usability of the swine flu mask...and related stuff

Its panic time in sleepy ole Pune what with the swine making its scary mark on the city. I am surrounded by people wearking masks - cloth ones, n95s, n94s, 3M....etc etc. It is a freaky feeling which reminds of one of the 'The day after tomorrow' movies...you the know the kind.

Finally, i gave in to the panic myself and got my son a mask....he wore it poor soul for about 5 mins! i scared him them with enough stories of the swine and its might and he promised to keep it on for as long as he could. As i watched all the kids with masks playing together - the Swine Flu game.....which essentially was one big kid chasing all the others pretending to be the swine himself....i wonder where this is going. These innocent souls who know not the gravity of the situation....God save them from this terror that is the swine....i pray for safer times in this city i love so much.

the grand iphone experience

I haven't written for a while - somehow nothing seemed interesting enough to write about ...or maybe i was just plain lazy! But, i now how an experience to write about called the iphone :)

To be honest, i have never been a gadget freak but the iphone has fascinated me; for the obvious user experience connection. I now possess one and i must say it has lived up to all the hype and jazz for me! I spent the first few hours just looking at the brilliant icons and marveling at the 'no button' smooth feel....yes, people, i am in love with a device!!

One by one, i explored the features, downloaded free games from the App store and showed my li'l boy how to swipe across the screen to view pictures.

The iphone is simply fantastic from a user experience perspective - each interaction has been thought through to the finest detail and is design to give you a really delightful experience.

more to follow...

cellphones..all about user experience

This is one story that's been beggin to be written! What is it with cellphones today....in an era when user experience rules, we still have companies like Sony, Samsung and even Nokia throwing model after model at us, models which have some obvious flaws in the UE arena.
My old cell was the Samsung D840 - killer looks and pretty good usability with intuitive task flows and well-designed icons. I loved it...except for one little flaw - the display kept dying out on me :( After multiple rounds of service and repair, I had no choice but to give up on my beloved slider. Then i bought the K770i which is a simple bar phone with a pretty cool UI. But, there are issues on the usability front which to me are very obvious ones. For instance, if i have selected a track to listen on the music player and i wanna make it my ringtone...the D840 had a menu option right there. In the Sony phone, there is no quick way to do this. I have to go into the menu > settings > sound settings > ringtones > then select the song from the list and only then can i set it as a ringtone!! Phew...talk about a totally unoptimized task flow!
Frequently used features like 'Silent Mode', turning on the speaker or adding contacts to the phonebook must be at one-click access.

Users expect more and its upto interaction designers to take note of such basic user needs and work them into a design.

teaching through creativity.

I've been a bit lazy of late and not writing regularly but this weekend watched Taare Zameen Par and had to say something abt it! Took my kid and my parents and we kept thinking if he's getting affected...is he feeling sad...i was holding his hand too. Slowly, I realised he was the least affected of the lot...while the 3 of us were weeping like kids!!
The movie is soulful and the acting of the little boy inspiring. Aamir Khan as the teacher who regonized the boy's inner talent and helped him overcome his learning troubles, was subtle and effective.
It is a pointer to the schools of today to encourage learning through different media like art and music. I remember school as hours of reading text books, cramming pages of chemistry and history and when i am at my job today i wonder to what use was all of that? Where have I applied what i learnt and how much do I remember? It is heartening to note that some of the newer schools have started using alternative practical approaches to teaching. MY son as part pf KG classes has exercises to study reflections in the mirror or take a torch and flash shadows on the wall and watch how they change with the distance of the torch from his hand. He paints, has music class and sometimes spends time in the school garden looking for 'creepie crawlies' :) The sheer joy on my son;s face when he is asked to finger paint or model letters out of clay...is a sight to savour.

It's a whole new world and the sooner these li'l children understand nature and life and growth, the better adults they will turn out to be. And what better way to induct them than to let them explore the world and create opportunities for learning through fun, games and creativity.

This one's for all those wonderful teachers who dare to think different and truly believe in the power of lateral thinking and creativity for learning.

usable toys

I was watching my 4 yr old struggle to play with a Hot Wheels racing track he got as a gift. The contraption took us an hour to assemble and then we started figuring out how to play! There were two gears which were whirring and turning at full speed and you had to carefully place the little car right in the middle of those gears. The car got hurled away by the force of the gears and it was supposed to go all the way around the track. But, guess what, its so heavy it doesn;t go halfway! And the toy is meant for ages 3 and up! Talk about being tough to use. What's the little guy supposed to do?

It got me thinking how relevant usability is to the world of toys and kids stuff. Isn't it even more important to put in proper thinking and design toys in a way that they can be easily used by the target users - little kids!

One toy I really love is a little car which just won't fall off. That's so perfect for a kid who is riding it on a table top...there's no risk of it falling off. The rotator wheel turns the car any time it hits an edge.
That's smart design!

Another thing i saw at a friend's house - a kid's chair which has steps like a ladder. So, the kid can easily get up and sit on the chair without any help. Useful.

Perhaps its also smart to use kids for usability testing. Imagine if a product is so easy that a kid can use it....thats the best usability test!

usability in application migration

Many of our clients have a set of legacy applications which have been used for years without much change. Most organizations today are migrating such applications onto new technology platforms. The focus tends to be on providing cutting edge technology and piling up the features list.
- What happens to the end users in this setup? Here are people who are used to certain applications, their interaction patterns have been set for some time. They have apprehensions about adjusting to the new applications, the comfort factor is gone.

Can usability help? Yes, it can make a significant difference.

In any migration exercise, it is critical to have the users at the core and then design the new application. Adopting a user-centric design process ensures that the users’ expectations are well understood, mapped and eventually met. A good starting point is to study the various user profiles and the tasks they perform on the existing application.

Usability analysts can help gauge the users’ mental model, the way in which they interact with the applications and map their needs to the new functionalities. These are crucial inputs to the design phase and will eventually help in developing better, more ‘usable’ applications, which score high on user acceptance.

UX lessons from the iPhone

So, what's the big deal about the iPhone? Did Apple invent something new, never seen before?
NO. All they did was make the iPhone not just a phone but an experience! And that's really what user experience teams do. Give the users a great experience while they use the same old products with pretty much the same set of features.
The difference is the experience we can give the users. That's the stuff that sells!
Check out the interesting slides.