usability
Notionink Adam User Survey: Or How NI Refuses to Learn
I saw on http://www.notioninkfan.com/ a link to a survey. Adam developers want feedback from Adam users and they created that survey.
I immediately thought ‘Why isn’t this featured on Notionink’s official website?’ People at NotionInk Hacks forums too expressed similar sentiments.
So I told myself “Come on! Don’t be a prick. Take the survey, help them make Adam better.” And I clicked on the survey link. I was glad that the NotionInk team was doing this: collecting user feedback. But my happiness lasted only until the survey questions appeared on my screen.
Either NI doesn’t care about this survey or there has been some colossal misunderstanding on what amounts to an effective survey.
Now for some gems (these are actual questions) from the survey:
- Prioritize your activities using a PC/Laptop (Range: very likely – very
Notion Ink’s Adam: Dream or Nightmare?
Very rarely a product comes along, gathering tremendous support and anticipation even before it’s launched. A huge fan base is built even before anyone has seen the product. Product companies fail to get that sort of PR even after spending millions. Adam was one such product. It was touted as the Apple killer. The underdog that’ll for sure, kick butt.
I got my Adam yesterday after more than a 40 day delay. 40 days more than the promised ‘six to eight weeks’ delivery assurance. Adam probably is a brilliant product no doubt, but customer experience is much, much more than just a great UI or prodigious engineering. Here’s why:
- Taking the ‘personal’ ‘we are a small outfit’ charm too far: I understand that Notionink is a start-up but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to jump in and
Demystifying Fitts’s law
Fitts’s law states that acquiring a target is a function of the size of the target and the distance between the pointer and the target. In other words, bigger, closer the better. If you have anything to do with user-experience design you would have come across this ‘law’. What most practioners of UX design probably don’t know is this: why are bigger, closer targets easy to acquire? The probable answer lies elsewhere, in neurology. A few years back I stumbled upon Dr. V.S. Ramachandran’s BBC Reith lecture. It was a defining moment for me: it suddenly dawned on me that design is not so much about focus groups, surveys, and collected opinion. Design is about your brain. Continue reading “Demystifying Fitts’s law” »
Yak Pad 2.0
After much procrastination, here it is. The Yakpad 2.0 (beta). Runs on WordPress. Also, I’ve merged all my blogs into this one (tech writing blog, usability blog). This is a work in progress children.
Quick Review of Travel/Ticketing Websites in India
Travelocity.com
See that screen grab above? Yeah. That’s what you’re supposed to use to pick a ‘From’ and ‘To’. See how the ‘One-way’ and ‘Return’ checking is done. Instead of asking you upfront, they ask you at the end! This is lazy design.
Makemytrip.com
My rating: 2.5 out of 5 Easy to search for flights. But text is difficult to read because the text and BG are not contrasting. But if you are a South Indian and you have an initial for a last name OR if you have two words in your first name (like Suman Kumar), you can’t use this site. See screen grabs.
See? They want my last name to be at least two characters long!
And, they More...
Sixth Sense
This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.
Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com
The Future of Touch
Made of foam and force sensors, Impress works with both touch and the intensity of pressure. This computing technology lets the user squeeze out information or put objects in motion by deforming the surface of the computer.
The Personable Manual
Why do product manuals sound formal and stiff-upper-lipped? Why don’t users read manuals? These questions have haunted the hallowed precincts of Technical Writing for quite some time now. From what I have seen in Indian writers, I am forced to conclude that English Composition, as we were taught in school, is the culprit. Our merit was based on how verbose we were. They judged our style based on how ‘formal’ we were.
Take for example, the leave letter. I am sure you have written a few in school or college. Rewind and replay one of those leave letters. Right from the salutation (‘Respected sir/madam’) to the signature (‘Faithfully/Obediently yours’) it reeks of colonialism. And, we have yet to learn our lessons. In this age of globalization (or globalisation, to my stiff-upper-lip comrades), it is important to pay attention More...
Idea Cellular Web Site
Ideacellular.com What’s with yellow boys. Don’t you know?
Yellow, pure bright lemon yellow is the most fatiguing color. Why? The answer comes from the physics of light and optics. More light is reflected by bright colors, resulting in excessive stimulation of the eyes. Therefore, yellow is an eye irritant. Babies cry more in yellow rooms, husbands and wives fight more in yellow kitchens, and opera singers throw more tantrums in yellow dressing rooms. [read more @ colormatters.com]
Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com