User Experience Design, usability by Sanjay Kumar

How to develop a winning software product

2011-12-24T06:28:00.000-08:00

The best way to develop a software product, is to create a team that works for it.A perfect teamcan be created; by defining the areas that impact the success of the software.

When we try to define the areas that is going to impact success of software then we have key points emerging out. After designing mobile, web-based and desktop based software's i can say that the most important area to focus is

> Simplicity - What makes a software simple? A software that is able to address user needs with ease becomes a simple software. In technical terms we can also say that i am basically talking about usability design.

> Sense - Are we giving the product that makes sense to its user and business community. Will it be a success or a damm failure? Have we thought about it?

> Marketable - Can this product solve a business/user problem? If yes is the problem big enough that few people won't mind giving you some quick buck to use the product. When i say quick buck it dosent mean the price is cheap.

> Social connections - Why this is important? Has Sanjay Kumar gone crazy to mention this aspect. It is said that if i live in a forest and make a product people who need it will create a road to my home. This was true long back but it does not hold so true in globalization and the way we have come till here. A product which does not have influential names and people to back it up is just like a dollar bill lying on the side walk, between the dark green bushes to be discovered by someone, on the streets where people are rushing to catch there morning train. Don't forget that rains may come and melt the dollar bill and degrade, it. Insects etc and added danger.

My whole view is that we need GOD Fathers or a huge bank of money to back the ideas. Few people may not agree with me, however i suggest them to create a product and try to sell it. The reality will be upfront. Making a software product and build a business around is like a war.

To achieve the above areas, we need a team. The best possible team consists of the below people. The names and areas are mentioned as it came to my mind. It is not in any order as in a team all people are equally important.

1. UX Architect/UI/Front end design - he/she will design the software based on user research, stakeholder meetings etc. His job is to create wire-frames and the task flows that arises. Each element is taken care by them.If he is good in UI design it will be an added advantage.

2. CTO - A tech guy, who is good in planning a robust architecture of the software. What technology to use, what technology to throw away, security measures etc.

3. Back end/DB programming - This team will take care of the functionality and related things.

4. CEO/Product Manager - this will be the driving force, that will make things happen. From planning to resource funding, to marketing, networking will be taken care by this guy.

5. Social Media/Marketing - this team will make the product popular among the masses and lure them to use it.

6. UI & Visual design - skins are created and user interface is designed by this person

All the above are the keys to success of the product. The idea being here is that we do not need an army of people to create a worthwhile product that can survive the competition.

Ok, the above is taken care what next? Now find out ideas to work on.

10 Heuristics principles

2011-11-12T06:41:00.000-08:00

We have used these principles many times and it is helpful.

It is seen that for good results, the designer needs to use his gut feeling and change his approach based on the business condition.

These principles are only good for basic analysis, for better results you have to rely on the designer.

Visibility of system status

The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

Match between system and the real world

The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

User control and freedom

Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

Consistency and standards

Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

Error prevention

Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

Recognition rather than recall

Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

Flexibility and efficiency of use

Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.

Aesthetic and minimalist design

Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

Help and documentation

Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

The designer was sleeping? User Experience Design continue...

2011-10-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

Nowdays i have been a little lazy or i should say got busy in other works that consumed most of my energies.I see that a person has only 24 hours a day and its not possible to be all the things in life, a focus is required.

Well now the questions comes to the fact where was my focus, of course it was on design and helping clients achieve more using less. In this span i had helped many clients overcome business issues, hey i cant tell their names but i can mention few things.

The stills so far was.

Visiting a college and helping them to use technology at its best. Create branding plan for the school.
A business came for a branding online, guided them with technology
Online sales for an e-commerce company, gave consulting tips and new design for their portal
A new online resume/portal was made
http://sanjaykumardesign.com
An Australian university needs revamping of their portal, analysis for competitive values with its market captures was done and delivered
A dating site was launched
http://weekendlovefinder.com
Service industry in UAE asked for a branding work, it was done with pleasure and satisfactions
An online social media search engine was created http://27expo.com

I feel it has to be changed to some other creative idea, let me rethink this as i believe always play the game that shows results in first shot. There is no sustainability to play it without returns as we are not corporate mammoths to run the show for long, as of now.

So these activities kept me engrossed so i could not post regularly, I will be writing some new posts on usability and user experience design, specifically how things are moving in bangalore, INDIA.

Please write to me smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com if you are looking for any specific help in user experience design.

‘WebApps 2011’ the most topical Web Application Development and Design conference at the Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore on July 16th, 2011.

2011-07-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Are you guys coming for WebApps 2011 Conference - do let me know

The best part I personally know some of the speakers in the conference

Details below

After all the earlier successful editions, SiliconIndia is back with the ‘WebApps 2011’ the most topical Web Application Development and Design conference at the Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore on July 16th, 2011.

The conference brings together web developers, web designers, technology enthusiasts, innovators, vendors, and users to experience the future of Web Applications.

The conference is designed to address all aspects of designing, and developing Web applications.

It is a must-attend developer forum showcasing key web technologies. We have lined up some of the BEST speakers, Get technical training and gain new skills!

Confirmed Speakers:

· Ashutosh Kumar, Principal Interaction Designer, Yahoo
· Shwetank Dixit, Web Evangelist, Opera Software
· Mallari Kulkarni, Chief Architect, Symphony Services
· Srinivas Bhagavatula, Program Architect, Mind Tree
· Christian Chandramohan, Head of Special Project management, Nokia Siemens
· Sudhir Rao, Brand Practice Manager - Rational, IBM
· Dipankar Sinha, Infrastructure Head/Project Manager, Hungama.com
· Narayan Raman, CEO, Tyto Software
· Gaurav, Group Manager – txtWeb, Intuit

DATE: July 16th, 2011 (Saturday)
TIME: 8.30 AM to 6 PM
VENUE: Nimhans Convention Center, Bangalore

We have limited Seats left. http://www.siliconindia.com/events-overview/web-application-Bangalore-WebAppsBangalore2011.html and complete the short form. We have a nominal fee of Rs.500 for access to sessions, lunch and refreshments. You will see that this is a very nominal cost for the ROI that you will get at the conference.

Here's your chance to meet tech leaders and get expert instruction and hands-on tutorials to create the best web applications, tools, and software.

Buzz.blogger, flipcart, slidebar, snapshot, timeslide - see blog in a different light

2011-07-06T02:17:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what are some of the best views in which you can read a blog. I came across few ways in which the blog reader can really benefit from his efforts. Tradionally all the blog posts are displayed on the page and there are buttons at the button "OLDER POSTS" and on the right had side tag clouds and other links.

You can have a different view of the blogs by clicking on the links

Flipcard view

You can see the same blog in multiple views, the views can be changed by selecting the navigation menus on the right.

Multiple uploading for social media

2011-07-06T01:54:00.000-07:00

Remember the old days of uploading a file or attaching the files. There used to be, why the good old days, even in blogger the same type is available.There is a check of maximum 5 images, and to get the upload box we need to click the "Add another image" link again and again.

I checked Picasa and was so happy by it, there is a drop pane where we just need to drag the images that need to be uploaded, rest is taken care.

The solution works well here as here we have multiple images that needs to be published on the internet.

Hats of to Google for this feature. I like it and it solves the problem so well.

Use Gtalk on mobile phone

2011-06-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

i recentely went to vacation, on my mobile phone there was some issues i was not able to use nimbuzz for using Gtalk. i tried to find an alternative for nimbuzz, n i finally got it.The application is Tjat. The link is wap.tjat.com

Usability testing and War

2011-02-25T03:04:00.000-08:00

We all have heard about WWII, most of you must have seen many movies about it. The movies are a close view of what actually happened, but it can not be the exact thing, the exact emotions that happens. We can extrapolate it to usability testing in user experience design. We may be able to build the exact situations in the lab but still it is not the exact situation. Good food for thought.

These pics i had collected long back and they are so touching i thought to share with the world. It is true we cannot actually create the real WW2 in movies. I appreciate the film makers to educate us on these topics, and personally i have seen many movies on war. Well the fact is I love them, i drew a conclusion form them that i have already made bold in the above paragraph.

7 golden rules on how to sketch wireframes

2011-02-24T04:35:00.001-08:00

After creating sketches and wire frames for multiple projects, I felt let us try to recollect what I have learned so far. The best thing I can

saw that most of stakeholders are blind to wireframes and sketches. They come up in the meeting with an idea that they are going to get some colorful and flashy.

Now how to overcome such a situation, the best part is to make the expectations clear. Before staring the work prepares a present explain what they will get in from the association.

See the presentation that I had created for Universal Music group (Vevo.com) stakeholders to make their expectations clear.

Tips for sketching

1. Use less lines

The less lines you use the better it becomes to explain the concept. More lines create clutter and confusion.

2. Use thick lines outside the main boxes and points of stress. Using thicker lines make the design clean and visually pleasing

3. Render the borders to give the computer sleek looks

4. Avoid too much detailing of elements – such as minimize, maximize buttons

5. Scan the sketches and send via e-mail. Most stakeholders would love to see something in e-mail. They can easily share it with their teams and seek their views on it.

6. Sketch in batches – don’t ever sketch the complete software in one go. First sketch the home page of the software. If you get a green flag go ahead and sketch more. Otherwise you need to again sketch from scratch if your home page design got rejected.

7. Focus on the element on hand – do not sketch the outside section again and again.

These are the 7 golden rules that will make your sketch stand out and get a good name.

How not to promote yourself

2011-02-23T06:27:00.000-08:00

Best definition of BRAND ever

2011-02-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Difference between Talent and Labor

2011-02-23T05:53:00.001-08:00

I read this presentation on slide share. Was amazed to hear the difference. Sharign with all of you.

The complete link is

http://slidesha.re/4XaVh

A form that is not friendly

2011-02-23T04:52:00.001-08:00

I saw a form that is not friendly in terms of legibility. This form was for, see the image below

When the user enter the text in the form fields you can not read the text that you are typing.

Hope these guys can change it.

The website on which the form is available is

http://ht.ly/1bsyBT

How to start on a Program - Basic checklist to start work

2010-12-01T02:27:00.000-08:00

What is a project?
A project is an effort with a start date and end date and have a definite end result.In case we are developing a software it will have a start date and an end date.It will also have a result that is the software designed.

What is a Program?
A program will have set of projects running to achieve a common business goal or objective.For example space program, railway development program.There will be multiple teams, projects and bodies working towards success of the program. When we take a program into hand what are the things we should start with?
The first thing to start with the program goal, the mission of the program.What are we trying to achieve here.In my case our aim was to reduce the number of calls to the help desk, by diverting the users to a self help portal.Similarly when you are given a program to manage, speak with the brass on what they are trying to achieve in this.

Once the mission is clear - what's next?
The next thing to search or collate is the stakeholder list.Who are involved at what level.Prepare a communication plan for the program.

What's next?
Now understand the process, the different elements of the effort. Take a knowledge transfer session from the other program managers and team.

Talk with the team
Once you are aware with the process and the efforts put in. Speak with the team and understand them, their problems, their strong points and areas for improvement. Sync with the team, in many cases you may not be in a position to interact with all of them, in these scenerios talk to their leads.

Start the good work
Now with these things you can start the good work.

How the dream came true?

2010-12-01T01:05:00.000-08:00

I was in US working for Universal Music Group for their exciting video portal site.Guess the name V...E... yes you are right Vevo.I met the Vevo team, they were energetic and globally located.Team consists of people from US,UK, Japan etc. It was exciting to go to office each day and meet the young talent.

My responsibility was to provide a good user experience to the portal by consulting and expert advice.The show went well, i reached in my hotel Candlewood suites in New Jersy.I checked my e-mail and saw an e-mail from Unisys HR, offering me a Job in India, Bangalore as Program Manager for End User Services practice.

Wow, in an e-mail the dream came true and after few days I came to Bangalore.Yes the Vevo project went well, and my assignment with them got over and i travelled back to India.

So in this way i entered in Program Management, :-) well i have extensive experience in User Experience Design and software product design so it helped me get this job.Prior i had travelled abroad on multiple assignments. My blog on User Experience Design & usability

Top Social sites

2010-11-26T03:01:00.000-08:00

Top Social Media Sites

This is a huge list of top social media sites, that are quite popular nowdays. I hope you are using few of them.If i have missed any, please send an e-mail or comment. I will be happy to add it.

