>

Time Tracking System is a step towards that. This application can be your personal time tracker. Any task can be tracked by simply selecting it from the task list.

The application is developed using Adobe Air and uses SQLite database for storing timesheet information locally. This is a very early version and Jai will continue to work on it.

I helped Jai with Interface and Usability within the constraints. Imagine, this is a one developer team :) I could not be more demanding.

The current version has the following features:

1. Create tasks.
2. Create projects.
3. Daily and weekly timesheet in a read-only mode.
4. Minimize application to task bar.
5. Detect idle/away time

Future Plans: (I will try to do more experience related stuff)

1. Search functionality for task and projects.
2. Allow exporting of timesheet information to excel format.
3. Export data into an user defined format. This could facilitate importing of data into other systems.

and more…

But, it all depends on user feedback. so feel free to use it and post your comments.

Download Free Time Tracking System: Time Tracking System v0.1

Interaction Guidelines

2009-09-30T21:36:00.001-05:00

What is an interaction guideline?

Interaction guideline is a document that captures the behavior of an interface. This includes all tiny and minute details for all sort of controls (buttons, dropdowns, links, etc.) that a developer will require to design with perfection.

Why do we need an interaction guideline document?

Use cases primarily captures business flow. However, in this project BAs are capturing screen flows and are writing screen field properties too. Since, the screens were designed by UX folks and not BAs, obviously we know better about the screens than anybody else. After all, prototype is our baby.

Things like dynamic panels - when to display and where to display; when to display a value as a drop down and when as text; what is the meaning of secondary sort, whether the sort is forward and reverse both; when an element becomes a link and when it is text?

For e.g. Number of Share is a numeric link but when the value becomes zero and there is no number to be displayed, display as text.

For e.g. What if the address of the user is not on file, how the information will be displayed there?

There are many such instances that will go unnoticed and undocumented, if we did not create interaction guidelines.

Who are the intended audience?

All team members reading the usecases and designing the system are intended audience.

Myth: We can do everything with the usecase

We went with the same myth in one of our projects and stumbled upon. UX team were asked to create interaction guidelines at the very last minute. Hope you guys do no repeat history and learn from mistakes. By the way, I do not churn pages and pages of interaction guidelines for fun :)

Of course, I have better ways to pass my time.