Usability Watch India :: by Suman kumar

Blog update

2010-03-05T19:52:00.001-08:00

This blog is now located at http://sumankumar.com/. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://sumankumar.com/blog/feed

IRCTC Calendar Design

2009-04-27T22:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-24T02:33:00.000-07:00

Travelocity.com

My rating: 2 out of 5

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 won't let me write my first as I always have written in. They want it to be SUMANKUMAR. And not SUMAN KUMAR. Hey! It is my name!

Cleartrip.com

My rating: 3 out of 5

Simple and elegant (as compared to the others I mean). No pull-down menus. Just simple text boxes to pick your 'From' and 'To'. The use of Web 2.0 technology... I like them! But, for the position and color of that 'Search flights' button. It should have been 'inside' instead of jumping out... and white text of reddish-orange? And, most irritating is gray text on gray BG in the search results. Guys! come on!

IPL T20 Website: Sad sad sad!

2009-04-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

They use modx CMS, some open-source script if I am not wrong... they advertise this site on TV! After blowing millions of dollars on players and promos, this is what they do to their website. What a shame!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

30 Boxes decides how long my last name should be

2009-04-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

Oh well. That means a good chunk of Indians can't use 30 Boxes. Big deal!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Sixth Sense

2009-03-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

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

IE Only Websites

2009-02-27T02:43:00.000-08:00

I wanted to buy a CD of Avial and their Record Label website said this: The market share of Firefox is at least 30%. This says it is 45%. However, let's assume that it is only 20%. How the hell can any business choose to ignore 20%? Wow! Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

The Future of Touch

2009-02-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-24T01:07:00.000-08:00

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 to the three Cs: Consistency, Context, and Culture. The You I have read manuals that say ‘you can perform this task…’ and in the next chapter add, ‘Users should back up data regularly’. Who is the ‘you’ and who is the ‘user’? Quite a few of my esteemed friends that are Technical Writers shy away from using ‘you’ in their manuals. Again, it is that skeleton in our cupboards (or closets, if you will, my American friend) called Colonial Composition that proves to be the stumbling block. I do not wish to debate on the aesthetic merit of using (or not using) ‘you’ in our manuals. The goal of your manual is to help users be productive. So let us stick to that story for now. Let us look at an example: 1) If the system displays a blue screen, the OS should re-installed. 2) If your system displays a blue screen, re-install the OS. Let us not discuss active and passive voice. Let us focus on the word ‘your’ that replaces ‘the’. Both statements offer the same instruction. If you took a poll with your users on which one they liked. I am quite sure they’d pick the one with ‘your’. Why? Because it is personable. The statement is talking to the user and thus telling the user ‘there’s something in it for you’ and urges action. There is no ambiguity (‘OS should be installed? By who?’). And, the ‘your’ statement costs less to Localize. Also, it is important that your product offers a favorable emotional experience to your users. That is where the Colonial Composition fails. Ask any Interaction Designer and she’ll tell you how important Subjective Satisfaction is to the success of any design. Personable Manual Personable writing pays. What would you prefer to read?

"It is recommended that you upgrade your software."

"We recommend that you upgrade your software."

The latter engages you. It makes a convincing statement. It doesn’t hide behind the facade of passive voice, and it puts an arm around you and requests, like a friend, to do the needful. There again, some of you might say ‘well, if we screw up, then because we used ‘we’ we may get into a soup.’ Let me reassure you here: 1) you don’t write for a contingency called screw-up. 2) You write to ensure your user increases her productivity. And 3) Whether you write in passive voice or active voice, if it is in the manual, you are liable. Finally, being formal is overrated. Just because you are in business does not meant you have to be business-like in your manual. That is a sad misconception. You got to connect. You have to converse with your user. You need to engage and offer a positive emotional experience to your user. Else, the user will pick that phone and call Support. Now, that, in my book, ~~completely~~ obviates the need for publishing a manual. And, having a writer on board.

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Idea Cellular Web Site

2009-01-20T23:19:00.000-08:00

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

Promoting Document Usage: Taking a leaf out of Business Directories

2008-12-16T22:19:00.000-08:00

You can argue all day that you know a customer that reads your manuals but my point is that most don't. It is a blessing in disguise for most of us: we get away with some really sloppy writing. But if you honestly want to help your customers but don't want to incur support costs, here goes:

Don't talk to them about your cream. Talk about beautiful, flawless skin. Didn't get it? No problem. Most software vendors bundle documentation or at least provide documentation online. And, most think their duty ends there. It doesn't. If it did, explain why customers still call up your Support Desk for information; the same information that your manual offers.

The explanation to this predicament lies else where: Business Directories. I used to be a Sales Rep for Tata Press Yellow Pages in Chennai (they call it InfoMedia now). After publishing and distributing the directory to users (all homes with a phone), they ran a publicity campaign. The campaign was meant to educate users on how Yellow Pages can help them. "Looking for an Architect? Look under Architects category in Tata Press Yellow Pages" Or something like that. The success of the brand depended on people using the product.

Do you promote the usage of your product documentation? I know the answer. Most of you don't. So what should you do?

Talk to your marketing/sales and support folks and send periodic e-mails to your customers. "Did you know that the Deployment Guide can help you customize the interface?" Or "Want to integrate MS-Office with your_product_name_here? See the Office Integration chapter in the Deployment Guide."

Also:
1) Track the kind of support calls you've been receiving
2)Identify common issues
3) Address them in your documentation
4) Highlight the fixes in your usage mail campaign
5) Start from step 1 and keep iterating!

I said track support calls instead of 'take a survey' because I don't believe in surveys. Surveys are the equivalent of you asking your dinner guests 'Hope you liked the food!' The answer is always yes, unless you have a socially aberrant guest who'd say 'Yuk. That food sucks!'

Think about it.
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Gestalt principles of form perception

2008-11-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

The law of proximity posits that when we perceive a collection of objects, we will see objects close to each other as forming a group.

Read more.
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Working Through Screens

2008-11-20T20:11:00.000-08:00

100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work.
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Wrap-rage!

2008-11-04T01:19:00.000-08:00

http://tinyurl.com/5vawe7 Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Internet Explorer 8 Beta: Are these people for real?

2008-10-30T04:43:00.001-07:00

An e-mail from MSDN says:

Consistent with our efforts to promote further interoperability across the Web, Microsoft will be releasing Internet Explorer 8 to render content in its most standards-compliant way by default. Giving top priority to Web standards interoperability allows us to help web developers and designers drive toward the ideal of "write once, run anywhere", freeing up more time to innovate rather than modify content for different browsers. However, browsing with this default setting may cause content written for previous versions of Internet Explorer to display differently than intended. This creates a call to action for site owners to ensure their content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8. As such, we’ve provided a meta-tag which can be added on a per-page or per-site level which will instructs Internet Explorer 8 to render content like it did in Internet Explorer 7, without requiring any additional changes. We are encouraging site administrators to get their sites ready now for broad adoption of Internet Explorer 8, as there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers. To learn more and get started, please follow the step-by-step instructions located at the following link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=120024.

So I followed the link and ended up reading this rubbish:

Some Web sites may not be displayed correctly or work correctly in Windows Internet Explorer 8. This problem does not occur in earlier versions of Internet Explorer, and the affected Web sites continue to be displayed correctly and to work correctly in Windows Internet Explorer 7. For example, you may experience any of the following symptoms in Internet Explorer 8:
Menus, images, or text are in the wrong positions on some Web sites.
Some Web site features do not work.
You receive script error messages on some Web sites.
Internet Explorer stops responding or stops working on some Web sites.

Ha ha ha! Ladies and gentlemen, so *that's* how you win the browser war! Jesus!
Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Finnish e-voting fiasco

2008-10-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

The good old 'human error or bad design' debate resurfaces.