Num	Website	Alexa	Page Rank	Category

1	youtube.com	3	9	Videos
2	twitter.com	12	9	General
3	flickr.com	31	9	Images
4	digg.com	117	8	General
5	stumbleupon.com	196	8	Cool Content
6	metacafe.com	205	7	Videos
7	scribd.com	236	8	Articles
8	reddit.com	294	8	General
9	del.icio.us	338	8	General
10	segnalo.com	338	7	Italian Community
11	blogcatalog.com	533	7	Internet / Blogs
12	technorati.com	912	8	Blogging
13	mixx.com	916	8	General
14	mister-wong.de	1,183	9	General
15	slashdot.org	1,272	8	Tech
16	rojo.com	1,362	7	General
17	kaboodle.com	1,395	6	Shopping
18	gather.com	1,462	6	Articles
19	folkd.com	1,521	7	General
20	diigo.com	1,614	6	Internet
21	mybloglog.com	1,646	7	Blogging
22	propeller.com	1,696	8	News
23	Mister-Wong.com	2,088	8	General
24	fark.com	2,181	7	Entertainment
25	care2.com	2,262	7	Social Action
26	dzone.com	2,541	6	Web Design & Development
27	killerstartups.com	2,862	5	Internet
28	newsvine.com	3,289	7	News
29	activerain.com	3,300	5	Real Estate
30	linuxquestions.org	3,340	6	Linux
31	clipmarks.com	3,383	6	News
32	balatarin.com	3,638	6	Persian Digg Site
33	faves.com	3,695	5	Internet
34	blinklist.com	3,704	7	Internet
35	caringbridge.org	4,062	7	Health
36	indianpad.com	4,156	5	General
37	tutorialized.com	4,312	6	Tutorials
38	i-am-bored.com	4,419	6	Entertainment
39	nowpublic.com	4,432	7	News
40	a1-webmarks.com	4,628	5	General
41	connotea.org	4,785	8	General
42	bibsonomy.org	5,153	7	Publications
43	leenks.com	5,558	5	Entertainment
44	showhype.com	6,060	5	Web Design
45	sphinn.com	6,092	6	Internet Marketing
46	showhype.com	6,189	5	Web Design
47	stylehive.com	6,290	6	Fashion
48	designfloat.com	6,578	5	Web Design & Development
49	linkagogo.com	6,624	5	Internet
50	buddymarks.com	6,989	5	General
51	corank.com	7,440	5	News
52	searchles.com	7,706	5	World
53	spurl.net	7,711	0	Internet
54	ballhype.com	8,081	6	Sports
55	swik.net	8,168	5	Open Source news
56	shoutwire.com	9,036	5	General
57	simpy.com	9,262	6	General
58	citeulike.org	9,739	8	Academic
59	wirefan.com	10,615	3	Internet
60	photoshoproadmap.com	12,121	5	Graphics and Web Design
61	smallbusinessbrief.com	12,696	4	Internet Marketing and Business
62	dealigg.com	13,135	4	Deals
63	startaid.com	13,268	5	Internet
64	good-tutorials.com	13,709	6	Web Design
65	pixel2life.com	13,856	5	Web Design & Development
66	bmaccess.net	14,114	4	Web Design and Graphics
67	cloudytags.com	17,600	0	General
68	clipclip.org	18,245	5	Internet
69	buzzflash.com	18,334	7	News
70	givealink.org	19,212	4	General
71	blogmarks.net	20,802	4	Internet
72	oldrec.com	20983	4	General
73	work.com	21,576	6	Business & Work
74	maple.nu	21,913	4	Metal and Rock
75	linkroll.com	22,346	5	General
76	easybm.com	23,491	5	Health & Medicine
77	rnel.net	23,661	2	Graphics and Web Design
78	sitejot.com	24,456	5	General
79	autospies.com	24,539	5	Cars
80	netvouz.com	26,218	6	Internet
81	backflip.com	26,340	6	General
82	plime.com	26,966	5	News Culture
83	uvouch.com	28,286	4	Videos
84	tweako.com	29,006	5	General
85	megite.com	31,119	0	General
86	saveyourlinks.com	31,794	4	General
87	bookmark-manager.com	32,258	4	Web Design & Development
88	9rules.com	33,102	6	Internet
89	fuzzfizz.com	33830	0	Music
90	ma.gnolia.com	34,652	6	Internet
91	favoor.com	35,002	4	General
92	plugim.com	40,294	5	Internet Marketing
93	connectedy.com	41,473	4	General
94	flashperfection.com	42,962	5	Flash Design
95	sync2it.com	61,096	4	General
96	feedmarker.com	67,108	4	General
97	dnhour.com	67,704	4	News
98	i89.us	73,045	4	General
99	photoshop-pack.com	84,321	4	Graphics and Web Design
100	webride.org	84,621	4	General

Top web forums that you should not miss

2010-11-26T02:53:00.000-08:00

I was wondering to create a list of some of the top web forums. So this is the list for you.
It is ranked by Alexa

Num	Website	Alexa	Page Rank	Category

1	forums.digitalpoint.com	190	4	Webmastering
2	warriorforum.com	450	5	SEO
3	webmasterworld.com	633	7	Webmastering
4	r10.net	731	4	Webmastering
5	sitepoint.com	886	7	Webmastering
6	webhostingtalk.com	1,420	7	Web Hosting
7	daniweb.com	1,426	6	IT
8	forums.seochat.com	2,029	5	SEO
9	talk.iwebtool.com	2,209	5	Affiliate marketing
10	v7n.com	2,317	4	Webmastering
11	forums.devshed.com	2,337	5	Webmastering
12	forums.searchenginewatch.com	2,615	5	Web Development
13	webdeveloper.com	2,981	6	SEO
14	namepros.com	3,190	7	Web Development
15	earnersforum.com	3,343	5	Domains
16	webmaster-talk.com	3772	5	Affiliate Marketing
17	webmaster-talk.com	3,813	5	Webmastering
18	affiliates4u.com	4,850	4	Affiliate marketing
19	dnforum.com	5,046	5	Domains
20	kirupa.com	5,725	7	Webmastering
21	ozzu.com	5,735	5	Webmastering
22	forums.seroundtable.com	5,866	3	SEO
23	forum.abestweb.com	6,535	5	Affiliate marketing
24	dreamteammoney.com	7,075	4	Webmastering
25	ukbusinessforums.co.uk	7,624	5	Webmastering
26	associateprograms.com	7,845	6	Affiliate marketing
27	webproworld.com	8,066	5	SEO
28	whydowork.com	8,990	5	Affiliate marketing
29	affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com	11,415	4	Affiliate marketing
30	netbuilders.org	11445	3	Webmastering
31	highrankings.com	11,545	5	SEO
32	forums.blogflux.com	11,781	0	Blogging
33	code4gold.com	11,809	3	Affiliate marketing
34	performancing.com	13,146	6	Blogging
35	theadminzone.com	14,476	4	Webmastering
36	webcosmoforums.com	14879	3	Webmastering
37	htmlforums.com	15,053	5	Web Development
38	youngentrepreneur.com	15,809	6	Webmastering
39	bloggingtips.com	16,835	5	Blogging
40	freewebspace.net	17,336	6	Web Hosting
41	acorndomains.co.uk	17,637	5	Domains
42	thefreeadforum.com	17,741	3	Affiliate marketing
43	dnscoop.com	17,758	5	Domains
44	askdamagex.com	18,020	3	Webmastering
45	bzimage.org	20,059	4	Domains
46	webtalkforums.com	20,431	4	Webmastering
47	forum.kahuki.com	21,980	3	Web Development
48	frontpagewebmaster.com	22,912	4	Webmastering
49	bloggeries.com	24,175	3	Blogging
50	forums.ukwebmasterworld.com	24,485	3	Webmastering
51	createblog.com	24,693	5	Blogging
52	ewealth.com	24,717	3	Affiliate marketing
53	webworkshop.net	24,922	3	SEO
54	ahfb2000.com	26,173	5	Webmastering
55	webforumz.com	27,292	3	Webmastering
56	googlecommunity.com	27,497	4	SEO
57	cre8asiteforums.com	27,665	5	Webmastering
58	irishwebmasterforum.com	29,731	5	Webmastering
59	moneyfanclub.com	30,366	2	Affiliate marketing
60	netpond.com	31,996	4	Webmastering
61	talkfreelance.com	35,070	4	Web Development
62	internetbasedmoms.com	39,810	4	SEO
63	idnforums.com	41,737	4	Domains
64	geekpoint.net	46102	3	Webmastering
65	clickbanksuccessforum.com	47,452	4	Affiliate marketing
66	affiliateprograms.com	48,095	4	Affiliate marketing
67	webdigity.com	52,295	4	Webmastering
68	geekvillage.com	52,461	4	SEO
69	teneric.co.uk	56,361	5	Affiliate Marketing
70	im4newbies.com	57,798	3	Affiliate marketing
71	seorefugee.com	58,495	2	SEO
72	netmarketingforum.com	66,138	2	Affiliate Marketing
73	ihelpyou.com	69,995	4	SEO
74	getpaidforum.com	72,553	0	Affiliate marketing
75	discussweb.com	74449	4	IT
76	searchengineforums.com	80,607	6	SEO
77	helpingwebmasters.com	83166	3	Web Hosting
78	bloggerforum.com	85,349	4	Blogging
79	domainstate.com	85,364	4	Domains
80	webmastermalaysia.com	100,344	3	Webmastering
81	webmasterwelt.net	108,639	2	German Webmaster
82	seo-guy.com	110,025	4	SEO
83	forum.authorityblogger.com	121,557	4	Blogging
84	howtocorphelp.com	161,064	0	Affiliate Marketing
85	dnlodge.com	162,698	3	Domains
86	discussnames.com	184,950	5	Domains
87	affearners.com	221,168	4	Affiliate marketing
88	theblogexperiment.com	227,751	4	Bloggging
89	hostingforum.ca	430,930	3	Web Hosting
90	ddboard.com	659,850	1	Domains
91	mediaunivers.com	12967705	3	Portuguese Webmater Forum

74 Comments

LinkedIn - really bugs me every time

2010-08-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

LinkedIn makes me sad sometimes. And i cannot help it. Can we all discuss this new screen on LinkedIn.

Have you noticed the screen that appears every time we login to LinkedIn.

It asks to enter the image text in the verification boxes. The SPAM control mechanism.

I guess this is for user authentication.

I don't see a need for this - well i see a need, if that is the case then all accounts should ask the same.

Can there be another way around this? Please suggest.

Top influencers of this Week - I am surprised

2010-08-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

Today i was looking at my LinkedIn account. I am a group member on USER EXPERIENCE a prominent group on LinkedIn. I own other UX groups too, with around 200-300 memebrs. My other UX groups on LinkedIn are
1. Expert UX Consultants
2. User Experience Practitioners

Well thank you for the listing in Top influencers on LinkedIn. I appreciate all the support from other UX Consultants in the process.

Stop card eating by ATMs - JOIN US to make a change ?

2010-07-03T11:13:00.001-07:00

I had the previliege to transact with multiple ATMs machine in different countries. I have done transactions in UK, USA, France and INDIA. I can say all the ATM machines are not equal. Some of them is so bad that you may land in trouble.

In India i transact with ICICI bank, SBI bank, Citi bank & HDFC bank. In UK i was with CITI bank & same in US too.

Now let me highlight why i hate few of these atms. I agree there are millions of users who feel the same.

I am starting a movement to request banks across the world to change the basic design of their ATMs. Join this page for change.

http://www.causes.com/causes/501969?m=eb7a7bc2

I HATE WHEN MY CARD IS EATEN BY MY ATM.Do you hate it too.

Type 1 : Few ATM machines have slots that needs to accept the cards inside. Once you put the card in the slot, the machine takes the card inside. It reads the card in and after transaction it pops up the card out.

Type 2: In this type of ATM, we need to insert the card in the slot and pull it out.The machine does not take the card in. Basically it is a swipe, that the user does when he puts the card in the slot and pulls it out.

Type 1 machine should be removed out. I like type 2 machines as there is no chance that your card will be eaten by the ATM. Show your support to the above idea and need.It is a user need and Banks must listen to it.

Join this page and create awareness – it may help you and in a critical situation when your Cab driver is waiting for the payment and you are doing a transaction.At this time it would be hell if your card is eaten by the ATM.This situation was suggested by my close friend Sankar while having dinner & beer. :-)

http://www.causes.com/causes/501969?m=eb7a7bc2

Join it, it will change life.

Tools to create e-Commerce on your site

2010-07-03T10:25:00.001-07:00

Is e-commerce a costly affair to implement on your site. I thought that it will be a costly affair however it is not. The solution i am suggesting can be used by small sites for individual products and services online.

The solution can be used by

1. Artists

2. Designers

3. Painters

4. Consultants

Ok let me tell the solution, it is PayPal. Let me help you how to use it.

Step 1: First go to the paypal site. www.paypal.com

There you need to create an account.

Step 2:Add the bank account to the account. This process is simple, you need to provide your bank account. Paypal will deposit some money in your account. You need to login in your account and enter the deposited amount in paypal site.

Step 3: Click on Merchant services in paypal. Under key features you can find “Paypal shopping cart”, click on it.

Step 4: The page will take you to create a paypal button.On this page you have to work upon 3 steps, they are below

Step 5: Work on step 1

Step 6: Work on step 2

Step 7: Work on the final step 3

Step 8: Insert the Button code in the shopping page. Your buyers can pay via credit card or with their paypal accounts. If you face any issue please write an e-mail to me. smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

Best tool to move blogs from Wordpress to Blogger

2010-06-20T01:42:00.000-07:00

I was thinking a way to move my wordpress blog to Blogger. I did simple goolge reserch and finally found the ultimate solution to do it.

