Monday, November 28, 2005

Interface Design for WEB applications

The world wide web has come a long way since Ted Nelson discovered the concept of hypertext, influencing several developers of the Internet, most notably Tim Berners Lee.The word "hypertext" was first coined by Nelson in 1963, and is first found in print in a college newspaper article about a lecture he gave called "Computers, Creativity, and the Nature of the Written Word" in January, 1965. Tim Berners Lee conceived of and developed the web with help from Robert Cailleau and others at the nuclear physics laboratory Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN)
Since then the web has expanded exponentially to being a living repository of most information on Earth.
The development of the web has spawned the biggest marketplace on Earth and not having a website doesnt make any business sense at all. As the web becomes ubiquitious people shall turn to it for most services which do not require tangible face to face interaction .
WHICH LEAVES US WITH A LOT OF WEBSITES TO CHOOSE FROM.
And not having a user friendly, usable site or portal would seem downright silly.Users dont have time. They would rather take their business elsewhere.And that would hurt your bottomline.
India is poised at the threshold of a major shift. And that shift would be most to do with IT enabled services. From rural to urban India transactions of money shall be through the web.
-If a villager cant use your application he will not try twice , because that would make him look like a fool.
-if an urban dweller cant use your application he will not try twice , because he wouldnt want to waste any more of his precious time with you and would sooner take his business to your competitor.

So how do we make our applications useful and usable and ensure "Stickiness" meaning that your user finds your applications and sites a "lifesaver" and keeps on coming back to your site and keeps his/her business with your company.

Interface Design for the WEB -----------------------------------------------------
New users to the web will have migrated from learning on a desktop application. But the web is vastly different from any computer application. Most applications have their own standards and tools with dedicated helps and standardized navigation icons. And most people even take courses to learn MS Word . Meaning they pay tutors to learn about desktop applications.
If that was the case with web apps. then people would be paying tutors to learn how to use your site so that he could buy the flowers for his wife which your company is providing as a service. Sadly , that is not the case.
People expect websites to be simple because they are paying for it , in time and money and paradoxically they expect desktop applications to be complex , because they are paying for it.You dont beleive me,then think of your wishlist. Didnt you just want some more features in MS Powerpoint so that you could do that beautiful transparent fade out.

Frequently web users get lost in web apps and sites. There is mostly too much information overload and the mental model of the user will be expecting a different navigation system i.e similar to a desktop. Or if the user is a person who surfs often then he shall be pretty confused as different sites offer vastly different user experiences.
So the aim in your application or portal would be to offer a very standardised mode of navigation to enhance and speed up your users time with your app.
Basic Design Guidelines ::::::::
-Information Architecture : Structure your site. Lay it out . Who are the users ,what would they want. Are you designing an airline website . Then the most important thing would be booking and cancellation. Keep BOTH very visible. And mention all you modes of payment clearly.People worry about their money the most.
Are users going to pay by credit card . REASSURE them that you site is secure and safe in bold letters.
-Distract me NOT : Keep unwanted ads and popups out. The first thing people hate about any site are pop-ups. Whenever I used to open the Indian Railways site ,HDFC bank popups would happen all over the place. I never clicked on any of them,but because of the delay they caused me I once lost the last available ticket . And I had to buy an expensive flight ticket. I am still not very happy with HDFC bank for being a nuisance. I know its not fair of me to blame HDFC but users want to cover up their mistakes. And someone has to take a fall , in this case HDFC.
Try to keep non contextual links away from important pages , though the might provide revenue they can lead your users away from your site.
-ICONS : Keep your icons clean , crisp and simple: Icons are eyecandy yet useful. Everyone might not know english perfectly but a good icon can communicate through the clutter.Get a professional graphic designer to do them.Its worth the money.
-CUT the umbilical cord between your browser and your application : HTML sites have pages . And if a user has made an error in a form and wants to change it ,then merely pressing the browser BACK button might not work. As the states might have changed. CLEARLY keep navigation for going back and forth within your site . Flash sites and apps. wont have a problem as flash is page insensitive. You have to keep the buttons in your flash site and set up a backend php server for data transfer.
-CONTEXT aware : Let your users know which page of a site they are in and in what state . If the user has entered a credit card no. and suddenly loses that page because of a network error then what does she do. Is she stranded. Is she already billed , has she lost her money. ALWAYS let your users know the stage of the process they are in.If there is an error while filling out a form show the problems with their errors clearly mentioned and highlighted next to the problem entry.
-KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid ) : Graphics and navigation and usability. REMEMBER GOOGLE and remember that your users always might not have broadband.
-USABLITY for MOBILE devices : Critically important . This is the next phase of growth . Everyone might not have a PC. But most will definitely have a net enabled mobile phone. Mobile phone issues are very complex . Small screen , Low bandwidth , bad tangible interaction , high cost .
But this field is going to boom , very soon. So wait for the next article.