Today, the Ministry of Justice revealed that due to a usability issue, voting was prematurely aborted for 232 voters. The pilot system was in use in three municipalities; this amounts to about 2 per cent of the electoral roll. Seats in the municipal assemblies are often determined by margins of only a couple of votes. It seems that the system required the voter to insert a smart card to identify the voter, type in their selected candidate number, then press "ok", check the candidate details on the screen, and then press "ok" again. Some voters did not press "ok" for the second time, but instead removed their smart card from the voting terminal prematurely, causing their ballots not to be cast. [Link1] [Link2]

The argument here is not 'it worked for 98% of the people'. The deal here is that seats in Finnish municipal assemblies are determined by margins of only a couple of votes. So 2% is huge and whoever designed the system should have taken that into account.
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Canon India's Website is an Attack Site?

2008-10-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

First, Google said:

So I went to http://www.canon.com/ and selected the Canon India site from the Worldwide Site list: Now, my Firefox said:
Webmaster of Canon, could you please wake up and smell the coffee?
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Chrome Issues and Defects

2008-09-08T02:10:00.000-07:00

You must have read enough about Google Chrome so I am not going to humor you with the basics.

I noticed some defects with my Chrome installation (on Windows XP) and I am logging them here:

Blogger Backlink does not work, when your post has a backlink.

Upload Images feature does not work in Blogger. I tried twice but failed. I use a custom domain and not blogspot (that is obvious, I know).

Are the above really issues or is it just me? Let me know. P.S. No RSS auto-detection? I thought this was 2008!

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Dear Adobe

2008-09-02T02:42:00.000-07:00

Product/Program managers come up with a million reasons why they could not go to users while building the product. I have heard some really stupid reasons from Project Managers: "We don't have the time. We want to ship on the so-and-so date!" is the classic refrain. Most product managers are still stuck in the stone age of software design: the 90s. They refuse to budge and the result is, well, predictable. Products that irritate users. Stupid products. And, and, and, your competition gets amazing publicity: One of the users of Dear Adobe site wrote:

Try to beat FoxIt Reader for size and load time. Go ahead and try.

Dear Adobe lists gripes against Adobe products. It makes for some fun reading but it also sends an ominous signal to Adobe. Listen to users or perish. Excerpts from Dear Adobe's Top 50 gripes:

1) Why does the Acrobat Reader take two minutes to launch, and require updates twice a month, just to display PDF pages?
6) Please create an installer that puts your software on my computer in less time than it takes to install an operating system.
15) Please update your Updater so that it won't take 110% of my CPU just to download some files.
20) I really don't want a 'My eBooks' folder. Please ask first.
21) Could you make Adobe Reader start up slower? I'd like to have enough time to go get a sandwich before I read a one page document.
22) Please stop forcing your PDF plug-ins into every orifice of OS X. Apple designed Preview for a reason. Fucking deal with it.
45) Why oh why is Updater.app such garbage? It's 2008 already - why do I need to close Safari so you can update InDesign, exactly?

You know the positive thing is that, Adobe Product Managers don't have invest time or effort to figure our what's wrong with their products. The users have spoken. The least they could do is listen to them. Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Which version is the latest?

2008-08-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, maybe their versioning/numbering sequence is in an inverse sequence. But it is confusing to me Jack. Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Status Messages on Facebook

2008-07-30T05:28:00.001-07:00

How often do you find two friends talking about usability (or about the lack of it thereof) on Facebook! Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank+usability [at] gmail [dot] com

Gmail Usability Issues

2008-07-24T02:24:00.000-07:00

I had written about it sometime back but the issues still remain. Let's give it another deko: 1) I want my 'Go' button. It is too easy to click the wrong choice in the drop-down.

And, what does the Refresh link do? Refresh my mail or...? You know? The link needs a new place. Next to the 'More Actions' menu, it makes you think. Doesn't it?

You wanted to delete only one mail from the conversation... you clicked Delete.

...Gmail deletes all the mails in a conversation. Gmail should pop a message asking you 'This will delete all the mails in the conversation. Are you sure? And, shouldn't Delete be renamed to Delete Conversation por favor? And, and and... provide the Delete Message control in a prominent place where you can find it without thinking too much? Right now, you have to click that small drop-down button next to Reply.

Your thoughts?

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank+usability [at] gmail [dot] com

Deccan Herald Does a Kingfisher

2008-06-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

While trying to navigate to a page on DH via Google, I was told this. Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

UB Group website can harm my computer?

2008-05-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes usability is not even about your design! I searched for UB City and Google warned me that the site can harm my computer! Wow! Dr.Mallya, what's going on? You owe me a beer sir!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Mumbai Suburban Rail Ticket Vending Machines

2008-05-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

A user writes about his experiences and makes some pretty smart recommendations too!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Rediff Books: Spaced out?

2008-05-12T01:35:00.001-07:00

So did I enter numeric data or not? I did, only, I inserted a space. If I am not wrong, the field does not allow spaces between numbers. The error message should read "Spaces not allowed." or something like that. But, this error situation should not occur in the first place. Why can't Rediff tell the user BEFORE the user enters data that spaces are not allowed? Better still display an example of the accepted format? I wanted to buy the latest Chetan Bhagat's book. But looks like I will shop else where for it. Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Dell Vostro 1310 Screw-up

2008-05-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Looks normal, right? Look at your own keyboard... notice anything different? Okay, maybe you don't. But try actually typing on this and it all becomes far too apparent. The whole of the bottom row of letters (Z, X, C...) is one too far to the right. The Z should be below and between A and S, not S and D. You're looking at a brand new Dell Vostro 1310, ordered the day after its released, and delivered on 30th April 2008 in the UK. They keys are all there. Shift, \|, Z, X... its just that the left shift is too big, forcing everything over too far. The Z has to be between the A and S... look on ANY other keyboard and that's where it sits. This is not a US/UK layout issue, just a general monumental flaw. [read more]

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Happy to Help? Really?

2008-04-28T23:19:00.001-07:00

Vodafone claims it is happy to help. Take a look. Click on the pictures to enlarge them. It is not enough if you deploy a CRM solution that's worth a zillion. How can you disable my account just because I didn't log in for 180 days? You send me your bills, and I pay them too; So, why should you disable my account doggy? Sometimes a little common sense goes a long way.

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Ubuntu Desktop Usability Issue 1

2008-04-28T03:21:00.000-07:00

I have decided to log all user experience issues that Ubuntu Desktop throws to me, a Windows user.

"Setting up my broadband Internet access is cumbersome or at least it appears so."

The way Windows XP handles this is not any pretty, but it would have been nicer if folks at Ubuntu had at least provided a Windows-like UI to perform this rather crucial task.

Recommended Books on Usability write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Ubuntu

2008-04-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

Hey! I love this!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

What's in a last name?

2008-04-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

If you try to download a white paper from http://www.comparecrm.com/ you need to fill a form (yawn!) before you can start the download (it fires the PDF on the fly and thus chokes my damned browser!); if you have initial(s) for a last name. God save you! The all-knowing designers of comparecrm.com think a last name has to have more than a single letter. What's the big deal? Read this!

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site

2008-03-19T20:29:00.000-07:00

The guys at insidecrm.com claim:

These quick tweaks will help you keep visitors engaged.

101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Apostrophes in Names Stir Lot O' Trouble

2008-02-22T23:01:00.000-08:00

It can stop you from voting, destroy your dental appointments, make it difficult to rent a car or book a flight, even interfere with your college exams. More than 50 years into the Information Age, computers are still getting confused by the apostrophe. It's a problem familiar to O'Connors, D'Angelos, N'Dours and D'Artagnans across America.

(via AP) Well, well, well! There's another problem with online forms: quite of few of them return an error message 'last name can't be a single letter' when I give it as 'R'. I can't help it but south Indians have initials for last names. For example, mine is R as my dad's name is RanganathaChari! When Niall O'Dowd tried to book a flight to Atlanta earlier this year, the computer system refused to recognize his name. The editor of the Irish Voice newspaper could book the flight only by giving up his national identity.