Here is the online tool to do it.

http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/

How to work as a Consultant - sharing my first experience

2010-03-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you the experience that i came through when i was in the shoes of a consultant the first time. I was at the age of 20 when i got my first client. It was a very short project. My dad worked in a govt. organization and he had good terms with his boss. That means i got the project because of contacts. In service business contacts helps you a lot. One client refers you to the next one and next one refers you to the other next.

Business problem:

My dad's office was looking to create a govt. report. The report will include his office efforts in safe gaurding office buildings from fire hazards. Recentely a govt. building caught fire in another state, so the head office was seeking the steps my dad's organization was doing aganist fire hazards.

Solution

The solution was to create building drawing of all the buildings and indicate where are the fire exits, where are the fire stations and other fire fighting instructions located in the buildings. My work was to finalize the fire locations, the fire exits in the buildings and depict in building drawing of the complete 3 buildings which were having 2 floors each. The image of the building is shown above. Although all the three buildings are nor captured in the photo, but it will get you the view how much work was involved. Wondering how was i able to create building drawings, well i am a B.E in Civil enginneering. :-)

Lessons learned in the process.

Stakeholder: Maintain the list of the stakeholder & there expectations from the assignment. What they are looking from you. It can be done by talking with them, meeting with them.

Deliverable: The deliverables were 7 building drawing sheets.

Timeline: Make sure you deliver in time. Set the expectations right first hand and deliver on time.

Fees/Cost: Let them know how much it will cost them for your service.Agree on the price & the payment modes. Whether you want it lump sum amount, Time and material or any other convienent method you both mutually agreed upon.

Deliverable options: If you can provide two options to choose, for the stakeholders it would be great. When we provide options to the cusotmer to choose from then they feel they are in control and repsond more positively.

Walkthrough: Provide a walkthorugh of your work, make them understand your point. Sell your work & move to the payment options.

Well i told you the major chunks of a consultant works. I agree there are many other things that goes in to this profession. Hope this post will ignite sparks to pursue this type of work and make some real money in this business.

User persona images - Use them for free

2010-03-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

In our design process, we make sure we create user persona's and get the requirements right the first time. What is the point when user's are not using the design that is made for them. All the money the hard work goes in the drain if product are not used by users.

You are right i am taking about the satisfaction aspect of the design. The other elements are

Here are the free images.

[gallery]

Learnability:How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they re establish proficiency?
Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?

To make sure that the design meets the user needs user persona is created. I suggest the images used in the persona creation speaks a lot. Using good images in persona creation can take you a long way. We have uploaded some of the images we used in our persona creation. Use these images and modify it according to your needs.

Happy birth day photoshop

2010-03-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Guys! Did you forgot to wish photoshop on it's 20th birthday. Yes now you can wish photoshop.

Check out photoshop page on facebook.

You can also create a greeting card and get a chance to win a copy of photoshop.

Free project managment software

2010-03-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

Today you got promoted to a project manager, and you do not have microsoft project on your laptop. Microsoft project will cost you money and it may take some time for you to get one. So what are the alternatives to get a project management software that will be able to process .mpp files send to you.

I was looking for this answer and i got the solution to this problem.

OpenProj : OpenProj is a free, open source desktop alternative to Microsoft Project. OpenProj has been downloaded over 1,250,000 times in over 142 countries and has quickly become one of the most popular open source applications. If you are managing a group project we recommend Projects On Demand. If you want a free replacement to commercial desktop software, then OpenProj is perfect. OpenProj is also now included with Star Office in Europe. It's available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows, and it's free.

Now download it with a big smile.

Download openproj

How to design a user form

2010-03-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

User form - you must have seen them and i am sure you have filled them one time or the other. If not online on a website then i bet you must have filled them in front of the shopping mall or applying for a new bank account or new credit card. User forms are a convenient way to capture and grab the user details and there needs. Forms are used when business does not have the time to spend individual man hours with each costumers, when similar type of information needs to be collected from the user's.

In this article i will help you create a form keeping in mind the business perspective. I will see that the usability is take care at a high level, to take care of usability of the form i will write another article. Loading so much information in one is not good - as INFORMATION OVERLOAD or human memory 6+-2 concepts in User experience design.

Business need: As i told earlier that the need for form comes into picture when the business feels that they are not in a position to apply 1 on 1 human resource to capture the details from its costumers. Business can either request its user to fill the forms online or offline.

As a designer how would you go for the form design for a particular process? Think on this question and it will lead you to conduct a FOCUS group or a meeting with the business process owner to understand the flow of the information that will be collected using the forms. Now let us create a step by step process to get the FROM right as per the business need.

Step 1: Understand the business need

Step a meeting with the SME (Subject matter expert) who is working on the process for which the form creation is requested. You can write an e-mail setting up the business context and the questions which will help you to gain more information. A sample e-mail would look like this.

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Business context: We are planning to create a new form for your XYZ process. This form will be available online where users can fill it. This information will be collected by your department and processed.

Questions:

1. What is the key peice of information that is importnat for your departemnt to process the requests

2. What information are not mandatory

3. Define the whole process by taking a sample example. The complete methodology would be helpful.

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Step 2: Business Scenarios definition

The business scenario needs to be understood, as the form that will be created should be able to suffice all the possible business scenarios.

Step 3: Form flow

Give value to the form flow, what sections of the form should come first and how the information flow should be there. Give emphasis on the hierarchy of the sections.

Key take aways for usability

I will be writing a separate article on form usability. I would like to suggest some key pointers that will make the form usable and take care of major usability issues.

1. Information grouping : Group the information in larger chunks, for example when you are asking the users about his details we can have these sections

> Tell us about yourself - name, age, gender

> What u do - profession

> Where do u live - address, street, ZIP, state country etc

> What u like - reading, playing etc

2. Make it a talk show: Use phrases that seems like a person is asking these questions to the users. Above the personal information - TELL US MORE ABOUT YOURSELF etc will increase the intrest level of user's.

3.Pagination: Use pagination if the form is too long.

4. Progress bar at top will help a lot if the form is long.

I think my purpose is solved here, to emphasis on the point that the form should match the business flow not vice versa. The information collected by the forms should be used by the business. If business does not need it, avoid including that field in the forms.

Best word press e-commerce theme - WP store

2010-03-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

We were looking for a wordpress e-commerce theme to host the media company we are working on. The game design head in hyederabd -INDIA wanted a solution that is easy to work upon. I suggested him a e-commerce site to sell the products and services. Users can see the different product details and if they want they can use the shopping cart and buy it online. Oh what a cool idea. Now we wanted to host this app on Wordpress with minimum efforts and time. Of course it took us some time to tweak it. You can download WP store from here.

HTC 8525 - Best mobile ever

2010-02-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

Best mobile ever

Social Media Revolution

2010-02-24T15:12:00.000-08:00

This video is good to explain the social media revolution.

Best Video on User Experience Design - Google

2010-02-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

This is the best video that i feel on user experience design. Enjoy!

Essential Tabs in excel Reports

2010-02-13T05:39:00.000-08:00

In my job, there are multiple calls weekly with the stakeholders. The most common agenda in the con calls are report discussion and various tasks progress. I have been looking at different excel reports, and i can sense the reports are extracted from huge bigger excel sheets with a lot of raw data.

The whole idea of this blog, it to make you aware that in any report you send to the customer there should be these 3 tabs in the excel, without which you will make the report less impactful. One more important thing it to include the name of the parameters in X & Y axis. The report should be easy to understand by its audience.

The key tabs, that are essential are

Tab 1. Methodology - this tab should have the assumption/hypothesis along with the step by step description of the steps that were taken to generate the report.

Tab 2. Findings -this excel tab should have the Findings and Inference of the report. A good suggestive graphs should be there to make the audience understand the reports.

Tab 3. Comparison - this tab should show the actual numbers that were used to generate the graphs.

I hope that these 3 tabs you will always include in your reports.

Manager's please learn PIVOT in excel

2010-02-13T05:15:00.000-08:00

Some days back, i got a huge excel sheet with many columns and rows of data. The program manager in US requested analysis of the excel sheet and come up with a methodology. I went to the SDM(Service delivery manager) and had a word with him. I learned some cool tricks in excel that i am eager to share with you all. I feel that all mangers should give a try to learn PIVOT in excel.

I will highlight how to work with pivot.

Step 1: Open the excel sheet on which you want to work on.

Step 2: Select all the data from the excel.

Step 3: Open INSERT tab, and click on PIVOT.Click on “insert” tab and select “Pivot table”. The path will be

Insert >> Pivot Table >> Pivot Table.Create PivotTable pop up screen will be displayed as shown in the screen capture below. Click on the OK button.

Step 4: Another sheet will be displayed, as shown below. Pivot table field list will be also present on the right hand side of the window. Select the column that you want to sort out.

Step 5:Similarly select other two parameters. We can adjust the placement of these parameters in the 4 boxes that is present in the top screen. Drag and drop the parameters to generate the report.

I think this is a small step towards PIVOT in excel. Move on with PIVOT, it is really helpful to prepare and analyze data.

Add Google analytics

2009-12-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

I have seen the magic of google analytics multiple times, you will be amazed to see how many people from which part of the world are watching your pages and how much time they spend on them. I would like to rate GA as one on the best tools that google has created. Now let us leverage this tool for you. I will show step by step process to make google analytics work for you. The steps are simple to follow, plese do not get bogged by the code, it is just copy and paste at the right place on your webpages, you need not write even a single line of code.

Note: I will refer Google Analytics as GA in the following, please bear with me.

Get google account first

Sign up for a google analytics account. If you have a google account(Gmail) then you can directly login in to GA. Once you have logged in, you will be shown the main section. In the first login you will see no anlytics accounts in the landing page. In GA analytics account means the tracking website, suppose you want to track 3 websites then you need to create 3 analytics accounts or in simple terms 3 profiles. A single google ID can help you to track multiple websites at one time.

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Step 1: Login to GA landing page, click on create a new analytics account, you will be taken to the analytics registration page.

Fill the above form and click on Continue.

Step 2: As soon you click Continue, you will be dispalyed with the GA code that you need to paste at the bottom of the page.

The code will look like this

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12226152-1");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

Step 3: Paste the code that is given to you at the end of your page just above </body> as illustrated below

</div>

Your GA code comes here

</body>

</html>

Step 4: Now go and check the GA account and after few minutes you will see that GA starts tracking your web page.

See how simple it is to work with Google Analytics.

Transfer blogspot to wordpress blog

2009-12-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

I saw many instances where bloggers are taking their own domain and they want to move their blogs. Most of the time i have seen they prefer wordpress blog as the platform, as Blogspot does not allow to host it on as easy as Wordpress. The common trend is that blogger prefer Wordpress for hosting. I am aware and has highlighted in earlier post that the learning curve of Wordpress is longer than blogspot.

Ok now let us try to move blogspot to your own domain. Please follow the below steps as mentioned below.

Step 1:Login to blogger account. Go to settings section. There you will find Blog tools, under blog tools you will have the below options

Import blog

Export blog

Delete blog

Summary:Login > Dashboard > Settings > Basic > Blog tools

Step 2:Click on Export blog, this will take you to download blog page. Click on download blog button. This will ask you to save the blog as a .XML file. Save the file xml on the desktop.

Step 3:Login to Wordpress account where you want to transfer the blogspot blog. Go to dashboard, under dashboard you will find Tools. You will have to move to the Tools > Import > Blogger – Import posts, section.

Now upload the .xml blogger file that you had downloaded earlier. The import blogger tool will take care of the steps and give you options to choose from. You have to give authorization to do it by entering the password of your account. Once step 3 is done you are good to go.

Step 4: Enjoy :-)

Is that simple or not. This is one of the shortest methods by which you can transfer blogspot to wordpress.

There is another method that is a little time consuming, this you can use if the number of posts on blogspot is few. See how this can be done, but note you can not completely delete the blogspot.

Step 1: Login to blogspot

Step 2: Copy the HTML code of the post one by one and paste in the wordpress post HTML editor. By doing this you need not have to reuplaod the images as wordpress will fetch the images from blogspot.

Limitation: If there are imgaes in your posts it become little difficult as the images that you will see on wordpress are actually from blogspot.

You can choose what ever method that is convenient for you.

Blogger or Wordpress?

2009-12-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

Blogging platforms, i am sure you must have heard about them. I am going to take example of 2 most famous blogging platform and do a interface analysis focusing on the task completion. I looked at Blogger and Wordpress and have used both of them for writing blogs, however i think when it comes to writing blogs and understand each section, Word press had done a better job.

Good points about wordpress.

1. Collapsible sections: The global navigation is on the left hand side and each section can be expanded by a click, the user can easily find out the section he is looking for, without refreshing the contents in the work area.

2. Robust editor:Wordpress editor is robust as there are multiple options like paste from word, paste from text, image editing, add video etc.

3. Typing area:Toggle full screen mode expands the type pad and you can get a lot of space to type the content. In blogger this flexibility is not so prominent.

4. Categorize posts:There is option to post the blog in a particular category.

5. Plug-ins: Multiple plug ins are available that can make the blog look better and work better. The features in wordpress gives more room for experimenting and fits the need of the user's who want their blogs to be distinct and unique.

