Stories. Technology. Design. Communication.
user experience
Wanted: imagination when hiring talent
Jul 15th
Dear Indian software company, I didn’t want to write this, but you forced me to this. I am stunned at that apathy and lack of imagination in the way you try to hire talent. When you want a guy to come for an interview, the least you could do is, giving him parking space. That’s fine, I can live without parking space. But you claim you are ‘going green’ and yet, you insist on ‘a printed copy of your resume’ ‘printed copy of this e-mail’… My small brain can’t fathom how that is exactly ‘going green’ Did you realize this More >
Demystifying Fitts’s law
Jun 26th
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 More >
Yak Pad 2.0
Mar 9th
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.
IRCTC Calendar Design
Apr 28th
IRCTC.co.in is the Indian Railways’ ticketing website.
April has only 30 days. I still went ahead and selected 31st April and hit ‘Find Trains’. Guess what happened next?
If you know April has only 30 days why would you add 31st to it? Better than designing accurate error messages, is preventing errors. IRCTC seemed to have missed that part.
Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com
Quick Review of Travel/Ticketing Websites in India
Apr 24th
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.comMy 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 More >
Sixth Sense
Mar 11th
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
Feb 25th
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
Feb 24th
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 More >
Idea Cellular Web Site
Jan 21st
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
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