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Firefox VC++ Runtime Error

2007-10-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

One more for the Hall of Shame! Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

My STC India Annual Conference 2007 Slides

2007-10-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

Contingency design does not figure much in conversations amongst technical communicators. In these conversations, the emphasis is usually on the almighty manual. However, oftentimes, customers read error messages before they even think of opening a product's manual. In this presentation, Suman Kumar introduces the key area of contingency design and answers questions like 'How do we design for contingencies?', 'Can you use error messages to boost customer experience and loyalty?', and 'How does effective contingency design help in reducing support costs?'

Find out: Contingency%20Design.zip (2.28 MB)

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

UMO2007

2007-10-28T08:47:00.001-07:00

UMO2007- a national conference on Desiging for User Experience, an event that makes a difference in so many peoples lives by changing the way they live, work and do business. On 30th November, 2007 UsabilityMatters.Org and allied organizations will join communities across the world to mark the celebrations for World Usability Day 2007 in Hyderabad.

visit the conference website: http://umo.in/umo2007/

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

UMO2007

2007-10-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

UMO2007- a national conference on Desiging for User Experience, an event that makes a difference in so many peoples lives by changing the way they live, work and do business. On 30th November, 2007 UsabilityMatters.Org and allied organizations will join communities across the world to mark the celebrations for World Usability Day 2007 in Hyderabad.

visit the conference website: http://umo.in/umo2007/ Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Length of the error message...

2007-09-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

The length of the error message is directly proportional to the user's threat-perception. (Threat-perception = 'Something's wrong with this product') Does it make sense? Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

I will be talking at the STC Annual Conference in Goa

2007-08-21T01:29:00.000-07:00

Contingency design does not figure much in conversations amongst technical communicators. In these conversations, the emphasis is usually on the almighty manual. However, oftentimes, customers read error messages before they even think of opening a product's manual. In this presentation, Suman Kumar introduces the key area of contingency design and answers questions like 'How do we design for contingencies?', 'Can you use error messages to boost customer experience and loyalty?', and 'How does effective contingency design help in reducing support costs?'

Read more on the STC Website. Another interesting paper is by Rachna and Shilpa of Cadence: Test plans as a source of improving documentation quality. Sweet. Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

The Retail Chaos Theory

2007-08-09T01:52:00.000-07:00

On a tour of one of his supermarkets, Kishore Biyani notes that shopping carts are getting stuck in the narrow aisles, wheat and lentils have spilled onto the floor, black spots cover the onions and it's difficult to hear above the constant in-store announcements. He grins and congratulates the store manager.Mr. Biyani, 45 years old, has built a large business and a family fortune on the simple premise that, in India, chaos sells.

(via Wall Street Journal Link may not work. Hat-tip: Madman) It is an interesting perspective of user-behavior all right but I think this is a transient phase. Indian retail market is in a state of metamorphosis, so probably after a few years, we will have to resort to the time-tested techniques that, say, a Wal-Mart uses. As far as user-behavior goes, I strongly believe that they will adapt after realizing the importance of an organized shopping experience. Did we ever dream that Maggi Noodles will become a fixture on the list of our 'must haves'? On the other hand, a silent revolution is happening in processed, packaged, ready-to-cook food items. MTR Upma, and packaged curd rice in Chennai are some examples. These are interesting times for Indian retail.

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

NY Times on Usability

2007-07-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

SOMETIMES there is a huge disconnect between the people who make a product and the people who use it. The creator of a Web site may assume too much knowledge on the part of users, leading to confusion. Software designers may not anticipate user behavior that can unintentionally destroy an entire database. Manufacturers can make equipment that inadvertently increases the likelihood of repetitive stress injuries. Enter the usability professional, whose work has recently developed into a solid career track, driven mostly by advancements in technology. [read more]

Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Usability and Testing Colloquium

2007-06-23T03:53:00.000-07:00

I got to talk at this colloquium on usability. It was a last minute thing but I enjoyed talking to some 40 people, most from software testing. Glad to see that usability is gaining popularity in this country.
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Cricinfo.com: Pathetic Contigency Design

2007-05-10T02:30:00.000-07:00

Cricinfo.com is probably the number 1 site for Cricket fans. Given the number of Cricket crazy fans in India and a huge Indian diaspora living all over the world, their traffic volumes must be huge. But that still doesn't stop me from complaining about how a production website can throw up these really elementary errors:

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (11) in /usr/cricinfo/QUIZ/inc/inc_db.php on line 19 Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket= '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (11)

I got the above error message when I tried to access there new Cricket Quiz site. Yes, things breakdown, I know but shouldn't Cricinfo be throwing up a human readable, non-geeky message? Something like "Oops! Looks like our server is acting up again. We are very sorry about it. In the meantime why don't you check our abcd service, while we fix this bad, bad server?"
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Chevy Spark's Warning Lights

2007-04-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

I want to buy this car. I probably will. But Spark has a usability issue:

The Spark has a ground-breaking interior design with ergonomically advanced controls. In the driver's direct area of view is a semi-circular display of control and warning lights.

The semi-circular warning lights. I could see lights of at least three colors. I am sure it is more than that. Pray tell me, given that traffic in Indian cities demand all the attention that a driver can muster, do you really think a driver will pay attention to those lights? I don't care but here is the bitter pill: the lights increase the cognitive load on the driver and probably will contribute, at least at a minor level, towards a bad driving experience. Picture this: 1) You are driving on M.G. Road and bikers are wreaking havoc; you are worried that one of them would scratch your precious Spark and some Red light starts flashing on the console! 2) You are worried if you could make the Green and some orange light on your console starts flashing. Won't you be pissed off? I don't know if I am stretching it far, but do tell me what you think. Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

The Evil 404s

2007-02-05T03:15:00.000-08:00

NDTV.com puked this at me:

An error occurred while processing your request. Reference #97.44ac7cb.1170673976.725f00a

Now, what the hell am I supposed to do? I can understand if a personal website crashes and pukes such garbled nonsense at me. Not NDTV. Haven't they heard of user friendly 404 pages? Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Brains can tell the difference between metaphor and irony

2007-01-31T01:25:00.000-08:00

Most language processing takes places in the left hemisphere of the brain. When we read, carry on a conversation, or listen to speech, most of the action -- for right-handers -- takes place on the left side of the brain. (For left-handers, the situation is more complex; it's not simply a mirror image of a right-handed brain. For this reason, most studies involving any sort of brain scan routinely exclude left-handers.) But there are a few occasions when the right hemisphere gets involved: when we create a narrative, for example, or when we make inferences. Some types of figurative language, such as metaphor and irony, also involve the right hemisphere. But research on perception of metaphor and irony has had difficulty identifying differences in how the two processes work. [Read more on Cognitive Daily] Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Usability heuristics for web development teams

2007-01-29T02:37:00.000-08:00

...surely there should be a broader focus; and one that incorporates as many areas of front end development into an heuristic review as possible.

Read more! Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Cognitive Psychology Arena's Order Form

2006-11-23T04:57:00.000-08:00

What is the problem with this interface? Take a stab. This it the website of the Cognitive Psychology Arena at http://www.cognitivepsychologyarena.com/ Try the online ordering form. You will encounter this rather ironical interface. Why ironical? Because it is the website that deals with Cognitive Psychology! Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Ogilvy & Mather Homepage: Poor Color Choice

2006-10-06T05:16:00.000-07:00

Ogilvy's homepage is drenched in bright red. Why is it a poor choice of color? Here is why: The operation of the eye is largely muscular and any excessive activity will tire it out. Exessive activity includes staring at bright red websites.

Green Trivia

2006-09-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

Green trivia: It is said that green is the most restful color for the human eye. Some claim that green has great healing power. It can soothe pain. Suicides dropped 34% when London's Blackfriar Bridge was painted green. [Via ColorMatters]
Recommended Books on Usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

The GUI Evolution...

