iPhone ... is Diwali par, Knight in Shinining Armour

I am back from my Diwali Holidays and it was fun especially if you belong to Delhi. My parents shifted to a new house recently. So naturally this Diwali was spent in introducing me to the new neighbors. There is a signature style of talking that distinguishes a Delhite from a non Delhite and it goes like this. And here goes Iphone to my rescue.


// Neighbour of my age who is a programmer in Delhi //
Smartass Boy: So what do you do in Haiderabad... are you a programmer?
Me: No I am a User Interface Designer (hoping that he understands.. but no)
Smartass Boy: I didn't get it... (next question is the typical question they ask when they don't understand anything)...ahaan.. konse pletform par kaam karte ho?
Me: (platform no. 12 coolie no. 420).. actually our job is platform independent..
(Not so)Smartass Boy: (Now that all his concepts are shaken..aggressively) Now does you application run on Java or .Net?????
Me: I design how users will interact with the product... on the desired platform (I add this extra bit for his convenience).
(Not so)Smartass Boy: Accha (ye to bavakoofon ka kaam hoga) to aap GUI banate ho? ... Koi course kar rakha hai ismein??
Me: (yea that's wat girls do right..course!! wtf) I studied in NID, Ahmedabad and the "course" is called Software and User Interface Design..
(Not so)Smartass Boy: GUI design (in a comtemplating pose as if he is the personal advisor of Narayan Moorthy) .. hmm.. ye to bada easy kaam hai... ismein aapne course kiya??
Me: (no... i just went to NID to make out with my BF).. itna easy nahin hai... we measure and improve the usability of the product...it requires user research and design skills.. its the basic difference between an iPhone and any other phone.
Smartass Boy: (happy on listening about iPhone).. iPhone! My friend just came from US and got an iPhone...u should see it... its amazing... blah blah blah...
Me: (thank you iPhone!!! .. You are my Hero.. :D)
Smartass Boy: Nice Meeting you .. give me your number.. see I have a Samsung.. I like its usability... its very good to look at and see now how i enter your number... the navigation is great too.. blah blah blah.

Thanks God there are some people in the industry who have done their designer's worth of job. People now know what a designer is capable of doing after the iPhone...

A Good Form Example

Today I was trying to download a few games for my new phone. Most of the sites i came across were baffling in terms of the amount and density of information they contain. I couldn't figure out anything so I ran from one site to another. At last I came across eqo.com

The best part was that the site didn't mention the word register anywhere. It happened so seamlessly. So apart from the usual these are the highlights -

Layout-

1. Similar fields are grouped together which makes the form look easy to fill. Each group does not have more than 4 items.
2. * are all aligned neatly one below the other for quick uninterrupted scanning. So people instantly know which fields are mandatory.
3. The form does not show the "create account" button till the user fills up a few mandatory fields.
   

Support-

1. It mentions clearly (in orange) who should fill up the form. Other people need not bother. This shows that they value my time and effort.


2. The support is amazing. For example in case I didn't know my phone model the form tells how to find that out.






3. It even shows you the right image of the phone model I have selected for reinforcement. And no loading time, its instant.
   


4. The field country is already pre-filled with India(its where I live) and as a consequence the phone number prefix is set to 91.


5. When it is asks for the e-mail id and I enter my ID and press 'tab' for the next field it pre-fills the field with the same ID! cul! On top of that it even check on its own if the ID is available.



6. Each field is justified clearly and nothing is taken for granted. For example even a simple thing like language has an instruction stating "(Choose which language you’d like to use EQO in)".

Widgets

1. The button is not called "submit" but "Create Account" which actually tells me what will happen if i click on that button.

All these highlighted points make a form filling experience seem to be a painless process. It brings pleasant surprises to the user and create eagerness about the service for which he fills the form

Its in Africa

Saw this interesting imagery in Google Earth. It is somewhere in South Africa. Its a lovely sight.

Play video games to improve graphics skills

Report from Cognitive Daily claims that playing video games improve one's visiospacial skills. Playing games gradually enhances this skill which is claimed to be lower in females as compared to males. Improved visiospacial not only let's you play games better but also increases your math and graphics abilities. (psst..psst...all the usability people who secretly wish they were good at graphics can play video games for starters :D)
Read complete article

First Eco-friendly Night Club

Britain's first eco-nightclub, set to open in King's Cross, will require the patrons to dance on a modified dance floor that will harness the energy expelled by the clubber's moves and convert it to electricity




"There is no greater platform than clubbing to reach out to young people. Having an energy-generating dancefloor is a very exciting and interesting-idea that we have been talking to people in Rotterdam about. Such a dancefloor could generate about 60 per cent of the building's energy." Read Complete Article

Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce

- from Yatin

HCI in Movies

The movies HCI is the best HCI i find... its full of imagination, extremely intuitive, yet focussed and following a common language. But then fiction is always better.
Here's a nice article on the history of HCI in movies.
http://w5.cs.uni-sb.de/~butz/teaching/ie-ss03/papers/HCIinSF/