Bhooshan Pandya > Interface & Usability Analyst

Tim Brown on creativity and play | Video on TED.com

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:13:45 +0530

Tim Brown on creativity and play | Video on TED.com

Web2ExpoSF 09: Jeff Veen, “Designing for Big Data”...

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 02:09:50 +0530

Web2ExpoSF 09: Jeff Veen, “Designing for Big Data” (via OreillyMedia)

The Happy Mac icon has become a cult figure for Mac enthusiasts...

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:13:25 +0530

The Happy Mac icon has become a cult figure for Mac enthusiasts like me. It was designed by Susan Kare in the early 1980s and remained unchanged until Mac OS 9, when it was updated to 8-bit colour.

When the Macintosh boots into OS9 or lower, it makes a chimes and the screen turns grey. After a few seconds, a Happy Mac icon will appear, followed by the Mac OS splash screen.

The Happy Mac icon was removed with the introduction of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar which replaced it with a large grey Apple logo.

100 Years of Design Manifestos -- Social Design Notes

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:37:54 +0530

100 Years of Design Manifestos -- Social Design Notes :

Since the days of radical printer-pamphleteers, design and designers have a long history of fighting for what’s right and working to transform society. The rise of the literary form of the manifesto also parallels the rise of modernity and the spread of letterpress printing.

This list of design manifestos was buried in a previous post but deserves its own permalink. It is largely drawn from Mario Piazza’s presentation at the Più Design Puòconference in Florence, though I’ve edited and added to it. I’ve also added links where I could find them.

"“It’s important to come up with the best text possible, because despite the term graphic user..."

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:42:58 +0530

“

“It’s important to come up with the best text possible, because despite the term graphic user interface, many of the user interface elements we actually design—as opposed to those that are part of an operating system user interface or framework—are text elements.”

- Pabini Gabriel-Petit—VP, User Experience, at scanR, Inc.; Publisher and Editor in Chief, UXmatters; Principal User Experience Architect at Spirit Softworks; Emeritus Member of Board of Directors, Interaction Design Association (IxDA)

”

- Choosing the Language for a User Interface :: UXmatters

Design Guidelines: Content

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:55:45 +0530

Make information easy to find with clear headings and meaningful sub-headings (not ‘clever’ ones).
Break up the information into manageable pieces.
Put the pieces in a logical order for your readers.
Keep your sentences short and employ one idea per paragraph.
Use the ‘inverted pyramid’ style: conclusion (context) first, results later.
Talk to your readers. Use “you”.
Write in the active voice (most of the time).
Put the action in the verb, not in the nouns.
Use your readers’ words.
Use half the word count (or less) than conventional writing.
Use bulleted lists where appropriate – for a list of items and for parallel “if, then” sentences.
Employ scannable text like highlighted keywords.

Excerpted from IT Solutions Blog

Creating Passionate Users

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:48:48 +0530

Creating Passionate Users

Making decisions about User Research

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:26:24 +0530

Importance to the business: Just how important is the project/application in meeting organisational/business goals?
Importance to users: What will happen to users if you mess up. Will they be harmed, or will they just go elsewhere?
$$: How much is the project going to cost? (i.e. how much will be wasted if you mess up)
Profile/politics: What sort of profile does your project have? Is there a political implication? (e.g. is the Minister going to get hauled up in Parliament if you mess up. Will your work reflect badly on your industry?)
Convincing others: How much work will you need to do to convince other people that your ideas are good?
Existing knowledge: How much (real) knowledge do you have about your users?
Ability to iterate: Can you make changes quickly if you make a mistake, or is it a one-shot deal?
Feedback: How easy is it to collect feedback from your users?

Excerpted from Making desicions about user research

HiPPO - Highest Paid Person's Opinion

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:11:21 +0530

What have I been doing? It turns out there is a phrase for it, and it’s been around a while.

“HiPPO’s rule the world when it comes to creating customer experiences. And that’s a bad thing. No matter what you think the optimal customer experience should be on the website it is quite likely that you walk into a meeting room, or office, and regardless of your competence the HiPPO decides what goes on the site.” Courtesy Avinash Kaushik

HiPPO stands for: the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.

Agile + UX: six strategies for more agile user experience (Austin Govella at Thinking and Making)

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:03:04 +0530

Agile + UX: six strategies for more agile user experience (Austin Govella at Thinking and Making):

Six ways to be more agile and better integrate user experience and information architecture into agile development teams.