------------------------------------------------------------------article author : Suvodeep Das


posted by Suvodeep Das @ 8:17 AM 2 comments

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Industrial Design for Indian Consumer



Industrial Design for the Indian consumer's aesthetic sense . Most people talk of a Universal Design theme .There lies a sense of dogmatic beleif in this statement . The beleif is that what is perceived to be good design by a Western Consumer will be perceived to be good design everywhere else . This stems from pre - independence days . We could call it our cultural hangover or colonization. But often this has turned out to be untrue , particularly so in the case of White goods. Good Design(the Aesthetic part) is not just about making something look good . It is more about fitting the particular psychographical profile of a a consumers aesthetic sense into a design . An case in point would be again refrigerator and washing machines . DESIGN RESEARCH has proved that the Indian consumer prefers ROBUST AND DURABLE aesthetics . Meaning in terms of pure industrial design the product has to look muscular and long lasting . In the colloquial term it would be " tagda dikhna chahiya ". So when industrial designers design for the Indian market they should keep in mind that "soft muscular lines " and "mass" be built into the product . To illustrate my point I would like to point out the runaway success of the Bajaj Pulsar twins. One can easily see the strong muscular lines in the industrial design of the Pulsar. Another emergent success story would be the Suzuki Swift . Again we see strong muscular lines and mass in the design. Taking this analogy further to white goods We see the LG washing machines ( the highest selling in India) as having strong lines (on the top) . If we take refrigerators we again see the LG Frost free models (DIOS) have softness and mass built into them . And these models are the highest selling in their segment. The points which I am raising are that when one goes to buy a product one will not consciously think that I want a muscular looking product . But SUB-CONSCIOUSLY that thought is there in our minds ,only that we probably dont realize it. Design is a very intangible feeling. You cannot measure or quantify a design because it doesnt have set measurements or rules . In a way it is a lot like love. You cant quantify as to why a person loves another person but the feelings tell you so. Essentially humans are more emotional than rational and intangibles rule our daily lives.

posted by Suvodeep Das @ 4:56 AM 7 comments

Design in India

Design for White Goods in India :
Design ,especially industrial design of white goods in India is a comparatively new field. Earlier the trend whether in multinationals or our home grown brands was to source products from foreign products and release them in the Indian market , hoping for the best and letting the Indian consumer choose the product which would roughly suit them the best.
However as the Indian market matured after liberalization and widespread disposable incomes became a norm rather than an exception , marketers started relaizing that what necessarily might work in the WEST or developed nations might not work here . The products launched before had been designed for European/American/Developed Asian markets like Korea/Japan . These were designed with developed nation cultures in mind. An apt example would be that of refrigerators which have large freezer compartments in the west becuse of the high consumption of frozen foods /meat .

While here in India the Indian Homemaker /woman consumer has a high availability of fresh foodstuff . Even from a cultural standpoint we prefer to cook fresh food rather than frozen food. Thus for the Indian woman consumer it is a loss if she is provided a refrigerator with a large freezer as this restricts the available space for non-frozen food. Thus from a design Standpoint Indian Designers realize the need for reducing freezer space . Thus it is vitally important to be exposed to Indian Culture and design and plan the product accordingly and hence understand the Indian consumers requirements.



posted by Suvodeep Das @ 4:36 AM 1 comments