Good points about Blogger

1. Simple:Blogger is very simple to use as there is progressive disclosure in the menu display. The user is not bombarded with all the content. It helps in learn-ability.

2. Visual elements:The layout of the blog can be altered based on visual cues and each section is displayed in an intuitive manner.

3. Content organization: The content is well organized in blogger.

I have given these points on a very high level and focused on the major task completion.If i had to see the biggest hurdle in wordpress is ... it is little difficult to learn. The learning curve is bigger in wordpress.

I had a friend who took quite amount of time to master it, and i also took some time to understand it fully.

Which one to choose

If you are looking for long term good results, its great to choose wordpress, although the learning curve is longer. The plug ins and the huge user base on Wordpress can help you in a bigger way. I am giving these suggestions based on my experience. Later if you want to create your own site you can easily host wordpress as compared to blogger.

Web analytics

2009-12-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

Web analytics defined

Web analytics refers to the collection, analysis and reporting of Web site usage byvisitors. The information helps site managers better understand the effectivenessof their online initiatives and helps them optimize their Web site.

While traditional Web analytics have concentrated their analysis on clickstream behavior of users — page by page or sequential navigation of Website visitors. These type of anlaysis leads to a huge raw data to be assimiliated & analyzed so now technocrats are focussing on business reporting. Examples of such reports include marketing campaign analysis, ROI measurement,process analysis and more.

Four site types where webanalytics can be effectively applied.

Usually the below four site types can be used for generation of webanalytics business reporting.

e-commerce: These sites are used to sell products online through online e-commerce engine.Example of such sites include amazon.com, walmart, target.com etc.The deceding factor in these sites is number of sales comleted sucessfully.

Lead generation: These sites are used to capture the contact details of customers so they can be followed by the sales force team for selling.Example of such sites include sun life insurance,new your life etc.The deciding criteria for these sites are lead capture & form submits.

Content site: These site are based on the advertising business model.Some of the sites doing well in this area are bbc news, fox entertainment, msn etc. The sucess of these sites rely on the returning visits made by the users.The goal is to keep the visitors comming back so they need to refresh the content @ appropriate rates for the site to be successful.

Support or self service: These sites are developed to reduce the loading & cut costs in terms of customer service representatives. These sites provides customers with the ability to find answers to their products queries.The success of these sites depend on providing answers for product queries.

Webanalytics adoption curve

Content or media sites enjoy the highest adoption level because many vendors have been able to provide specific metrics to them early on. Curve portrayed by Geoffrey Moore’s "Crossing the Chasm." notice that the content sites enjoy the highest adoption of Web analytics, followed
by commerce, lead generation and self service models.

Social networking

2009-12-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

Today social media, is kool to indulge in but we can say that we are going to a place where we can have 150 friends and connections and when the time comes no one will lend you a $ 100 dollar bill.

It is a fact, but it will need more drill down and sync in. Let me explain it to you.You will have a twitter account and there are 200 people who follow you, but that does not mean they love you or they will help you. They follow you because you tweet some porn jokes every 1 hour or some other thing.

So what is the solution for this, i am not a sage to tell you the answer right now, but i say that there are ways in which social media should touch the human stuff of real connection.

You may have a linkedin connection in town, but are you willing to hang out for coffe this week end.The answer is no. Think about this aspect of social media and you will be astonished to some extent.

Let us try to create a better world by making social media more touching. You can not consider yourself better because you have more friends or more connections online. It depends on are you really connected to the people.

Graphic Design tips

2009-12-16T18:07:00.000-08:00

"Graphic design pointers"
1. Proximity and uniform connectedness is the two important principles of Gestalt
2. All graphic design is ultimately management of white spaces.

Gestalt principles
Are related to the visual reorganization of figures and forms.
• Emergence: this principle emphasis that we do not recognize a thing in parts but as a whole. For example, we do not recognize a dog by its body parts (tail, face etc) but as a whole.
• Rectification: Is the constructive or generative aspect of perception. If we draw three dots on a white sheet in close order, our mind will see a triangle there.
• Multi stability: is related to having ambiguous perceptions.
• Invariance: is the property in which the simple geometrical shapes are recognized independent of rotation, translation, and scale.

Graphic design principles
The visual design principles are extrapolation of gestalt principles. The perception of visual patterns yielded a number of consistent principles that dominate the theoretical basis for much of modern graphic design.
1. Proximity: The elements that are close to each other are considered as more related than the elements that lie farther apart.
2. Similarity: If the elements share consistent visual look they will be treated as a group.
3. Continuity: We prefer continuous, unbroken contours and paths. The two lines crossing each other are mostly not viewed as four lines meeting at a common point.
4. Closure: We have a strong bias to see completed.
5. Figure ground reversal: Viewer’s perception reverses between two possible interpretations.
6. Uniform connectedness: Refers relations of elements that are defined by enclosing elements within other elements, regions or discrete areas of the page.
7. 1+ 1 = 3 effects: The white space between two elements forms a third element.

Consistency
1. A consistent approach to layout and navigation allows users to easily locate the information and navigation controls across the web sites.
2. The primary task of graphic design is to create a strong, consistent visual hierarchy in which important elements are emphasized and content is organized logically and predictably.

Contrast
1. The readers visual scanning moves from contrast of the web pages, then the different sections and finally the written matter content.
2. The most effective way of doing this is to balance the text and links with small graphics.

Color and contrast
1. Text legibility is dependent on the reader’s ability to distinguish the letters from the background filed.
2. Color differentiation depends on brightness and saturation
3. Black text on white background has the highest amount of contrast since black color has no brightness and while color is all-bright.
4. Hue is also a factor with complementary colors such as blue and yellow producing the greatest contrast.
5. Be sure to use colors so it is easy to distinguish text from background.
6. Do not forget that almost 10 percent of male readers have some trouble distinguishing fine shades of red from shades of green
7. If you are using gradient stick with black text and avoid using dark color in the background.
8. Optically bright colors on white like yellow disappear
9. White text on black is almost good for legibility
10. The optimal combination for legibility is black on white
11. Hue
12. Saturation
13. Brightness

Contrast variability
The contrast for the legibility needs to be different from application to application, as there are multiple scenarios in which the application will be used. The mobile devices are used in the house and exteriors, the falling sunlight may make arouse problems in legibility.

Tools for graphic emphasis
1. The tool for graphic emphasis are powerful and must be used in sparingly in small amounts, over use makes them ineffective as emphasis on a particular section is not given.
2. Colors drawn from nature are almost inherently harmonious and subdued

White space
1. A fixed width layout include – the page at the center of the browser window
2. For liquid layouts use 90 to 95 % of the screen instead of 100%, leave some background around the functional areas of the page to prove visual relief.
3. If your page width is reasonable it will provide a visual relief
4. The ground field around the page elements is as active as any figure filed on the page.
5. Filling all the white space in the page is like removing the air form the room. Use white space effectively.

Style
1. The best style is the one that the readers never notice

Simplicity
1. Vision impaired people are lost on the web
2. People with cognitive disabilities such as memory and learning disabilities the difficulty is magnified many fold.

Typography
1. Good typography is based on the visual contrast between one font and the other, and the contrast between the text blocks and the surrounding empty space.
2. We read primarily by recognizing the overall shape of the words, not by parsing each letter and then assembling a recognizable word.
3. Avoid all upper case headlines, as they are difficult to read, because words formed with capital letters are monotonous rectangles that offer few distinctive shapes to catch the readers eye.
4. Legibility depends on the top of the words. If you use initial letters as caps, you disrupt the readers scanning of the words.
5. Initial Caps Causes Pointless Bumps
6. The first thing the users see is the overall contrast and the pattern of the page.
7. Choose few heading styles and subtitles to organize your content then use chosen style religiously.
8. In conventional print layout 30 t0 40 characters per line are considered ideal
9. Web page layout violates one of the basic book and magazine typography. The lines of text in web pages are mostly long to be easily read. Magazine and book columns are narrow for physiological reasons: The eyes span of movement is usually eight cms (3 inches wide) so designers keep the paragraphs wide enough to span in the eyes comfortable span of eight cms. If the lines are long, the user’s eyes are strained by flexing the head and eye muscles.

Does plastic bags increases the shopping experience?

2009-12-16T03:39:00.001-08:00

I went to the shopping mart to buy groceries, i am proud to say that in India we have copied the way we buy groceries like – soap, whole grains, daily bread, cookies, vegetables etc from western countries but forgot to imbibe the go green mantra, no to plastics.

Let me illustrate how we used to buy groceries 10 years back in most of the Indian cities. We used to go to a common market where vegetable hawkers, farmers used to sell vegetables fresh from their farms. Or we used to go to small street shops and buy the grains, pulses, wheat etc.

Plastic bags and shopping experience

I think people are more happy when they buy items in paper bags,the paper makes them calm.Paper carry bags looks more elegant and aesthetic than plastic bags. Then why plastic bags are more in use.Sleep on the above question.

For groceries we used to visit similar shops as shown above

Good points of the above methods of shopping

We used to carry our cloth bag to buy vegetables
We used to carry our cloth bag to buy groceries

Now Smart, Reliance, More etc have successfully copied the retail market from western countries very well, and it is also successful in India, but they missed the paper element in that.

When i was in UK and USA, and went for shopping vegetables, groceries etc.The stores like Sainsbury and Whole foods used to sell products in paper bags not in plastic bags.

What can we do

Carry your own cloth bags when you go for grocery shopping's
You can even use a plastic bag for grocery shopping, but make sure that you use it many times
While buying vegetables do not pack them in separate bags, use a single plastic bag to carry them.
Buy from local hawkers if possible, since they give already recycled plastic bags

What retailers should do

Stop giving plastic bags and use paper bags
Initiate a program to return the plastic bag with some offers
Reuse the plastic bags
Use recycled plastic bags

What govt should do

Ban use of plastic bags in the shopping malls & implement it harshly and cooperation.

If you feel that the points i am making is important, please leave a comment and suggestions.

You can write to me smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

UX Copenhagen: Go green with Survey Monkey – Online survey & questionnaire preparation tips

2009-12-15T02:05:00.001-08:00

Survey Monkey is one of the most popular tools to create surveys, publish survey, conduct survey and finally even record the participants feedback and analyze the results.

I have tried many tools in the market for the user survey but i feel survey monkey is better in many ways. Let us try to see how survey monkey works.

Survey Monkey is my personal favorite

Components in survey monkey: Survey monkey has basically 3 important sections that once mastered will help you to create and manage user surveys.

1. Design: this section helps in designing of the survey which will be posted to the participants

2. Collect: this section will help in collecting the responses

3. Analyze: this section helps in the analysis of the responses and prepare the survey report.

Account type: In most cases a free account will help you to create, collect and analyze the results. In free account there is restriction for download of the reports.Based on the requirements go ahead and sign up. In most cases i think you can easily work with free account, in case you need higher reporting capability then go for the paid options.

Big Step 1: Creation of a new survey

Creation of new survey is as easy as 1 2 3… see the below image for illustration.

Adding Questions: You can easily add questions, notice the default section that will be shown to you and the “Add Question here” button.

Themes: there are some color full themes that you can use to change the look of the survey questionnaire. See the above yellow color and the green themes.

Once you click on “Add question here” the below overlay will be shown to the user

You can select the type of question and frame your answers. This window allows the users to have questions of the following types

In this way you go on and create the questions. Once you log in the application it is pretty much easy to work with it.

Big Step 2: Collect responses

In this section the user publishes the survey to the users. There are 3 ways in which the responses can be collected. The 3 ways are shown below

Big Step 3 : Analyze results

Once the survey is send to the participants, there responses are collected and the analyzed. For collection we need not worry as Survey monkey has built in tool to collect the responses. The survey results are collected on a auto pilot and you can go forward and analyze the results.

Each questions answers are calculated and based on the responses a graph is created which can be shared with the customers.

Now see how cool it is to use Survey monkey. I would suggest instead of using pen and papers for survey go forward and use online tools this will make the survey easy to manage and in one sense makes the process eco friendly – Go green with Survey Monkey.

If you need more help, please drop an e-mail to smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

Survey Monkey - The best way to conduct online survey

2009-12-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

In this blog i will write about the steps to use survey monkey and how to generate survey reports.

The tips will help you to conduct user survey easily. I will also point some other resources that can be used for conducting surveys.
Please wait a bit, i am in a session, i will post this blog as soon as i get some free time.

Comment box – a good design

2009-12-10T02:45:00.001-08:00

In the world of web 2.0 comment box can be of great help. The reason behind that is every comment, every view is important as people are the creators of content.

The comment box should have the below UI elements

1. Word count: A word count will help the users know how much they can type in and what is the current word counts. It boosts user awareness and control.

2. Full view: Make the comment box fluid, so as the user types the text the box expands and provides the user with complete view of his inputted text.

Now let us see how we can do this

. Size of box: The size of the comment box can be predefined so it accommodates the text in one visual.

.Fluid comment box: This can be done my making the box fluid vertically. Only the bottom of the box can be expanded. See the image below

The user can expand the content box by dragging it.

. Spell check: Auto spell check is a god option to provide.