2006-08-29T03:55:00.000-07:00

...is documented here Graphical User Interface Timeline. (Hat tip: Madman)

The Future & History of the User Interface

2006-08-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

"I get the feeling we are about to enter a computer user interface renaissance. My guess is that somewhere in the next 2 years (and maybe as soon as with Mac OS X 10.5), we'll see the revitalization of the entire computer field because of UI advances. And with any UI renaissance, we will also see increases in new hardware sales supporting the new paradigms, which in turn will lead to further gains in personal productivity levels." [Read the piece by John Keit on Mac Observer] Via Slashdot
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

An Abomination Called Caps Lock

2006-08-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

"The antagonism toward the Caps Lock key extends beyond its misuse by 13-year-old trolls and naive users. Caps Lock is also responsible for failed entries of passwords and other case-sensitive phrases. Users of word processors are forced to retype any text that was entered with Caps Lock accidentally turned on." [via Wired]
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

A mess called ClearCase

2006-07-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

"...this tool, or should I say pack of tools, is one of the worst nightmares most complex tools I have come across in a usability sense." [Read on!]

How not to design a flyover

2006-07-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

Madman takes a jab at the poor planning and design of flyovers in Bangalore. Read on!

STC Learning Session

2006-05-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

I conducted a session last Saturday on Think Aloud Usability Testing in the Bangalore STC Learning Session.

Dowload presentation

See pictures from the event

write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Outlook Out-of-Office

2006-05-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

Say I am on vacation and I have my Out-of-Office (OoO) on in my Outlook mail. You'll get the OoO message only for the first mail that you sent after I activated my OoO. Your subsequent mails will not get the OoO. Weird. I don't know if this behavior is native to the implementation (of Exchange) I use... your thoughts?

Usability: Must Have

2006-02-10T02:16:00.000-08:00

I was going through the Webmonkey IE7 Beta review. This particular sentence, I thought, emphasised the fact that usability has come a long way: from 'what the heck is that' to 'nice to have' to 'must have'.

We've had a chance to
test drive the new IE7 Beta2 over the past few days. Overall, the
browser is more robust and easier to use. [Link]

First Impressions Count in Website Design

2006-01-20T01:10:00.000-08:00

"Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 miliseconds (1/20th of a second), according to Canadian researchers. In the blink of an eye, web surfers make nearly instantaneous judgments of a web site's "visual appeal." Through the "halo effect" first impressions can color subsequent judgments of perceived credibility, usability, and ultimately influence our purchasing decisions. Creating a fast-loading, visually appealing site can help websites succeed." [Read more on Website Optimization] [Via Slashdot]

Pressure Guage Indicators

2006-01-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

I was filling air in my bike's tyres when I discovered that the rear tyre's level was 10 instead of 36. The problem is that it is difficult for one to assess if the pressure in the tyres is at the optimal level. If your levels are down, you lose out on mileage, inflict damage to your tyres and tubes, and run the risk of an accident. So, don't you think two-wheelers should have pressure indicators ala fuel indicators? I don't see why not! What do you think? And, what about cars, do they have pressure indicators? Cross posted at Sumankumar.com

Using a Projector

2005-12-20T22:58:00.000-08:00

I attended the STC India Annual Conference in Hyderabad last week. Just about every speaker had to ~~spend~~ waste precious time configuring his or her laptop to the projector. Why does it have to be so difficult I wonder. Take, for example, this excerpt from these instructions for connecting a laptop to the projector:

To tell the laptop that you want to see the image on the projector, you just have to push the right buttons. Which buttons are the right ones for you depends on your laptop. [source: Projector Central]

Why can't all laptops follow a standard keyboard command? I don't want to refer to the laptop documentation when I am seconds away from starting my presentation. Well, that is just one of the issues. I am sure there are more. Like, setting the size of the image, setting the resolution of the laptop display, choosing the projector-mode for video, setting the audio... If you are a projector manufacturer ask yourself this question every time you send a product to the market: will a lay person, who knows only how to operate the basic functions of a laptop, be able to setup my projector without assistance and within reasonable time? Think about it. PCs and ancillary products are no more 'technology' products. They are almost consumer-durables now. What say?

Technorati tags: projectors, consumer products, usability

The web has one billion users now

2005-12-19T21:43:00.000-08:00

Via Useit.com:Somewhere in 2005 the billionth user of the Internet logged on. Jakob says it could be someone from Shanghai. 36% of the Internet users are from Aisa. 24% are from Europe. Only 23% are from North America. Now, you tell me who should control the Internet? And who actually does?

Technorati tags: web, internet, usability

Quote

2005-12-09T01:27:00.000-08:00

Design flaws travel in herds. –Solomon Short

Product Documentation in RSS

2005-12-02T04:15:00.000-08:00

Here's my idea for leveraging the power of RSS for usable documentation: Read it here.

Technorati tags: documentation, usability, RSS

10 Ways to Please Us, the Customers (via New York Times)

2005-11-10T00:07:00.000-08:00

VII. Thou shalt remember the customer's phone number. This means you, computer and cellphone companies. We call for help; we're asked to type in our 10-digit phone numbers or 20-digit customer numbers; then when an agent picks up, we're asked for that number again. What - did you think we actually moved and changed our identities since placing the call? If they can write software that sends a man to the moon, they can surely write call-center software that passes on to the agent the information we've already typed in.
IX. Thou shalt not hog the power strip. If a power cord absolutely must incorporate one of those big black transformer bricks, how about putting it in the middle of the cord? When the transformer brick is at the prong end, it hogs three slots on our power strips or both outlets on the wall, and that's just greedy.

Read the complete list on NYT.
Thanks King!

World Usability Day in Chennai

2005-11-08T23:03:00.000-08:00

Note:The presentation I made on the World Usability Day in Chennai reflects only my personal views and does not reflect the views of my employer.

Muthu said: "Well, the turn-out exceeded expectations! There were 72 usability enthusiasts. One of the main highlights of the evening was the presentation made by Shivaram ( a visually challenged Professor) who beautifully voiced out his accessibility requirements. A quiz competition was organized by the Satyam blokes too. The man behind the event was Rajesh, without his efforts, this event would not have been possible. Moving forward, a Chennai Usability e-group is already formed. Plans include offline monthly meetings. As for me, am shuttling between the cities."

Air Deccan: A Quicky Usability Review

2005-10-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

Air Deccan's website offers telephone numbers to buy tickets bang in your face. I like the idea. You will too because logging in to the site is so damn tough. Yo are better off calling them up and booking tickets. 1) The image map nav bar does not work. Image maps suck. Because. They. Are. Not. Text. Links. (read some dope on imagemaps here and here) 2) Login options are buried in the right-bottom corner. What's the big idea. Piss off the user? 3) No 'forgot password' feature 4) They say that the site can be best viewed on Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. Hm. Do these guys know what's going on on the web? Firefox my friends. That's what's going on. 5) No whereon the home page do they talk about 'what is Air Deccan'. Not even the HTML title. Wonderful branding.

World Usability Day in Chennai

2005-10-24T01:22:00.000-07:00

A great oppportunity for Usability Engineers & UI Designers in Chennai to link up.

Rajesh from ( Satyam Computers, Chennai) and me along with volunteers like Ravi are co-ordinating World Usability Day: WUD activities to be held in Chennai on Nov 3rd.

I will be making a short presentation on Usability in day-to-day living. Muthu will also be presenting a topic.

Students, Developers, UI Designers, Tech Writers, Business Analysts from leading IT companies like Infosys, Satyam Computers, Cognizant CTS, Wipro, TCS, Ramco, Sify, Element K, DSM, Inautix, Polaris, Honeywell, Accenture, Office Tiger, Lion Bridge, Dell are expected to participate.

So, mark your calendars and to participate or to know more
Visit Chennai World Usability Day Blog
Call Rajesh at 98840 69320
Mail Rajesh at rajesh.anandakrishnan[@]gmail.com

Watch out for a special Podcast by Muthu.