The SEO Flow Chart (from The SEO Flow Chart : SEO Book.com)

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:21:00 +0530

The SEO Flow Chart (from The SEO Flow Chart : SEO Book.com)

Nissan Robot Prevents Collisions (from Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab)

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:28:00 +0530

Nissan Robot Prevents Collisions (from Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab)

"In the beginning, there was the Bradley Effect.The Bradley Effect describes an election event where..."

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:00:00 +0530

“

In the beginning, there was the Bradley Effect.The Bradley Effect describes an election event where the a candidate who is clearly leading in the polls ultimately loses the election. Certainly you’ve heard about it. Everyone has. It made the front page of the India Times. The effect is named for the 1982 California Governor’s race in which Bradley succumbed to Deukmejian despite having a substantial lead in the polls up to a few days before the election. The effect suggests that there is a gap between what people report to pollsters and what they did/will do in the voting booth. Election analysts suggested that race and social desirability were factors shaping voting behavior. To wit: when polled about their intentions (particularly by an African-American pollster) many white voters reported intent to vote for Bradley (or undecided). But in the privacy of the voting booth, they voted for Bradley’s white opponent. These voters, it is said, feared that if they reported their real preferences they would be labeled racist. Most people don’t want to be called racist. It’s generally not socially desirable.

The so-called Bradley Effect is a challenge to pollsters. It indicates that there is an margin of errors in the polls. And this year, preliminary election poll-to-outcome analysis by Albertson and Greenwald (2008) suggests a Reverse Bradley Effect emerged next to the Bradley Effect. A Reverse Bradley Effect occurs when polls in traditionally Republican areas underreport support for the African-American candidate. The same social desirability explanation applies. In a traditionally Republican area when a pollster calls, many voters simply reflect the local sentiment independent of their actual leanings and (interestingly) their race.

”

- excerpted from WHY THE BRADLEY EFFECT IS NOT ABOUT RACE by Kath Straub (User Experience Design Update Newsletter - October, 2008., Human Factors International) View Online

"Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation, typically referred to as “RITE” testing is a..."

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:05:22 +0530

“Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation, typically referred to as “RITE” testing is a usability method coined and mostly documented by Michael Medlock at Microsoft. It is similar to traditional discount usability testing, however differs in that the data are analyzed after each participant, or at the end of each day of testing, changes to the interface are made as soon as an issue is identified and a solution is clear, and the changed interface is tested with the remaining users. Initially it was documented as being used in the PC games business, but since then it’s use has expanded to many other software industries.”

- RITE Method

Seattle Conference on Scalability: Scaling Google for Every User...

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:38:00 +0530

Seattle Conference on Scalability: Scaling Google for Every User - Marissa Myer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth | sourced from...

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:09:00 +0530

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth | sourced from TED.com

Photosynth is a software application from Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington that analyzes digital photographs to build a three-dimensional point cloud of a photographed object. Pattern recognition components compare portions of images to create points, which are then compared to convert the image into a model. Users are able to view and generate their own models using a software tool available for download at the Photosynth website. Visit the Photosynth website.

Ribbons interface widget in Microsoft Office 2007

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:56:00 +0530

Ribbons interface widget in Microsoft Office 2007

"In computing, ribbons are graphical user interface widgets composed of a strip across the top of a..."

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:43:00 +0530

“

In computing, ribbons are graphical user interface widgets composed of a strip across the top of a window that exposes all functions that a program can perform in a single place. Additional ribbons may appear based on the context of the data.

Ribbons aim to enhance usability; by consolidating the program’s functions and commands in an easily recognizable place, one need not look through multiple levels of hierarchical menus, toolbars or task panes before finding the right command.

”

- Ribbon (computing) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"What is a heuristic evaluation? The goal of heuristic evaluation is to find usability problems early..."

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:14:44 +0530

“What is a heuristic evaluation? The goal of heuristic evaluation is to find usability problems early in the design of a Web site so that improvements can be made as part of the iterative design process. Heuristic evaluations usually are conducted by a small set (one to three) of evaluators. The evaluators independently examine a user interface and judge its compliance with a set of usability principles. The result of this analysis is a list of potential usability issues or problems. The usability principles, also referred to as usability heuristics, are taken from published lists. Ideally, each potential usability problem is assigned to one or more heuristics to help facilitate fixing the problem. As more evaluators are involved, more true problems are found. Some evaluators try to estimate the degree to which each usability issue potentially could impede user performance or acceptance. This is done to help set priorities for making revisions to the system. However, judging the severity of proposed usability issues has been shown to be very difficult to do.”

- Heuristic Evaluation - Usability Methods | Usability.gov

The Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:59:52 +0530

The Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)