. More: We can also provide editors, font selections, image upload etc, however this depends on the extend of use of the comment box. It is a business decision based on the type of industry.

Creativity has no end, but please don’t forgot usability and UX.

How to add Google Analytics code to Wordpress blog

2009-12-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

Google analytics is a tool that can be used to see what users are doing on your sites. To use this you need to have a Google analytics account.

Steps to follow

Download GA plugin

Install Google analytics plugin

Activate plugin

Copy and paste the code in wordpress dashboard

Let us work on the problem now, it is pretty easy to do.

Download GA plugin

Download the plugin from here or from here.

Install Google analytics plugin

Upload the GA plugin file in /public_html/wp-content/plugins

If it is a zip file, unzip it.

Activate plugin

Open wordpress dashboard and go to the plugins section.Activate the wordpress plugin

Register the tracking account with Google analytics

Click on Add a new account in the analytics home page

Sign up

Enter the website details

Copy the analytics code

Copy and paste the code in wordpress dashboard

In wordpress dashboard, go to settings and you will find GA there.

Click on Google Analytics and you will be displayed with the GA settings screen.

Paste the tracking code in the GA script box.

Note: Make sure the tracking code is same.

Go back to Google analytics and see if the results are pulled in. If you do not see success again try. It takes some time to get the details reflected in.

Was it simple. Please drop a comment.

How to plan user survey?

2009-12-03T11:18:00.000-08:00

Conducting survey can be a big challange if it is not planned and well defined methodlogy is followed.There are many ways to collect data from the users, which can be used for research and come up with better ways to make good products and value add to the services.

Some common methods are with the average costs

Method	Cost ($)
Focus group	2000-3000
User interviews	50 per user

The methodology that we can follow are illustrated in the below table.

Survey Methodology to use

Major steps	Tasks
Design Methodology	Goal clarification
	Overall study design

Determine feasibility	Infrastructure analysis

Develop instruments	Cover letter design
	Pre-notification design
	Questionnaire design
	Gentle reminder design

Select sample	Selecting the sample

Conduct pilot test	Sending pre-notification
	Conduct pilot test

Revise instruments	Revise questionnaire

Conduct research	Send Questionnaire
	Attempts to get non-respondents
	Collecting responses

Analyze Data	Editing the data and coding open-ended questions
	Analyzing the data

Report preparation	Preparing the report

Report presentation	Sending the report
	Walkthrough of the report

I hope the above table will help you to scope the work and plan a good survey.

How to prepare for e-mail User Survey?

2009-12-03T03:28:00.001-08:00

There are many ways to collect data from the users, which can be used for research and come up with better ways to make good products and value add to the services.

Some common methods are with the average costs

Method	Cost ($)
Focus group	2000-3000
User interviews	50 per user

The methodology that we can follow are illustrated in the below table.

Major steps	Tasks
Design Methodology	Goal clarification
	Overall study design

Determine feasibility	Infrastructure analysis

Develop instruments	Cover letter design
	Pre-notification design
	Questionnaire design
	Gentle reminder design

Select sample	Selecting the sample

Conduct pilot test	Sending pre-notification
	Conduct pilot test

Revise instruments	Revise questionnaire

Conduct research	Send Questionnaire
	Attempts to get non-respondents
	Collecting responses

Analyze Data	Editing the data and coding open-ended questions
	Analyzing the data

Report preparation	Preparing the report

Report presentation	Sending the report
	Walkthrough of the report

I hope the above table will help you to scope the work and plan a good e-mail survey.

Optimalsort & information architecture design – The IA of Optimal sort is questionable

2009-12-02T07:01:00.001-08:00

What are you gone crazy? the information architecture of Optimal sort is questionable, as per my view the IA is good but it has missed a major chunk that is critical for the repeated users.

Let me explain it, I was in UK for a UX project for BSI-British Standards Institute. We planned to conduct a card sorting, the best choice we felt is optimal sort and i going forward created an account for optimal sort.

I remember my user id and password for optimalsort website. Now after 6 months when i came to the optimal sort website there is no link that will take me to the login page.

User Login section is missing on the home page

It says sign up but there is no login section

The major sections of the website is

Tour | What is it? | Sign Up | About us | Blog

But where is the login section? This can be resolved by including a link that says, login here.

Hiding the complexity – a good UX concept

2009-12-01T08:03:00.001-08:00

I bought my new tv this year and to do this i went to different showrooms, i was accompanied by a good friend "Sankar" along. I appreciate Sankar as he is good in making decisions and gives a good analysis. One thing that stroked me, was we see many tv and lcd and finally the one which came home was a 29" inch tv with a nice controls. The controls on the tv was clean, all the ports were behind the tv, so once i play dvd the wires do not drop in front of the screen.

“Keep it clean” is the key that makes a good UI

We almost rejected all the TV designs in which we had the dvd player port displayed in front, as it will look ugly when we have inserted the dvd cords in it. The idea is of hiding the complex controls behind. This concept i can recall is well used by successful companies like NOKIA in making cell phones. The key pad are hidden behind a slide or a flip in the mobile phones.

We should use this concept to the maximum in UI design in software's. Let me give some examples how we can do the same.

Some Tips are

1. Hide it: Hide the detail sections of the interface by using collapse and expand controls.

2. New window: Use another window to show the details, it is a common technique which is used. It is a gentle reminder

3. Tabs: Use tabs to hide different sections of the application

4. Progressive disclosure: Display the next section when it is necessary to display it, For example only show the dependable section when the user has already made a decision to use them. The below image can help in explaining the same thing.

Let us make the interface clean, if you need more ideas for the same plz send an e-mail to smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

Where to insert the plugs - In tv console

2009-12-01T07:26:00.000-08:00

I bought my new tv this year and to do this i went to different showrooms, i was accompanied by a good friend "Sankar" along. I appreciate Sankar as he is good in making decesions and gives a good analysis. One thing that striked me, was we see many tv and lcd and finally the one which came home was a 29" inch tv with a nice controls on the tv.

We almost rejected all the TV designs in which we had the dvd player port dispalyed in front, as it will look ugly when we have inserted the dvd cords in it. The idea is of hiding the illustrave controls behind. This concept i can recall is well used by successful companies like NOKIA in making cell phones. The key pad are hidden behind a slide or a flip in the mobile phones.

Upfront count display – How it helps in user awareness

2009-11-30T05:29:00.001-08:00

We have seen numbers help users to take critical decisions and have an overview where they are headed and how they are interacting with the application.

Let me illustrate it by examples, in any e-mail client, in the navigation area, we display the number of messages sent, draft and available in the inbox. These numbers help the users to be aware about different sections of the application without being overwhelmed what number of e-mails are present.

In the above illustration the number “6623” helps the user know that 6623 number of e-mails are present in the inbox, taking the same rule user knows that 49 drafts are available.

Linkedin needs improvement

Linkedin has used this strategy to its benefit in the top level of the information cycle effectively. For example it tells the number of e-mail is 2 – but i don’t think this is right,

A question – is this number 2 indicates the total number of e-mail present or new messages received. This the user will know when he becomes a regular user of liked in. For the record 2 shows the new messages received whom you have not read.

Linked in should also include numbers in “Requests to join”. this will let the user know that some requests are pending that he needs to approve.

SHOULD WE USE THIS ONLY IN E-MAIL SECTIONS ?

I suggest no, we should extend this to other parts of the application, where there is a need.

When to use this?

We should use this when the below 3 conditions are present.

1. Number – the number which will be displayed should be countable and should represent a quantity, i.a number of friendship requests, drafts etc

2. Decisive – user should be able to make a good decision based on the numbers displayed.

3. Need – The user need should be there to display the numbers.

Let us see some good examples

Use this feature in the application in your designs and you can make the user’s life easy.

Need more suggestions or help regarding similar areas please contact smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

My achievements in UX design

2009-11-27T06:20:00.001-08:00

As I am working in User Experience design and usability engineering, i am just trying to look back and see what i did best. I am happy to say that some things got derailed on some instances but finally i made it and things were on track.

Good job done :-)

I am trying to look back by recollecting who were the clients and what i had worked in.(I cant’s disclose more details – NDA)

I am sure i forgot some of them which i will refer to my resume and update

Let us go in a backward cycle

In 2009

Client Work	Domain	What i worked on?
Universal Music Group	Music and entertainment	VEVO – usability testing
Cadence	IT software	Complete Software design
BSI-British standards institute	Standards, management systems, business improvement etc	Enterprise software design, UX workshops
Pepsi Co.	Food and beverages	Wireframes
eBay	Online commerce	Task flow & form design
Mobile apps	Mobile apps	3 different mobile application design
Kotak bank	Banking	UX evaluations
Employee portal	Software and IT	Employee portal design
Dashboard design	Software and IT	Dashboard Software design

In 2008

Client Work	Domain	What i worked on?
target.com.au – Australia	Retail	UX evaluation of Target
Tyco thermal	Thermal	Web analytics analysis
Walt Disney	Entertainment	Wireframes
Lan airlines	Airlines	UX evaluations
Mexicana airlines	Airlines	UX evaluations
NYSE	Trading	Design suggestions

In 2007

Client Work

Domain

What i worked on?

India times

Entertainment

Usability testing

Software Design

Citi bank

Banking

Product manager

Software Design

Usability Testing

UX evaluations

In 2006 & 2005

Client Work

Domain

What i worked on?

General Electric

GE – you know what they do

Software design
Usability testing

UX consulting

State bank of India

Banking

UX evaluations

Good Action buttons - how can we design them

2009-11-27T03:23:00.001-08:00

Action buttons on a web page or software are the controls that help the user's to take decisions and move in the task flow. We can compare action buttons as the cross roads in the street where the cab driver decides which turn to take and based on his decision he reaches to the next junction in the town. Taking the same example when the user clicks on a action button he is posed the next screen and he can move on to complete his task on the website or software.

Types of action button, I can say broadly we can have below 3 types of action buttons.

1. Call to action button - these are the action buttons that stand out on the landing pages of many websites and encourage you to join the site or create an account. The main purpose of these buttons is to keep you in focus and make you sign up. In PET design these action button is trying to achieve the big P - persuasion element. These buttons you can also see on video sites which encourages you to click on to view video.

2. Action buttons - these action buttons you will encounter when you are doing the task and they comes and helps you to take an important decision. For example when you are writing the blog, there are action buttons in the editor which helps you to either save the blog or publish button.

3. Action Links - we can not call them as action buttons, but they work similarly as action buttons. The designer can not include so many buttons at one place so he makes some of them as action links, these makes the design looks clean. Most of the times the action links will be the secondary actions the user usually takes.

Saying this, what will help if the user is not provided with intutive and effective action buttons- the obvious answer is that he will be taken to a different task flow and he may fail to complete his tasks in given time. Now let us focus our energies to design effective action buttons.

Some tips based on my design experiences.

1. Verbose - Instead of using the action button with "Yes" "No" "Delete", make it more verbose. The words that are used in action button has big impact in making the user in taking the right decision.The windows action button are not so intuitive, see how Gtalk implements Verbose action buttons so effectively.

2. Alignment - The text written used in the action button should be centered in the middle. It is a minute check which takes the user experience to the next level. It is good to balance the action button with proper alignment of words in it.

3. Contrast - The contrast between the words and the background used should be chosen with care. A combination of warm and cool colors should be used. Care should be taken that the words used should stand out and be legible.

4. Break the rule - Who said that action buttons should be in rectangular shapes of a rectangular box. Experiment and analysis is the key. Experiment with shapes as shown below.

5.Positioning - Place the action button below the form, i suggest if you are planning to show the next page of the form, then it is advisable to place the action buttons on the right hand side. As the users read from left to right, it will be a good place to suggest the forms are flowing.

6. Spacing - If there are two different action buttons and the result of clicking them is completely opposite then it is good to have a good amount of space between them. Chances are there by mistake the user will click on the other one, and get disappointed.

7. Balance - The action button which the user will click least, you can decrease the importance of this button by making it a action link. In this way chances are less for the user to click on the less preferred action as user's eyes will stay focused on the action button.

I am sure the above guidelines and best practices can help you develop more conversion rates on the website by GOOD Clicks by users.

Need more help in design of action buttons please drop an e-mail to smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

How to design effective SEARCH - Interaction Design

2009-11-25T01:53:00.000-08:00

After looking at many websites with search option in the inner pages and not so impressive way of performing search, i think posting a blog on some of the best practise in search design will be helpful to all. Let us try to understand what is a search.

Search is a feature that allows users to find the the required piece of information they are looking. If we dissect search, there will be 4 parts to it.

1. Basic search - in this the user types the keywords and he is good to go. He presses the search button and get the results.

2.Advanced search - in this the user uses many filtering options to narrow down his search efforts. The advanced search will be different for all websites as, the UI elements is dependent on the content whose search is being done. After getting the main two user flows let us see what happens when the user makes the search.

3. SERP - Search engine results page is the page that is shown to after he enters the keywords.

4. Search results Relevancy metric - I am jotting this important area as it is utmost importance whether the user got what he was looking for. Was the search results helpful to the user or not.