Event Timing: 5:00 p.m. to 7.00 p.m. on 3 November 2005.
Venue:
Anna University,
Hall of Guines 68
Department of Manufacturing Engineering
Sardar Vallabhat Patel Road
Chennai
600 025
India

URL:
http://www.worldusabilityday.org/taxonomy/term/82

Other Locations:
http://www.worldusabilityday.org

The power of color

2005-10-20T02:51:00.000-07:00

Babies cry more in yellow rooms, husbands and wives fight more in yellow kitchens, and opera singers throw more tantrums in yellow dressing rooms. Be careful how you use it. In practical application, do not paint the walls of a critical task environment yellow. Also, do not use yellow legal pads (but it will give you a jolt and temporarily wake your brain up), and do not use yellow as a background on your computer monitor. -- A company* that markets red contact lenses for chickens (at 20 cents a pair), points to medical studies showing that chickens wearing red-tinted contact lenses behave differently from birds that don't. They eat less, produce more and don't fight as much. This decreases aggressive tendencies and birds are less likely to peck at each other causing injury. A spokesman said the lenses will improve world egg-laying productivity by $600 million a year.

It is said that green is the most restful color for the human eye.
Green has great healing power. It can soothe pain.
People who work in green environments have fewer stomach aches.
Green is beneficial around teething infants.
Suicides dropped 34% when London's Blackfriar Bridge was painted green.

[Read more on Color Matters]

Most Men Buy Apparel At Traditional Retail Stores

2005-08-18T04:37:00.000-07:00

You would think with all the tech-driven devices guys swarm to—the new Playstation Portable, pod-casting and plasma TVs—they would be all over Internet apparel shopping. But, as it turns out, they'?re still creatures of habit when it comes to purchasing clothes.

Via Cotton Inc. Now, why am I not suprised by this shocking revelation? Our computer displays have not progressed to such levels that they can display intricate design and tricky colors flawlessly. Also, a good percentage of people buy clothes after they try them on. Now, I don't have the numbers on how many do that; maybe it is a good idea for someone to make a study? That leaves us with standard sizes and color-safe items like t-shirts, caps etc. We already sell them online; the Google t-shirt, the Linux cap. It will be a long time before people start buying clothes online. I mean real apparel. That said, apparel companies can leverage the power of the web to tap into loyalty programs, branding and so on. I am discussing B2C here. But B2B business is another thing. Any idea how many of these apparel companies transact online with their suppliers?

Multiple-choice radio buttons!

2005-08-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

Weird! The culprit is the Bloglines Citations > Advanced Search

Adobe Framemaker Error Message: Duh!?

2005-08-03T01:45:00.000-07:00

I encountered a weird error situation with Adobe FramMaker. Now, FM is not known for its usability, but this one deserves a place right at top on the error messages bloopers list.

The document was saved to a temporary file, but FrameMaker can't rename it to have the correct name. The newer version has an odd suffix.

(Click on image for bigger picture) Odd suffix? How am I supposed to fix this issue of not being able to save my changes? Huh?

No Go Blues

2005-08-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

I have experienced this terrible feature in so many sites (including Google's Gmail): A drop-down menu that executes when you select an item from the list (as opposed to select and click the 'Go' button). How does it hamper usability of a website? Read on: 1) It is so easy to select the wrong choice. If there is a 'Go' button, you can always retract and correct your choice. 2) On some sites, when you select an item, the respective page loads but the window focus is still in the drop-down. If you use the scroll-wheel on your mouse, it scrolls the item list in the drop-down, changes your choice, and leaves you with, 'WTF did I do just now?' Please have the 'Go' button. Please.

Archiving and Knowledge Management

2005-06-13T22:14:00.000-07:00

In his latest article Jakob Nielsen says:

Most usability practitioners don't derive full value from their user tests because they don't systematically archive the reports. An intranet-based usability archive offers four substantial benefits.

He also adds:

I don't recommend establishing a formal knowledge base of usability reports. The current state of knowledge management (KM) is primitive, and you're unlikely to see benefits that are worth the cost and hassle. The exception here is if your company has already invested in KM for other documents, and you can piggyback on the existing system.

I am surprised that he does not mention blogs as a possible solution to archiving usability reports. While describing the benefits of archiving Jakob mentions the following: 1) Faster ramping up of new usability engineers: An Intranet blog (or a collection of blogs by engineers) will surely help a new employee understand what's going on. And blogs are chronologically arranged and archived. Blogs are searchable. 2) Track trends over time: Since blogs are chronogically arranged and they publish alternative versions (XML feeds), I think it is easier to chart trends over time using blogs. Also, blogs are easy to set up and they remove publishing as a stumbling block. Most blogging systems offer alternative methods to publish: publish via e-mail, mobile, PDA, instant messenger, right-click context menus... Also the consumption of content via blogs is different from a traditional website or intranet. People use RSS readers that allow one to read multiple stories from multiple sources at a single place; no hassle of multiple browser windows. No typing URLS or checking manually if your fav site has something new to offer, as the RSS readers normally update automatically. So, blogs offer a fantastic framework to author and consume content even on an Intranet. This combined with the fact that content is chronologically arranged, archived, and search-enabled, makes blogs an ideal solution for archiving and KM. I am really surprised that Jakob does not even make a passing mention of weblogs when talkiing about Intranet archiving and KM! A search on useit.com uncovered a comment by ex-CEO of Pyra Labs (the company that gave us blogger.com), Evan Williams' comment on the article Content Creation for Average People. Evan wrote:

I find it surprising, however, that you ask the question, "How can we increase the number of people who contribute content to the Web?" and talk about tools that provide structured creation, but fail to mention weblogs. While some may not consider weblogs "content," contrary to common definition, blogs are not about linking to web pages -- except in that linking should be a part of most any writing on the web. Pointing out sites may have been a place to start, but if you look at what's being published in the blog format today, you'll find it's everything from personal journals, to poetry, to punditry. Blogs are really about the format -- frequent, short bursts of text -- a format that happens to work very well on the web, both for readers ("people don't read on the web") and writers/publishers. Most importantly, in regards to your piece, this is a format that the average person can produce. One doesn't need to be a comfortable writer in order to post a short blurb about their thoughts on a particular subject/product/site/experience. What's more, even if the average person felt comfortable with a blank piece of paper, the time to write longer pieces is daunting to those for whom creating web content is not a full time job. Blogs let people get their thoughts down quickly, succinctly, and with enough structure to help them along, without being limiting on what they choose to communicate. If you ask me, you can't do much better than that in getting average people publishing content on the web. And the proof is in the tens of thousands of people who, because of blog publishing tools, now write and publish on the web every day, who never did before.

To which Jakob replied:

Weblogs are of so highly varying quality that I don't consider them a true solution to the problem. Somebody who is a good writer and has something to communicate will make a good weblog, for sure (see, for example, my current favorite: Doc Searls). But the average weblog is unreadable. However, I agree with Evan that there are aspects of the weblog format that lend themselves to improved content: The basic idea is that you write a short observation or note whenever it occurs to you: this is surely less intimidating than having to write an entire article. You can get away with the short notes even for substantial issues because of the weblogs' reliance on links to other sites as the way to present the full story. Even if your own writing is not that great, you will still provide a valuable service if you can identify sources of other good content on the Web and link to it. Thus, weblogs are a form of selection-based content creation: you have the entire Web to choose from and you get to post a few links every day. The best current example is Tomalak's Realm: he usually doesn't write anything, so the editorial selection of links and quotes is the only service provided by the site and that is enough to make it the second-most useful site on the Web today (after Google).

There is no research evidence that most blogs post short bursts of text. Probably we should take a survey and find out how much average people that are not 'writers' write on their blogs. I think the average post would me much more than a mere burst of text. Jakob probably should alter his view that a blog is a collection of links and that blogs rely on links to generate content. Polictial blogs act as watch dogs and they write extensive posts, which influence opinions of thousand of voters. There is no linking there. A whole bunch of bloggers reported on the recent Tsunami disaster in South-east Asia and filled the gap that the main-stream-media left. I call it a milestone in citizen reporting and publishing. Bloggers blog because blogs are easy-to-use. A usability guru ignoring them is unpardonable.

