usability

Usability Training Workshop

January 20, 2006 Design

Human Factors InternationalI have been keeping busy these days with the User Centered Analysis and Practical Usability Testing workshops at Human Factors International (HFI). The course is very extensive and I hardly get time to spend at home these days. But I am happy that I have found something which I can pursue with great passion. These training sessions are enabling me to better understand the needs and the strategies that are currently being employed to design GUIs.

The User Centric Design course is an extensive one which deals with forming design strategies. These strategies are based upon some studies and surveys which the stakeholder (owner) undertakes before he embarks upon making a full fledged website. The study of design goals and other such criteria enables to better understand the tasks and thus design a better user experience. The Practical Usability Training course deals more with formative prototype testing and interviewing the affected user groups to understand their mental models when they view specific websites. Of course, this is a very shallow explanation that I have given here for both the courses but you can visit the website for more details on training and certification.

We have a large audience this time attending both the courses from all across the country and especially from the bigger Indian IT companies. This accentuates the fact that more and more organizations have started to look at usability as a very important factor for designing web and software applications.

Doing What I do Best

October 27, 2005 General

Trust me when I say that I like talking and I just don’t simply mean talking. I like intellectual discussions. I hate silence sometimes because my ears are not trained to take silence ‘silently’. Rather I break it and start a discussion on a topic which is relevant to our present time.

Today was a meeting with Richard from TATA Infotech Ltd.. He wanted some help in GUI design and I gave him a discourse on Usability. After 5 hours of confabulations he left with a satisfied look on his face, even wishing me ‘happy birthday’ in advance. You see I love talking. And I love when people appreciate it like Richard did.

There are also times when nothing comes out of your mouth and you are left smiling. This happens when ‘she’ is around and you wonder what to do next. That instant is so difficult that a simple ‘Hi’ seems like you’re chanting some sanskrit mantra and mispronouncing it completely. You fumble and fumble until you give up and turn back to your seat. Those are really tough times mind you. The one place where I resist talking loudly is the suburban train. There might be some prying relative of mine who would report my gabfest to my peers and I would land myself in deep trouble. But I do take my chances always.

The tongue is a dangerous weapon. Much more dangerous then all of Bush’s WMDs. If you use it judiciously you will win laurels if not then be ready for a quarrel. I have got a unique quality of being misunderstood most of the time. I am also construed to be rude when my intentions have been purely noble. I have lost a few folks for this ‘misconduct’. People love to do that to me. Not that I care about it because the insecurities they possess are their own. All said and done, I love to talk and wag my tongue.

Usability Workshop – Concluding Day 3

October 22, 2005 Design

Bhooshan with Hemal Gathani from HFIThe last day was good in the sense that we got to learn a few concepts about accessibility, internationalization (better known as ‘l18n’), localization and globalisation of websites. The idea of localization is quite exciting wherein one develops websites for an audience of a particular country or region. Coke for instance has developed local websites for India, Japan, Nigeria and UK and all the websites, despite maintaining the branding value of Coke looked different in their content and visuals. They were appealing more towards the local audience of that respective country.

Since today was the last day of the seminar, we had bought out cameras and were merrily clicking some of the final moments of the day and jotting down each others email IDs. Let’s hope we write to each other frequently and discuss the usability problems which we face in our everyday lives. Also it was time to revisit whatever we did in the past days and a short paper was given to us to solve. Aadesh and myself spent some time with Hemal discussing some websites and the future of usability engineering. This technology, as we all agreed has already found its roots in India and in the coming days more usability engineers would be required to support the IT industry. Meanwhile I had a wonderful at Pizza Hut where Aadesh and I have been going everyday after the seminar gets over. Later also went to Planet M to pick up some DVDs of my favorite Hindi movies – Dil Chahta Hai and Hum Tum.

As a parting gift we all decided to stay in touch by starting a group on YAHOO! Groups. I would be happy to moderate such a group which would look at usability objectively. At present though I am thinking about what to call it. Suggest something in the comments if you can :-)

Usability Workshop – Day 2

October 21, 2005 Design

The day was supposed to have been a lengthy one. Some of the outstation participants had to go early tomorrow and hence a huge chunk of the portion had to be completed today. Today’s topics were quite interesting – Writing Content for the Web, Typography, Using Web Controls, Design for Web Applications, Use of Graphics and Colours. The discussions are always conjoined with an exercise and it helps to remember things. We also take time out and review some website in conjunction with whatever is being taught currently.

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