Working on the below 4 areas, we can make an effective search.I heard designers from HFI(Human factors international) say's usability is not enough, i want to add to it that as far as we are meeting the needs of the users and helping him accomplish his tasks users will stick to the site or software. If some one else comes with a better solution for the user, they may leave our site- the bottom line is VALUE - what value we are adding to the user's life.

Now let us get each section right.

Basic search Design

Tip 1: Focus - As soon as the page is refreshed the cursor focus should be in the search text box. This saves an extra click to the users. If there are some forms on the page we can avoid this, as there are chances that the user may be more interested to fill the form.

Tip 2: Text box length - The length of the text box should be long enough to even accommodate a phrase if the user types, the idea is avoiding the horizontal scroll.

Tip 3: Narrow down - try to narrow down the user's search efforts in basic search also. For example we can include UI elements which helps the user to decide what he is looking for and letting the search engine understand the query at a higher level. A classic example can be clicking on the maps, images or docs options in search.

Tip 4: Progressive disclosure - Make the user aware that advanced search options is available by including the "advanced search" link.

Tip 5: Auto suggest - Including auto suggest can be of great help as it makes the basic search process easier.

Tip 6: Search settings - can be a good section where user can have controls and his preferences for search.

Advanced search Design

Tip 1: Search parameters - Have a look at the search results, that will be shown to the user and decide the parameters on which they can be filtered. An information architecture of the content can be of great help to decide on the search parameters. For example - the search parameter can be file type, date published, containing the words - etc

Tip 2: UI elements - To accomplish the tasks for narrowing down the user's search, we will use different UI elements. Select the best suitable UI elements. For example we can provide radio buttons when there are 3-6 options for the user in a certain group. A drop down can be used when the options are more. This decision needs to be carried out by the designer.

Tip 3: Grouping - Group the sections in the advanced search options and group them visually. A good example is shown below.

Tip 4: Action oriented language - Use the words such as "open search results in new browser window" instead of "pop out results"

SERP Design

Tip 1: Pagination - make the pagination good to navigate, option to move to different pages is good by few clicks however user's rarely move to see the results on the last page. User usually stick to the first 1-8 pages that are shown to them.

Tip 2: Results summary - a summary of results is good to have so the user known how effective was his particular search.

Tip 3: Current page - Notify the user by "showing page 5 of 10 search results" and similar words.

Tip 4: Show similar results - There are chances that a user finds a particular results helpful and is interested to know similar results. Having an option to see similar results is good.

Tip 5: Filters - An option to filter search results in order to narrow down to the required information is good to have. For example we can include sort features that allows the user to filter the search results.

Tip 6: Hierarchy - maintain a hierarchy of information by different visual treatment to the search results heading, description and the online link.

Search results relevancy metric design

Tip 1: Try to capture the user feedback on the search results asking him wether the search results shown to him were helpful.

Tip 2: Suggestions- a forum or e-mail communication to get user's suggestions can be of great help.

I think these are some of the benchmarks that needs to be satisfied for effective search design. I agree the search engine plays an important role and tagging of keywords, however this is out of scope as this blog is pertaining to what we can do at user interface level to design a good user experience.

If you need some more suggestions, or help regarding SEARCH please send an e-mail to smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

How to create a brand by good UX design?

2009-11-24T02:10:00.000-08:00

I am looking on google webpages, yahoo web pages and one thought strikes me. These pages are designed by some designers at the end of the day. Their designs have created a brand. Friendfeed has also become a great success slowly. Is there magic in the hands of all the designers who design these applications. What extra they do which helps the application perform so well. Let us try to digg into this topic and get some answers.

I think they follow the below strategy and create brands. Based on my work experience, i can say i got a good value by doing the following things.

Try them and if it helps, this blog has served the purpose

1. Who is the user - Enquiring about the end user is most important, it is even more important than the application and the stakeholders.

2. Who are the stakeholders - Who are they and what are they trying to achieve in the limited time,money and resources. If you start thinking like a CEO of the stakeholders company you have killed the lion in one shot.

3.What is the business problem - Understand the business problem as if it is your problem. Ask intelligent questions to understand the problem scope.

4.Sleep - Suggest some initial solutions to yourself, if in a meeting room to the stakeholders and the team, and get their feedback on the same. If you are alone, call an old Friend and ask him for suggestions, you can even drop a call to you grand mother and see what she says. The idea is to get some initial feedback on the way you are proceeding to solve the business problem. Now sleep with the problem for 2-3 days and you will get some solutions.

5.Sketch it up - Sketch the business scenarios on a piece of paper, in short sketch your whole thought process.

6.Information Architecture - Jot down the content inventory and finally the information architecture, IA gives you a deep level thoughts at what level you are trying to solve the problem, is the screen coming at the level one or level two.

7.Prototype - Make some paper prototypes at a very high level, count the number of clicks the user is taking to achieve his tasks.

8.Test- Test the paper prototypes and if time permits make the visio or ppt prototypes and test it.

9.Visual design - If it works fine, give the design more realistic look by appropriate visual design.

10.User - At all points keep the user in mind, the stakeholder in mind and the business goal.

The above flow has helped me a lot in designing great apps, let's see how it helps you.

How to create StyleGuide?

2009-11-23T06:17:00.000-08:00

Style guides are important artifacts that are the byproducts of a well planned design work. They are made in order to provide a consistent User Experience throughout the application. In most of the cases they serve as a guide book for designers. It can be advocated that a single

software/application can lead to a varying degree of User Experience by applying two

different style guides for the same software. Here I will provide a view on how to create an effective style guide. Style guide creation is a good practice, we have heard this slogan many times. Now let us try to create one of these.

Style Guide Shouts about

In most cases a style guide turns to be a word file that illustrates the following aspects of a website/web application pages.

1. Real estate content area distribution

2. Types of pages

3. Branding guidelines

4. Error messages

5. Images used

6. Colors

7. Typography

8. Page Elements description

9. Other( Page Behaviors etc i.e. change of page color on overlays etc)

The style guide is used as a reference by design teams as a torch to provide a consistent user

experience to its users. It guides them in knowing what typography to use, what are the sizes of icons, how the pagination should look etc.

Now let me illustrate each section in brief with simple examples which will provide a thought through to come up with style guides when you are designing the new application.

Style Guide walk through – are you ready

Provide a small description about the style guide showing its relation to the software/web application. It will have a small description saying this style guide is of “XYZ web site”

communicating its design elements, navigation, color combinations, branding etc. It will be used as a guide to design/modify the application etc. Now work on each section with a crisp brief as shown below.

Real estate content area distribution: In this section illustrate the real estate area utilization scheme. Show how the page area is divided into different sections as header, footer, global navigation,

secondary navigation, add areas ETC.

Types of pages: This section encompasses different types of pages the application has. In general most of the web applications have these 4 types of pages

1. Home/Landing page

2. Main Section specific pages

3. Sub section specific pages

4. Task/Transaction related pages

Branding guidelines: Each organization has its own branding guidelines that should be followed. These can be the company logos, the action buttons, the color combinations, the tag-lines etc. The branding will have the below important elements(Its up to the designer if he want to focus more on

each element in the branding guidelines, well its a good practice to know each element with respect to branding essentials of the company)

1. Logo usage

2. Tag line

3. Imagery

4. Color

5. Language

The company logo is always displayed on the top left corner in 30 X 40 pixels.

Tag Line example

a) Underneath the Evo text, when the Evo text is used alone.

b) Spaced alone, provided that the Evo house icon and/or text appear

on the same page.

Imagery example

Include the images that are approved by the stakeholders for different sections. It will have different banners, product images etc.

Error messages

Include the error message notification pattern. The color combinations used to inform the user the different types of errors. It also includes the place where the error message is displayed.

Colors: In this section include all the colors that are used in the web site/ applications etc with their hex values.

Typography

Include the different types of fonts used for different sections of the web site. It includes the typography used for main section, the content, the header, buttons, footer section etc. It should provide even the colors of the mouse hovered texts.

Page Elements Description

Describe the elements that combine together to form a page. A page element can be the icons used, the tables used, the instructional messages, the approved images etc.

Table design

Write the specifications about the table design. This will have illustrations on the color of table and the typography used in the tables.

Table example

Table color

The table line: # d7e7ef

Column header color: #464646

Table filled color: #ffffff

Table typography

Header text: Arial , 14 #ffffff

Hyperlink text: Arial, 12 #95c0d5

Inactive links: Arial, 12 #999999

Others: In this section you can illustrate how the page behaves when an overlay is displayed. The color of the overlay etc. You can include those sections that may not fit in the above main areas.

Once I want to highlight that the style of style guides may vary from designers to designers however their essance is covered above. Hope this helps to tweak some thoughts to come up with an effective style guide.

SAS - Software as a Service - User hesitation

2009-11-23T02:54:00.000-08:00

I very well agree that SAS - software as a service will be the next big thing, however when it comes to their use, why some designers act dumb is my question. This idea popped out of my critical mind once i tried to create an account on mint.com. Mint allows the user to manage their finances and daily budgets, it gives him good options to check out deals and best buys.

The account is free, the ROI model for mint is - they get the profit from the advertisers who are trying to sell deals on mint.

Why i did not moved future with mint.

Security is my concern, mint is a financial planning site, do they need to collect financial data by hacking to your bank account transactions. i don't think so.

I logged in and a pop up came asking me my bank, my account number, my password etc.Give me a break ....

Come on guys--- the flow is ok, but not so encouraging.

The numbers for financial planning and budgeting is based on
1. How much money your account have
2. How much assets
3. How much liability
4. Source of income etc

i think these details can be added in the software instead of the software linking to your bank account and just fetching out data. Why to open another hole in the water tank when there are increasing concern about online banking security.

Please feel free to add your thoughts on the same. Do we need to change the task flow or do we have to share the banking secrets to the software just for the sake of budgeting.

XHTML & CSS templates

2009-11-19T09:57:00.000-08:00

As a web developer or a UX Architect we need not always work from ground zero to come up with nice css layouts & designs.There are handsome amount of resources already made by exceptional developers.Which can be effectively used in your designs.Here are a few of them.

XHTML & CSS Templates

Open source template some impressive templates

Maxdesign great collections

CSS play see it

Changingman a liquid three column CSS layout with a fixed positioned and width centre column, released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

CSS designs for you Free website templates built using table less XHTML and CSS

3 column layouts A set of three column layouts to be used

Yahoo grid css The foundational GUI Grids CSS offers four preset page widths, six preset templates, and the ability to stack and nest subdivided regions of two, three, or four columns. The 4kb file provides over 1000 page layout combinations.

6 shooter media collection of a variety of templates

Mollio is a simple set of html/css templates

Open source web templates The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. It is a great collection - I recommend to use some of them

CSS page layouts - divide the page into different stunning sections using the source code

CSS library - a complete collection of frame library.Form CSS, image CSS & DIVs + containers... many more

x-designs good collection of templates

sucking code - its a great gallery of templates that can be downloaded well for use

box collections - use simple technique to make stunning frame sets on pages

layout gala - a professional resource for other professionals

Solucija a good collection of templates

Jimmy These templates are 100% valid CSS/XHTML and compatible with IE5.0+, FireFox 1.5, Opera 8.5, and Safari 2. They do not use any hacks of any kind, and can easily be modified.

Open source web design nice works of css templates

All the above resources can be easily used by developers & UX architects to have a great professional look to there designs.

Self service portal- what dell is doing wrong

2009-11-10T21:22:00.001-08:00

I just got an opportunity to visit dell customer care website as i recentely moved from UK to India. I was there in UK for about 4 months on a UX consulting project for BSI- british standards institute. On the last day i bought a laptop and that was DELL inspiron, as it is a good deal.

The laptop served well to me as long as i keep it stressed by working a lot on it. Few months back i went to US for Universal music group project. It was a short assignment of 1 month. I kept my love - my laptop at home and when i came back my love's key board is not working.Only few keys are not working. Can you guess the keys ... space bar, del, w etc.
I drove to the dell service center in bangalore to look into it. I was willing to pay the price for the replacemnet but DELL is DELL, the executive is pointing at me that i may have stolen the laptop and brought it here so first i have to do a TAG transfer here

http://dell.com/dhs/globaltagtransfer

I filled the details and kept waiting for 1 week and i got a reply after 1 week that i have filled some form details wrong. Does it take a reputed company to check a form that some details are filled wrong. If the service tag number is so important then why the applicaiton is not able to track where the laptop is bought from.

The issues i found on the form are

1. Action button : the action button "Submit" is tagged to "enter" key. If by mistake you press enter key the form goes for submission. I agree enter key should be tagged to submit key, but here we have a comment box, before the submit button. Think once will you press enter key while entering a paragraph or not.

2. Multiple submissions: The form can be submitted multiple times, and each time it will give you a success message, as a UX architect i get the push and shock when such things happens on reputed websites such as Dell.

3. So many service tags: There are multiple text boxes for service tags, i have no clue what service tags are they looking for. Is the form designed to delay the serivce offered to the customer.

4. Playing monopoly: The representaticves at the Dell service center were acting as they are the only one who can fix the problem and there is no other way to get this thing straight. I felt so bad and moved and thought even after paying a huge amount, and willing to pay more for the service why Dell is not able to help.