The US Immigration and Customs Websites

2005-05-24T01:20:00.000-07:00

Read this on MSNBC (thanks Ravi): The Indian couple flew for more than 20 hours to see their children and grandchildren in Orange County, arriving Sunday night - Mother's Day.The visit lasted 45 minutes. Then they were gone - escorted after a brief reunion with their shocked relatives in a departure lounge at Los Angeles International Airport by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to a plane bound for India, 24 hours after their arrival in the U.S. The cause: a dispute over paperwork. (sic)[Link on MSNBC]

The case comes one week after the Government Accountability Office issued testimony that stated immigration agencies such as Customs and Border Protection face significant management challenges, including establishing "accurate and timely" computer systems.

But immigration-rights advocates said such scrutiny - including detention of the Venkatratnams - might be based on inaccurate computer data.

Immigration-rights groups said the Venkatratnams' paperwork could be missing for reasons as simple as a spelling or typographical error.

Human error or bad usability? Both I guess. The reason why the old couple were thrown out of USA by the immigration officials was because the victims were not able to show proof that they obeyed all immigration laws when they had extended their stay during their last visit. They did not retain the I-94 counterfoil. Of course, the computer could not verify the visitors' data. Take a look at the CBP website and the USCIS website and tell me if the sites 1) afford usable information retrieval (Search for example), and 2) If a ~~non-US~~ user can understand the purpose and scope of the sites.

Clean, Cutting-edge UI Design Cuts McAfee’s Support Calls by 90%

2005-05-23T04:24:00.000-07:00

Clean, Cutting-edge UI Design Cuts McAfee’s Support Calls by 90% [Thanks Kingsley!]

The gurus are lagging?

2005-05-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

Out of curiosity I wanted to see if Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman, and Bruce Tognazzini offer RSS feeds on their websites. After all, they are some kind of founding fathers of the web-user-experience movement. I was thinking, 'of course they'll offer feeds, they must have been one of the first few to realize how easy RSS makes catching news.' Well, none of them offer RSS feeds. At least, I couldn't find the feeds (which, if true, is worse). I don't think they even blog. Jakob, Don, and Tog why don't you join the revolution? We have left you behind dudes. Jokes aside, I wonder why these guys don't blog. And don't have Adsense on thier sites :-)

Global Color Survey

2005-05-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

I took a color survey on Color Matters. Here are the intriguing results.

Since 1997, over 30,000 people from all points on the globe took the survey. Here are the results:
Happy - Yellow
Pure - White
Good Luck - Green
Good-tasting - Red (tomato)
Dignity - Purple
High Technology - Silver
Sexiness - Red (tomato)
Mourning - Black
Expensive - Gold
Inexpensive - Brown
Powerful - Red (tomato)
Dependable - Blue
High Quality - Black
Nausea - Green
Deity - White
Bad Luck - Black
Favorite Color - Blue
Least Favorite Color - Orange
Link to Colormatters

So, if you are a services company you may want to use a blue theme for your site, your office, your ads, your logo and so on. If you are a manufacturer of fast cars, use Red (Tomato) as your car colors, your site color... If you are selling Pizzas, paint it red (tomato) baby. If you want to make that girl fall for you, go red! If you want to impress her parents wear purple. If you are selling Coconut oil stay white. If you are hacking your competitors site, paint their site orange.

Need Inputs: Talk on usability for technical writers

2005-05-11T23:54:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, I have been invited to talk about usability to a bunch of people that are training to be technical communicators. The duration of the session is two hours. I don't want it to be a 'words only' session. Of course, I would be talking to them about the basics, the importance of usability, standards, product design and usability, and user-centered design. What I am thinking about is some kind of an exercise, a practical session, for the participants. I was thinking if I should ask them to run a quick UI review on their mobile phones (and take it from there... UI standards for mobiles, gloss vs. Utility etc.). If you have any comments suggestions, please leave a comment.

Meaningless Error Messages: Citibank Website

2005-04-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

I encountered this error message and I had no clue what I was doing wrong. I was trying to compose a message to the support team and every time I hit send I got this error. They have some stupid constraint like no special characters in text or something. Hmm.

write to me: sumank [at] sumankumae [dot] com

F for ...

2005-03-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post about Outlook's funny keyboard short cuts but Chakrapani took the lead:

I just saved myself from a huge embarrassment. Searching for a person's name in a MS Outlook e-mail, I pressed Ctrl + F and started typing the name. While Ctrl + F in all other (no.. most other) applications would launch that little 'Find' dialog box, in case of Outlook, it is a shortcut for forwarding the mail as it launches the 'Forward' window and waits for us to fill the address field. As the search phrase was the person's name itself, in effect I was about to forward a confidential mail to the person about whom the mail was about. I would have made a big a*s of myself, had I pressed the return key. Thank God!Via Chakkarapani.com

Sony Playstation: Different Versions for Different Regions

2005-03-17T00:30:00.000-08:00

If you buy a Sony gaming console Playstation in the USA and buy a game from Europe, the game just won't work on your US-bought console. Why? USA consoles use NTSC, while European versions use PAL. This, to me, is an archaic policy. Indians have better access (in terms of a friend or relative living there that is) to USA than Europe. There are more Indians in USA than in Europe. Playstation also plays DVDs. But if your console is PAL it plays only PAL DVDs. That's stupid. And the games cost a bomb. All these factors have lead to wide-spread piracy of Playstation games (pirated versions are available for dirt cheap rates). How do people play pirated versions but? They install a modchip. The modchip makes the console read any shit. PAL or NTSC; game or DVD. Now, if Sony really wants to retain its leadership, it should open-up its proprietary format, and probably move towards an open-standard (games that are device/region independent). This would help game makers in a big way; they don't need to invest separately for Playstation game development, and need not worry about piracy. And of course the game makers would love Sony for it. Sony should probably concentrate on enhancing the gaming experience on its consoles. I am just shooting off my hip. But what the hell, I hate what Sony does; restricting its product according to region. That's nonsense. I hope Sony learns the term global village some time soon.
write to me: sumank [at] sumankumar [dot] com

Phones Need Simplicity Before Cool Stuff, CEOs Say

2005-03-17T00:23:00.000-08:00

Mobile telephone services need to be far less confusing to consumers, the heads of top U.S. wireless operators said on Wednesday, even as they talked up complex features such as Web surfing or video on phones. (Via Reuters.com)

About time. I have trouble operating different Nokia brands, leave alone using other phones like Samsung and LG. As I had reiterated before, phones (mobile or not) are first communication devices. Everything else is secondary. Take a look at the ads and TV commercials for mobile phones: they all talk about 'color display' 'polyphonic ringtones' 'broadband'... Nokia which used to make user-friendly phones seemed to have succumbed to the fad. I hope they realize the importance of arriving at an interface standard and make life easier for us poor users.

Most Hated Advertising Techniques

2005-01-27T04:05:00.000-08:00

Design Element	Users Answering "Very Negatively" or "Negatively"
Pops-up in front of your window	95%
Loads slowly	94%
Tries to trick you into clicking on it	94%
Does not have a "Close" button	93%
Covers what you are trying to see	93%
Doesn't say what it is for	92%
Moves content around	92%
Occupies most of the page	90%
Blinks on and off	87%
Floats across the screen	79%
Automatically plays sound	79%

Most Hated Advertising Techniques (Via Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) I hope Rediff is listening.

Merry Christmas Folks!

2004-12-24T03:19:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Folks! Have a great holiday season and a terrific new year. :-)
write to me: sumank [at] sumankumae [dot] com

Top 10 Usability Blunders of the Big Players

2004-12-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

Trenton Moss lists the Top 10 blunders by the big guys like Boeing, BMW, ESPN, and more! Check it out. Top 10 Usability Blunders of the Big Players

Windows Sticky Keys Dialog

2004-11-21T21:43:00.000-08:00

I was seriously thinking about something and accidentally hit the Shift key five times and activated the Windows Sticky Keys dialog.

Now, how in the god's name would a lay person understand what's written there? It should be on the lines of "Allows you to use key combinations by pressing one key at a time (keyboard commands that require two or more keys. Example: 'Ctrl+Alt+Delete')."
write to me: sumank [at] sumankumae [dot] com

It is OK: Dialog boxes usability

2004-10-28T01:02:00.000-07:00

Jakob Nielsen in his recent column on PC security writes:

...spyware and adware that install software on your computer without your informed consent (although some operations might claim to have consent, most people don't know what they're agreeing to when they click "OK?" buttons on the Web; for true consent, users must know that software will be installed and want the adware feature activated).

All right, I know for a fact that majority of users when exposed to an OK/Cancel dialog, click OK without even reading what the dialog says. For example, the IE debugger application pops the 'Wish to debug?' dialog whenever IE encounters a script error on a web page. Most people click OK unwittingly and start the debugger application. User behavior while interacting with such dialogs is justified. All dialog boxes appear the same and most times you do away (and get away with it) with the dialogs by clicking OK. When I am browsing a site, I don't want to be disturbed by a dialog box. It is extremely irritating. We probably need dialog-blockers like popup-blockers. Any developer around to offer insights?
write to me: suman [at] sumankumar [dot] com

How users read

2004-10-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

"aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. the rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe." (via an e-mail forward). Whether or not the information is from Cambridge, you know it is true. Designers make note. Localization people make note. Isn't that so amazingly simple?

Neuro-aesthetics, Perceptual Grammar, Art, and Usability

2004-09-26T23:10:00.000-07:00

Last evening I was watching an interview of Vilayanur S. Ramachandran on BBC. Ramachandran explained how the human brain perceives, processes, and acts, when exposed to art. Why do we like a Picasso? A Davinci, or a Henry Moore? Why do we tap our feet while listening to a particular kind of music? During the interview Ramachandran dwelt upon a study on Seagull chicks' feeding habits. He calls it the law of Peak shift. I googled for it and found his BBC Radio interview on the same subject. Here's an excerpt from his interview on BBC Radio:

To answer this question, you need to go and look at ethology, especially the work of Niko Tinbergen at Oxford more than fifty years ago. And he was doing some very elegant experiments on seagull chicks. As soon as the herring-gull chick hatches, it looks at its mother. The mother has a long yellow beak with a red spot on it. And the chick starts pecking at the red spot, begging for food. The mother then regurgitates half-digested food into the chick's gaping mouth, the chick swallows the food and is happy. Then Tinbergen asked himself: "How does the chick know as soon as it's hatched who's mother? Why doesn't it beg for food from a person who is passing by or a pig?" And he found that you don't need a mother. You can take a dead seagull, pluck its beak away and wave the disembodied beak in front of the chick and the chick will beg just as much for food, pecking at this disembodied beak. And you say: "Well that's kind of stupid - why does the chick confuse the scientist waving a beak for a mother seagull?" Well the answer again is it's not stupid at all. Actually if you think about it, the goal of vision is to do as little processing or computation as you need to do for the job on hand, in this case for recognizing mother. And through millions of years of evolution, the chick has acquired the wisdom that the only time it will see this long thing with a red spot is when there's a mother attached to it. After all it is never going to see in nature a mutant pig with a beak or a malicious ethologist waving a beak in front of it. So it can take advantage of the statistical redundancy in nature and say: "Long yellow thing with a red spot IS mother. Let me forget about everything else and I'll simplify the processing and save a lot of computational labor by just looking for that."

Computational Labor Ah! Now, if you are wondering how this whole thing is related to usability, eat this: Isn't it a nice idea to study what our 'Long yellow things with red spots' are? And use it to build interfaces that afford minimal computational labor? Software borrows a lot from culture and nature; be it icons, metaphors, or task-simulation (shopping cart?). Can we take it a step further and borrow from Neurology and art?
Here is another interesting observation for those designers that crib about usability not allowing them to unleash their creativity: While discussing why goddess Parvati's sculptures and idols were created the way the are, Ramachandran explains the rationale that the ancient Chola artists used. Read the excerpt:

...But the Victorian Englishmen who first encountered these sculptures were appalled by Parvati, partly because they were prudish, but partly also just because of just plain ignorance. They complained that the breasts were way too big, the hips were too big and the waist was too narrow. It didn't look anything like a real woman - it wasn't realistic - it was primitive art. And they said the same thing about the voluptuous nymphs of Kajuraho - even about Rajastani and Mogul miniature paintings. They said look these paintings don't have perspective, they're all distorted. They were judging Indian art using the standards of Western art - especially classical Greek art and Renaissance art where realism is strongly emphasized.

How does the artist convey the very epitome of feminine sensuality? What he does is simply take the average female form, subtract the average male form - you're going to get big breasts, big hips and a narrow waist. And then amplify it, amplify the difference. And you don't say: "My God, it's anatomically incorrect". You say: "Wow! What a sexy goddess!"
But that's not all there is to it because how do you bring in dignity, poise, grace?
Well what you do is something quite clever, what the Chola bronze artist does is something quite clever. There are some postures that are forbidden to a male. I can't stand like that even if I want to. But a woman can do it effortlessly. So what he does is he goes into an abstract space I call "posture space", and then subtracts the average male posture from the female and then exaggerates the feminine posture - and then you get elegant triple flexion - or tribhanga - pose, where the head is tilted one way, the body is tilted exactly the opposite way, and the hips again the other way. And again you don't say: "My God, that's anatomically inappropriate. Nobody can stand like that." You say: "My God! It's gorgeous. It's beautiful! It's a celestial goddess". So the image is extremely evocative and it's an example of the peak shift principle in Indian art.

Let us see how the whole thing about 'exaggeration' relates to usability. Fitt's law says that the bigger and nearer the clickable area is the better the chances of someone clicking it (that's my interpretation). Bigger? Yes. So, here is what I'd advise any interface designer: While creating icons or links for important tasks. Exaggerate. I mean make that 'Buy' link bigger. But how do you make these important links, buttons, and icons stand out? Simple. Use the theory of elimination. Do what the Chola artists did: take the average links (information links like 'about us', let's say) and ensure that the links or buttons of important tasks like 'payment' or 'contact us' are accentuated (visually?). My handicap is that I am not a graphical designer; if you are one think of better ways to use the exaggeration idea.

Grouping
Ramachandran also talks about Grouping. The faculty of human vision according to him evolved mainly to discover objects and defeat camouflage. Ramachandran uses Richard Gregory's Dalmatian puzzle picture (see pic -new window) to explain the concept. It is intriguing to note that your brain actually biases you before your eyes make out what's in the picture. It again relates to how our brain strives to minimize computational effort. The lesson here is to ensure that interfaces afford discovery. It'll have a positive impact on learning costs of your product.
Perceptual Problem Solving
The most revealing (pun unintended) concept of all to me, was the law of perceptual problem solving (Ramachandran calls it 'visual peek-a-boo'). He stresses on how a nude behind a diaphanous veil is much more alluring than a full-color photograph. I can identify with that. For us guys, a cleavage is more exciting than a bare-it-all. Ramachandran offers an explanation to this: our brains evolved in highly camouflaged environments. Let's try and translate to this our work. Make alluring ad banners and product promos. To me, the most engaging words on the web (after 'free' and 'new') is 'more' or 'read more'. Think about it: a short two-line trigger to pull the user into your website with a 'more' link, instead of writing verbose copy. It seems as if we humans don't like spoon-feeding. We like to explore and discover stuff on our own. So, give it to your customers. Don't bare it all! I am just rambling away, do write to me and let me know what you think.

Less is more!
Ramachandran's law of isolation or understatement is in-line with how he thinks our brain strives for minimal computational labor. Ramachandran offers a simple yet brilliant explanation on why this law is the exact opposite of his peak-shift law (that argues for exaggeration): he attributes it to 'attention'. He says, your brain can handle only one neural activity at a time. In other words, you can't concentrate on two things at a time (watch TV on mute and try concentrating on what the radio is playing!). I understood it as 'more people appreciate caricatures than a complicated piece of art/painting.' The reason is your brain has less information to process while you appreciate a caricature. Now, how does this work for us? Keep your homepages simple and help users' brains to easily process the information you are offering. There could be more uses but I think entry points, landing pages (from a google ad, say) should not be cluttered. They should outline your business and help users quickly decide what to do next. I am still thinking about how neurology and neuro-aesthetics can help build better, friendlier interfaces... what's your take on the whole thing?