5. Customer centric: The service at the banglaore dell service center is not at all customer centric.

Suggestions
1. Make the form small and tag necessary details to 1 service tag number
2. Please do not try to adopt monopoly attitude
3. Faster response to the forms submissions.

I pray to GOD that things improve and i get my laptop working fine. I wrote this blog as there are other people who are accessing the Dell website and they should get there work done faster and easy. Hope DELL representaive reaches this blog and take appropriate actions.

Next blog will be about the indian banks and what they are doing WRONG and how it is affecting there business in the long run. See you soon reading the new blog.

Comment box design

2009-11-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

In the world of web 2.0 comment box can be of great help. The reason behind that is every comment, every view is important as people are the creators of content.

The comment box should have the below UI elements

1. Word count: A word count will help the users know how much they can type in and what is the current word counts. It boosts user awareness and control.

2. Full view: Make the comment box fluid, so as the user types the text the box expands and provides the user with complete view of his inputted text.

3.Icon: The icon of the user, if dispalyed in his comments give more anchors

Now let us see how we can do this

. Size of box: The size of the comment box can be predefined so it accommodates the text in one visual.

.Fluid comment box: This can be done my making the box fluid vertically. Only the bottom of the box can be expanded. The user can expand the content box by dragging it.The box should not be of fixed size, it hould be fluid.

. Spell check: Auto spell check is a god option to provide.

More: We can also provide editors, font selections, image upload etc, however this depends on the extend of use of the comment box. It is a business decision based on the type of industry.

Creativity has no end, but please don’t forgot usability and UX.

Optimal Card sorting?

2009-10-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

What are you gone crazy? the information architecture of Optimal sort is questionable, as per my view the IA is good but it has missed a major chunk that is critical for the repeated users.

Optimal sort

Let me explain it, I was in UK for a UX project for BSI-British Standards Institute. We planned to conduct a card sorting, the best choice we felt is optimal sort and i going forward created an account for optimal sort.

I remember my user id and password for optimalsort website. Now after 6 months when i came to the optimal sort website there is no link that will take me to the login page.

User Login section is missing on the home page

It says sign up but there is no login section

The major sections of the website is

Tour | What is it? | Sign Up | About us | Blog

But where is the login section? This can be resolved by including a link that says, login here.

Social media - where we are going

2009-10-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

How to prepare for stakeholder interviews - a analysis + guide

2009-10-15T14:42:00.000-07:00

As UX architect's and consultants we all have seen or at least heard about stakeholder interviews. In this blog i will show you how to prepare for stakeholder interviews . So let us see how we go about. Before a stakeholder interview is conducted a invite letter is prepared to send across the stakeholders. I am going to speak about the invite letter here, You will learn how to create one, send it and then conduct the stakeholder interviews.

Two types of stakeholder interviews
In person interviews - interview may last from 30 minutes to 60 minutes
Group interviews - with 4-5 people it will usually take more than 60 minutes

Lets begin

Step 1: Decide the type of interview you are going forward. If you are going with the group interview then there will be a slight change in the Agenda of the interview, the change i will explain in the below sections.

Step 2: Create the invite letter. The stakeholder interviews are done based on some questions, these questions are wrapped in a invite letter and send. A typical invite letter will have the below section. Take a word doc and illustrate the below sections and Magic happens - you have prepared the stake holder invite letter.

CONTENT OF STAKEHOLDER INVITE LETTER

Objective of the stakeholder interview
Scope
Venue
Agenda
Questionnaire

A typical objective can be
"The stakeholder interview is designed to gather business insights form the key experts who are working with the product. The focus of the interview is to gather the business needs and user needs form the stakeholders. A set of suggestive questions will be posed and their list is at the end of this invite letter."

A typical scope can be
"The stakeholder holder interviews is totally focused on improving the user experience of the site. The inputs gathered will help us to define the persona and usability goals."

Venue
"You know what should go here - when where you are going to conduct it"
If there is a bridge booked then, mention the bridge numbers.

Agenda
Agenda is a little tricky, i am giving you a example. Please mention the time zones correctely, EST or IST.....
Questionnaire
A sample questionnaire is mentioned below. You can tweak the questions below and send this word doc to the stakeholders .

1. Define purpose/vision for the site

* What is the purpose of the site?

2. Develop goals for the site

* How would you define a successful Web site for your organization?
* What does success look like? How will you know when you have been successful?
* How would you describe the site?
* From an organization’s viewpoint?
* From a user’s viewpoint?

3. Define audiences & goals

* Who are the users of the site? (Primary and secondary users)
* How would you describe the users? (User characteristics, i.e., age, experience, education, etc.)
* Why will they come to the site? (User needs, interests, and goals)
* When and where will users access the site? (User environment and context)
* How will users access the site? (User computer settings, i.e., connection speed, resolution, etc.)

4. Conduct task analysis and prioritize tasks

* What will users do on the site? (User tasks, content, features and functionality)
* Which tasks are critical to users’ success on the Web site? (Criticality)
* Which tasks are most important to users? (Importance)
* Which features of the site will users use the most? (Frequency)
* Which features are prone to usability issues? (Vulnerability)
* Which tasks are critical to the organization’s success on the Web site?
* How often will users frequent your Web site?
* What will compel users to return to your Web site?

5. Determine measurable usability objectives

* Which tasks should users be able to accomplish easily with few errors? (Efficiency)
* Which tasks should users be able to finish quickly and efficiently? (Effectiveness)
* What level of satisfaction should users have after using the site? (Enjoyability)

6. Discuss expectations, requirements & preferences

* What is your vision of what the site should do?
* Describe your initial view of the project. What do you think the project should entail?
* What prompted the redesign?
* Who will be the key point of contact?
* Are there any restraints, mandates, or guidelines for the site?
* Are there any sites you would like to model or a particular style that you prefer?
* What characteristics/attributes/attitude should the site convey to users?

7. Determine accessibility requirements and needs

* Is the site currently accessible?
* What type of accessibility testing has been done?
* What types of accessibility tools are being used?
* Who is the key point of contact on accessibility issues?

8. Identify available resources and training needs

* What level of resources is available for site updating and maintenance?
* Do you have content writers skilled in writing for the Web?
* Are there graphic designers on staff?
* Who will be responsible for programming and maintaining the site?
* Who is in charge of site marketing and promotion?

9. Discuss initial technology needs

* What are your hosting needs?
* Do you currently have a domain name or do you need a new one?
* Are you currently using a content management system? If so, which one?
* Are you currently logging Web metrics? If so, what metrics are you currently capturing?
* Do you currently have a search engine? If so, what type of search are you using?

10. Timeline and Project Plan

Step 3: Send the invite letter.

Step 4: Conduct the stakeholder interviews.

The above composed docs can be send as an invite letter to the stakeholders. The idea behind the invite letter is to make sure the stakeholder knows what you will ask and they have clue, and if they want to do some R&D they can do and come.

If you need more precise help, please send and e-mail to smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com
I would be happy to help.

Happy stakeholder interviews.

How to talk UX with Stakeholders and Business people

2009-10-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

We all are social beings, however we may stumble upon when we are trying to talk sense. Its so easy to gossip and talk crap but when it comes to talk business, it needs a good sense of confidence and self respect.
Let us try to digg into the facts and get some ideas on how to talk UX with stakeholders. Some key pointers that may help, in the end it depends from person to person and business to business.

1. Comfort zone - The first thing in interaction with stakeholders is to develop a level of comfort. Its like selling, you can not just bump in and throw 10 -20 ideas in one meeting. Let them put some effort in knowing you and develop the comfort zone.

2. Progressive disclosure - Do not be a open book, no one like to watch a movie with all the main scenes shown before the movie. Will you like to go to a suspense movie in which the suspense is known to you. No .....Right... so the idea is to show your expertise on a daily, basis make them understand one concept and build the next concept the next day or next week.

3. Ice breaker - if you have good experience in dating you can see that the ice breakers are talking of childhood, college, movies, interests etc. Similarly here the story takes a different way and ends up in talking about

Who you are - slide 1 will say
UX methodology
Current scope of the project - understand the business problem
What will you do - Solution
How will - Approach
Time lines
Deliverable - what is there for stakeholders
Benefits they will get - how business will grow/progress etc
Case study - the last slides

4. Meet often - Meet the stakeholders in their office and speak about the way you are helping the business, always speak what you are doing. If you are sending a meeting request, please go 1 floor up and ask them if it meets their times, or call them and confirm.

5. Show them the future - Talk how the future will be, how the people will benefit by this kind of design.

6. Talk in their language - Businessman are good in numbers, so make sure you are good in this trade. Speak in numbers like,

"I have conducted the expert review and my predictions suggests that the user will face 4.79 usability issues when he will try to complete a task on the site"

"The current experience of the site is between 6 to 7, if we perform a usability testing with the users, we can try for experience score 9 to 10."

"Focus group is good with the users, but it is more profitable to do before the application is designed, so we can have 100% control on the feature list"

"I agree with your point, a good expert review can highlight approximately 60 to 70% of the issues in the application."

Kool i think the above lines which are my lines in a recent project are enough to highlight the importance of Mathematics in UX design.

7. Work as a team - Talk with other team members, and highlight the work you are doing, how it is going to impact the project. The basic idea is to have a good rapoo with the team. If you are able to say sir ji " jara is ko dekh lo, i am sending it to the stakeholders" then all is fine.

8. Company management - Stay in touch with the company management and be aware, about their plans. Are they ok with your approach etc.

9. Smile - You know smile is a killer, i got attention from many people because of my smile. God bless, you should smile, laugh and enjoy all that is their in your plate. A smile will take you a long way.

10. Be yourself - No need to try to impress anybody, if you be yourself i feel 60-70% of work is done. The rest is your work and talk.

11. Explain - explaining your thoughts is important. I believe and agree with JFK that - a person should be able to speak and let the world know what he is, before people start making assumptions.

12. Thought process - Sharpen and remove the clutter from your design thought process, i know it will take a lot of efforts to do this but try for this.

13. Good Presentation skills - Last but one of the key skills to sell UX.

I think this is enough for now, go smile and talk to the stakeholders.
Do you want to talk more - smartsanjaykumar@gmail.com

Best of luck!

How to do task analysis?

2009-10-09T03:15:00.000-07:00

What is task analysis?
Task analysis is performed for critical tasks that determines the fate of the web application.For example in an Airline website the critical tasks would be
- Search for flights based on price,timings,special offers & destinations.
- Airline ticket buying
- Finding Help & support

Each task is given to users & there behaviour,actions,system responses are evaluated.Mostly the person performing the task analysis accompanies the user while he or she is performing the task.

User details & background
Name: Sanjay Age:25Gender: male
Education Qualification: B.E
Competency Level: Expert
userOccupation/Work: User Experience Consultant
Objective to visit the site: Book a flight ticket
Problem Faced by Sanjay while performing the task: He did not know that on fare offered dates the tickets are already sold out He is not able to return to the booking page after selecting the seat.He is not able to figure out at what step is he inHe is not sure for which flight the tickets he has chosen for the TO journeyHe is also not sure about the seats for which he has chosen the ticket
Task result: Successful in completing the task There return tickets on the selected dates were sold out so he could not book the ticket.Step by step description of task perfomed with system responses(In a flow chart)
Step1: User enters the login ID, password in the form & clicks on submit button
System response 1: The personal page is displayed with a welcome message stating the user name.
In this way the whole process is depicted on the single slide.Multiple slide task analysis presentation
In multiple method screen shots of user steps & system responses are taken. Each screen shot is illustrated with the following details.
Page name: NYSE login page
Click no: 1
Refresh no:1
Activity: User types the URL in the browser ,he is looking for the login section. He easily finds it ,enters his credentials & clicks on Login Button.
System response: The page refreshes & the user is taken to the user home page.
Observation: User is interested to view the dividends on the home page.
Last but not the least
Finally in the end summary of observations & recommendations to improve the task will follow as shown below.

Design of the task analysis form?
After determining the tasks to be analyzed, a form is prepared to be filled by users who are going to perform tasks.A typical form will have an introduction,description of the tasks to be performed,user form,user notes,user feedback & disclaimer.
Task performance by users.
The users are given the task analyis form, they fill there details & continue with the task assigned.The expert who is perfoming the task analysis accompanies the user & notes down the user actions, the time he took to complete the tasks etc.

Presentation of the analysis.
The task analysis can be presented beautifully in the form of presenation.There are two ways to present it.
Single slide task analysis presentation
Multiple slide task analysis presenation

Single slide task analysis presenation
The complete task analysis is shown in one slide is the ground rule.This type of presentation we go when we are intrested to have a small presentation & the task is not so complicated.The slide will have the followings elements.

Observations & recommendations
1.It took 4 clicks for the user to accomplish his task.
2.Select period scroll bar is an intuitive feature in the application.
3.The Information Architecture of the application is user friendly so User does not face any major problem in completing his task.
4.Visual graphs to display the dividends data helps User to easily analyze the data & make decisions.