Nucleus CMS: Bravo!

2004-09-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

A visually challenged user of Nucleus CMS had this to say about the script:

"Just to say a great 'thanks' for your nice job. I'm totally blind and totally newbie in php and i've created my blog without any problem with the manual and the help of the forum. and, I could achieve my goal because you, the nucleus devs have thought about the accessibility of your software for blind users. Of course, I've some questions but now, my weblog which is about some cool utilities accessible with screen readers, is running on an accessible soft. Bravo for the job. I've registered to the forum and I will ask some questions to get more from this good work. I've modified the tag of the nucleus button on the bottom of my page to claim that nucleus is accessible! lol" [Sof]

If only all developers think in the same lines of Nucleus developers! Check out Nucleus CMS: an easy-to-use, feature-rich, and accessible blog script
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Banking websites: Contingency Design

2004-09-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

I logged on to Citibank's site to access my Suvidha savings account. While browsing through the various services that my account offers I wanted to check how the 'Transfer Funds' feature works. The idea is quite simple: you choose an account from which funds are to be taken, and choose a bank account (Citibank's, or any other bank's) to which the funds are to be given. I clicked on 'Payees' (the recipient of your funds) and it popped this error:

A Runtime error occurred. Do you wish to debug? Line 25: 'top.Control.cbol' is null or not an object

Now, I can only assume that as there were no payees-I had not added any to my account-the script resulted in an error situation that Citibank (or whoever was given the website contract) never planned for. A minor problem; no sweat. Right? Wrong. Bad contingency design delivers a telling blow on customer-confidence. The first question that popped in my head was 'is this site as secure as it claims to be?' Now, the error in question and site security could be as related as Bush and intelligence, but to a code-blind person (most customers are code-blind mind you) an error is an error. Why can't these big corporates with fat budgets pay more attention to customer experience? I can understand a small company having a sloppy website: they do not have the resources or funds, but Citibank? Pch. Sad.
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Accessibility: News for the hearing impaired

2004-08-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

None of the private news channels seem to care about accessibility for the disabled; remember our state-run Doordarshan's news for the hearing-impaired? Why wont they spare 30 minutes a week for the hearing-impaired? I do not know the economic repercussions of having such an initiative, but consider this: in the USA it is mandatory for Telecom service providers to offer Telecommunications device for the deaf and hearing impaired (TDD)(to comply with Section 508 and Section 255 of the Telecom act. I think similar government initiatives for television channels would help disabled people be informed. At least, news channels should pay some attention to the needs of the disabled. Is someone listening? But the crass, rampant commercialisation in private news channels, makes it impossible for me to believe that they are going to have the time, and the inclination for addressing the needs of the disabled. Well, that's just the cynical and paranoid me. Maybe things are not as bleak. What do you reckon?
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Customer Experience: Forrester Research

2004-08-04T02:19:00.000-07:00

Customer Experience research helps clients apply best practices for designing and testing Web sites and IVR and connect Web, phone, and email efforts into a seamless process so they can offer the right experience to the right customers at the right times. Breakthrough research on personas and Scenario Design form the foundation of these deliverables. New research includes work on remote usability, cross-channel practices, and designing for non-PC devices. (Read more on the Forrester site)

write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Wanted: Technical Writers for Wipro Technologies, Pune

2004-07-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

Wipro Pune is looking Technical Writers with three plus years of relevant experience. If you

have worked on creation of user manuals, installation guides, FAQs, and glossary
Possess an incisive perspective of the technical writing process
Are well versed in publishing tools like Framemaker, Dreamweaver, MS-Office, and Webworks

Send your updated resumes to suman@sumankumar.com Job location: Pune Number of vacancies: four Rush your resume now!

Job openings for young under-grads and graduates in Spectramind

2004-07-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

Spectramind the BPO arm of Wipro is looking for Under Graduates/Graduates with Knowledge in Operating Systems, Email Support, Trouble shooting in Connectivity Problem, Windows 2000, XP, 9X.Microsoft Internet Explorer, Networking Management, Working knowledge of Microsoft® Windows NT® Server and Windows 2000 Server, Working Knowledge of Exchange or comparable e-mail system TCPIP, Hands on in Switches, Routers & LAN / WAN, DOS and PC technology and applications. Rush your resume to one of the following e-mail ids based on your location preference.

Rush your resumes to one of the following e-mail ids

New Mumbai - wsmcareersbelapur@wipro.com
Chennai - wsmcareerschennai@wipro.com
Delhi - wsmcareersdelhi@wipro.com
Powai - wsmcareerspowai@wipro.com
Pune - wsmcareerspune@wipro.com Please refer my name (Sumankumar.R) and e-mail id [kumar.suman (at) wipro (dot) com]in your e-mail

User Interface Standards of Mobile Phones

2004-06-17T13:57:00.000-07:00

Last night at a birthday party we got talking about mobile phones when my friend Amit told me how frustrated he was with Motorola and Nokia mobile phones. When asked why, he said, 'I replaced my Nokia with this new, sleek Motorola and my phone bill almost doubled!' I was surprised and I didn't hide it. Amit went on to tell me that the button he pushes on a Nokia phone to pick up calls, cancels the call in the Motorola phone. So, every time he cancels -unknowingly- a call on his new Motorola phone, he calls that friend back and explains his predicament. People are so used to Nokia's interface that they expect all mobile phones to behave like Nokia phones. That's the problem. That's the solution too. If I were manufacturing mobile phones I would follow the standards set by Nokia instead of inventing my own. That may sound a bit cheap at the surface but if you give it a thought, it'd make a load of sense. Why re-invent the wheel? Ah, by the way, Amit chucked his Motorola and got back to Nokia. The product's use should drive its design. Not some fancy designer's day dream.
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

Quick Notes Plus: Context Sensitive Sticky Notes

2004-06-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

Conceptworld's Quick Notes Plus might appear like any other Sticky Notes Plus (QNP) program, but its context-sensitive notes feature is mind blowing: QNP is the closest to our paper sticky notes. What I mean is you can stick a paper note anywhere you want and that's what makes them useful. Say, your TV needs repair. You just stick on note on it saying 'Take me to the mechanic or call the mechanic' and every time you drown your lazy butt in the couch the note on the TV reminds you that you have to fix the TV. Paper Sticky Notes are naturally context-sensitive. Most Virtual Sticky Notes software are not. That's where QNP scores. And I think its context-sensitivity alone will make it a leader in its market. So, good luck QNP. Other possible uses of context-sensitive notes by QNP:

Stick a Note to your weblog: 'need to write about the Paris trip' and every time you open your weblog the note would remind you that you got to make a post about your trip. This is cool or what?
Stick a note to any document (finished, unfinished)
Stick a note to Winamp! (download reminder?)
Stick a note to your e-mail program (Outlook or Notes or Eudora). Though most e-mail programs have notes in built; the notes are not prominent... QNP notes appear when you open the e-mail program... and appear prominent.
Stick notes to your Yahoo Messenger 'remind John about the party'!

I can go on but I know you got the drift. So why don't you visit QNP's site and give it a spin? And QNP's priced version is only $24.95 and that my friend is a steal.

write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

You are Invited

2004-06-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

After a marathon long-distance courtship of four and a half years, Chitra and I are tying the knot. Be there to share the moment, wish us luck, and see us off as we take our first step towards a journey of a life time. See you at the wedding!
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com

This site has moved: Update your Bookmarks

2004-06-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

I am moving this site to a better host. Please update your bookmarks. The new URL will be: http://sumankumar.com/usability
write to me: sumank [at] gmail [dot] com