User experience design

2009-10-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

Are you bogged by the terms used by UX architects and other UX professionals. I am defening some of the terms and the hidden meanings of each one.

User experience design has major areas such as

Interaction design

Visual design

Usability testing

Protptype engineering

User research

Information architecture

I am not going to tell what each section mean, but you need to Google it or spend some more time on this website to get a feel of user experience design perspective.

1. Information architecture - is the structure of the website/application. The content organization of the application.It deals with the grouping of information in sensible chunks.

2. Task - task is a planned action that needs to be taken by the user of the application/website.

3. Flow - is the " experience of group of pages together". Eg. registration process. Flow connects pages to support tasks.

SAS - Software as service

2009-09-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

The account is free, the ROI model for mint is - they get the profit from the advertisers who are trying to sell deals on mint.

Why i did not moved future with mint.

Security is my concern, mint is a financial planning site, do they need to collect financial data by hacking to your bank account transactions. i don't think so.

I logged in and a pop up came asking me my bank, my account number, my password etc.Give me a break ....

Come on guys--- the flow is ok, but not so encouraging.

Survey monkey, good tool

2009-09-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

Survey Monkey is one of the most popular tools to create surveys, publish survey, conduct survey and finally even record the participants feedback and analyze the results.

I have tried many tools in the market for the user survey but i feel survey monkey is better in many ways. Let us try to see how survey monkey works.

Survey Monkey is my personal favorite

Components in survey monkey: Survey monkey has basically 3 important sections that once mastered will help you to create and manage user surveys.

1. Design: this section helps in designing of the survey which will be posted to the participants

2. Collect: this section will help in collecting the responses

3. Analyze: this section helps in the analysis of the responses and prepare the survey report.

Account type: In most cases a free account will help you to create, collect and analyze the results. In free account there is restriction for download of the reports.Based on the requirements go ahead and sign up. In most cases i think you can easily work with free account, in case you need higher reporting capability then go for the paid options.

Big Step 1: Creation of a new survey

Creation of new survey is as easy as 1 2 3… see the below image for illustration.

Adding Questions: You can easily add questions, notice the default section that will be shown to you and the “Add Question here” button.

.

Themes: there are some color full themes that you can use to change the look of the survey questionnaire. See the above yellow color and the green themes.

Once you click on “Add question here” the below overlay will be shown to the user

You can select the type of question and frame your answers. This window allows the users to have questions of the following types

In this way you go on and create the questions. Once you log in the application it is pretty much easy to work with it.

Big Step 2: Collect responses

In this section the user publishes the survey to the users. There are 3 ways in which the responses can be collected. The 3 ways are shown below

Big Step 3 : Analyze results

Once the survey is send to the participants, there responses are collected and the analyzed. For collection we need not worry as Survey monkey has built in tool to collect the responses. The survey results are collected on a auto pilot and you can go forward and analyze the results.

Each questions answers are calculated and based on the responses a graph is created which can be shared with the customers.

Now see how cool it is to use Survey monkey. I would suggest instead of using pen and papers for survey go forward and use online tools this will make the survey easy to manage and in one sense makes the process eco friendly – Go green with Survey Monkey.

Site evaluations

2009-09-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

To perform site evaluation based on industry trends is a tough cup of coffe.Performing Heuristics evaluation is much easier as compared to this.The reason being from industry to industry the evaluation parameter will vary.

In an entertainment site Bread crumbs may not matter as compared to the real estate it occupies on the web page.The stakeholder's may want their users to go round the site without any bread crumb aids to explore more.Let me show you the steps we can follow to come up with a good site evaluation based on industry trends.

First step: Research on Website industry positioning
This research can be carried in the below manner.
Client e-mail tracing: Read through the finer lines in e-mails send from the client, they mostly specifiy the industry sector in which they are positioned.Go through the meeting notes even to find out more, even you can schedule clinet calls to know exact details about the industry positioning of client business website.
Online research - Forrester: Find out the latest industry trends that are affecting the website.What are the most important parameters that will affect the user experience on the site.Which features are most liked in the web application.If you can get Forrester account then your life will become easy in this respect else you have to do some searching in google.What makes the user experience good is important.
Stream line Compitetive focus: Have a look at competetior's website, find out what are the best they are doing, the worst things they are doing etc.Try to formulate parameters & best practices by looking at the compitetion.Go through the client website also to have a good understanding about it also.
Second step: Finalize parameters

Collate the information from the above & ideate with the team to finalize the parameters.Once the parameters are done we can move on with the site evaluation.

Third step: Evaluate the website

Note : The biggest trick in site evaluation is that avoid taking a parameter first & try to find out issues related to that.Mostly if you do in this way you restrict your mind to see multiple issues on the website.My experience says "find out issues in the website & then classify it under suitable heads."

Fourth step: Evaluation presentation

We can either go for using word doc or presentation to present the evaluation.

Important tip: When we present the information in word doc, the biggest problem will be positoning the screen shots consistently.We can do this by placing the screen shots in tables & finally hiding the table borders.

In this way we perform site evaluations based on industry trends.

Dell Self service portal

2009-09-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

2. Multiple submissions: The form can be submitted multiple times, and each time it will give you a success message, as a UX architect i get the push and shock when such things happens on reputed websites such as Dell.

3. So many service tags: There are multiple text boxes for service tags, i have no clue what service tags are they looking for. Is the form designed to delay the serivce offered to the customer.

4. Playing monopoly: The representaticves at the Dell service center were acting as they are the only one who can fix the problem and there is no other way to get this thing straight. I felt so bad and moved and thought even after paying a huge amount, and willing to pay more for the service why Dell is not able to help.

5. Customer centric: The service at the banglaore dell service center is not at all customer centric.

Suggestions
1. Make the form small and tag necessary details to 1 service tag number
2. Please do not try to adopt monopoly attitude
3. Faster response to the forms submissions.

Next blog will be about the indian banks and what they are doing WRONG and how it is affecting there business in the long run. See you soon reading the new blog.

Top Design tools for you

2009-08-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

Today UX teams are spread across the globe, accounting the facts that each individual has adopted the role of an expert. You name it, for example Information architect, visual designer, usability analyst, usability researcher etc. Have you ever thought to conduct a discussion with all these people when they are spread in 5 different countries? The possible solution is via a telephone call however what about the white board & post it notes that is a common ingredient in a UX meeting trying to find out an intuitive solution.

How will one person convey the design message? How can we understand the initial wire frames etc.

I was thinking on the above lines for quite bit of time & figured out how it can be achieved in an easy + cost effective manner. I have selected few tools that are good keeping User Experience in mind. These tools are good for team collaboration online. Some of them provide a whiteboard online that can be used to work on ideas. You can even voice chat & browse in to explain some of the usability problems in online applications.

I have created one instance of a meeting in the below link. Click on it & see the magic. Many of you will figure out the magic in the url.

http://www.twiddla.com/88239

Just give some time on each one of the tools below & use them as per your needs. Hope some of them can help you to make initial prototypes + mind maps + comments + notes etc in collaboration with the global team.

Favorite 1: Twiddla is a free application that helps to browse websites and draw on them, share files, and chat with your team. Voice chat is also possible. There is an inbuilt browser in the application that helps you to browse and annotate. This can be effectively used in drawing wire frames & prototypes.

Favorite 2: Bubbl us help in beautiful mind maps that you can share with team members. You can save, email, and print your mind maps and even embed in Web Pages

Favorite 3: Protonotes is a free annotation widget for your HTML prototypes. You can embed the simple java script in the HTML code. Once it is done your team members can open the web page and comment using notes on the screen. The notes can be easily moved & re sized to suit your requirement.

Favorite 4: Vyew is a web based conferencing tool. No need to buy a costly account. You can try this one for free. I think the maximum number of people that can join in is 20. It is somewhat similar to WebEx sessions but allows having a free account. Try this out.
Favorite 5: Wetpaint allows you to create a wiki site in collaboration. It can be effectively used as a tool to create content from different sources.Favorite 6: Dabble board helps to create wire frames, flow charts, network diagram. It is an online whiteboard where you can improve your creative skills.
Favorite 7: Stixy is a flexible, online white board. It can be effectively used to create wire frames & mock ups. I suggest it to use it.
Favorite 8: Last but none the least. Google Docs is an excellent application for collaboration. You can share documents and spreadsheets and collaborate with your team/clients in real-time.

Hope you visit all the above tools & figure out which one suits your UX & collaboration needs.
Happy collaborating. :-)

Image source is from the respective applications

Visual design - important pointers

2009-06-16T01:42:00.000-07:00

Visual design
1. Proximity and uniform connectedness (enclosure) is the two important principles of Gestalt
2. All graphic design is ultimately management of white spaces.

Gestalt principles
Are related to the visual reorganization of figures and forms.

• Emergence: this principle emphasis that we do not recognize a thing in parts but as a whole. For example, we do not recognize a dog by its body parts (tail, face etc) but as a whole.
• Rectification: Is the constructive or generative aspect of perception. If we draw three dots on a white sheet in close order, our mind will see a triangle there.
• Multi stability: is related to having ambiguous perceptions.
• Invariance: is the property in which the simple geometrical shapes are recognized independent of rotation, translation, and scale.

Visual design principles
The visual design principles are extrapolation of gestalt principles. The perception of visual patterns yielded a number of consistent principles that dominate the theoretical basis for much of modern graphic design.
1. Proximity: The elements that are close to each other are considered as more related than the elements that lie farther apart.
2. Similarity: If the elements share consistent visual look they will be treated as a group.
3. Continuity: We prefer continuous, unbroken contours and paths. The two lines crossing each other are mostly not viewed as four lines meeting at a common point.
4. Closure: We have a strong bias to see completed.
5. Figure ground reversal: Viewer’s perception reverses between two possible interpretations.
6. Uniform connectedness: Refers relations of elements that are defined by enclosing elements within other elements, regions or discrete areas of the page.
7. 1+ 1 = 3 effects: The white space between two elements forms a third element.

Consistency
1. A consistent approach to layout and navigation allows users to easily locate the information and navigation controls across the web sites.
2. The primary task of graphic design is to create a strong, consistent visual hierarchy in which important elements are emphasized and content is organized logically and predictably.

Contrast
1. The readers visual scanning moves from contrast of the web pages, then the different sections and finally the written matter content.
2. The most effective way of doing this is to balance the text and links with small graphics.

Color and contrast
1. Text legibility is dependent on the reader’s ability to distinguish the letters from the background filed.
2. Color differentiation depends on brightness and saturation
3. Black text on white background has the highest amount of contrast since black color has no brightness and while color is all-bright.
4. Hue is also a factor with complementary colors such as blue and yellow producing the greatest contrast.
5. Be sure to use colors so it is easy to distinguish text from background.
6. Do not forget that almost 10 percent of male readers have some trouble distinguishing fine shades of red from shades of green
7. If you are using gradient stick with black text and avoid using dark color in the background.
8. Optically bright colors on white like yellow disappear
9. White text on black is almost good for legibility
10. The optimal combination for legibility is black on white
11. Hue
12. Saturation
13. Brightness

Contrast variability
The contrast for the legibility needs to be different from application to application, as there are multiple scenarios in which the application will be used. The mobile devices are used in the house and exteriors, the falling sunlight may make arouse problems in legibility.

Tools for graphic emphasis
1. The tool for graphic emphasis are powerful and must be used in sparingly in small amounts, over use makes them ineffective as emphasis on a particular section is not given.
2. Colors drawn from nature are almost inherently harmonious and subdued

White space
1. A fixed width layout include – the page at the center of the browser window
2. For liquid layouts use 90 to 95 % of the screen instead of 100%, leave some background around the functional areas of the page to prove visual relief.
3. If your page width is reasonable it will provide a visual relief
4. The ground field around the page elements is as active as any figure filed on the page.
5. Filling all the white space in the page is like removing the air form the room. Use white space effectively.

Style
1. The best style is the one that the readers never notice

Simplicity
1. Vision impaired people are lost on the web
2. People with cognitive disabilities such as memory and learning disabilities the difficulty is magnified many fold.

Typography
1. Good typography is based on the visual contrast between one font and the other, and the contrast between the text blocks and the surrounding empty space.
2. We read primarily by recognizing the overall shape of the words, not by parsing each letter and then assembling a recognizable word.
3. Avoid all upper case headlines, as they are difficult to read, because words formed with capital letters are monotonous rectangles that offer few distinctive shapes to catch the readers eye.
4. Legibility depends on the top of the words. If you use initial letters as caps, you disrupt the readers scanning of the words.
5. Initial Caps Causes Pointless Bumps
6. The first thing the users see is the overall contrast and the pattern of the page.
7. Choose few heading styles and subtitles to organize your content then use chosen style religiously.
8. In conventional print layout 30 t0 40 characters per line are considered ideal
9. Web page layout violates one of the basic book and magazine typography. The lines of text in web pages are mostly long to be easily read. Magazine and book columns are narrow for physiological reasons: The eyes span of movement is usually eight cms (3 inches wide) so designers keep the paragraphs wide enough to span in the eyes comfortable span of eight cms. If the lines are long, the user’s eyes are strained by flexing the head and eye muscles.

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