Time to say Cheese!

Yes - I bought a Canon Poweshot - 520 digital camera (4 mega pixels) Yesterday. It was a quick decision to make this buy - but believe me the endorsement from peers on a product make a lot of sense in purchasing new things.

Jayanth(My lead) bought this new camera a day before and I decided to buy the same after seeing the cool features of the camera in live action.

My First impression:

• easy to hold naturally - no fingers in the way of the lens
• Strong image quality
• beautiful 1.8 inch lcd that looks great under various lighting conditions
• a low-cost option and jus what I needed

Features:

• shutter speed (15 - 1/2000 sec.)
• 4x optical zoom
• manual and automated controls;(gives you lot of options to choose the right setting)
• strong image quality;(4 Mega Pixels)
• zoom flash; (zoom flash function that makes the angle of the flash synchronize with the lens zooming)
• available lens converters
• movie mode with sound

Stay tuned for captures from my Bangalore trip this New Year weekend!

Wish you a very HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2006.

Cheers

MuthuKumar.R

Trekking time!

Folks - Its been long time wrote here on blog. Yes - Was away from computer for different reasons.

Some of my trekking highlights here!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name of the Location: Sihangad (Fort)

Distance: 20 Kms(approx) from Pune city

History: Used by Shivaji(Maratha Emperor) by mid 17th century

Stay: Guest house owned by Maharastra Tourism Board

It was jus awesome to have the team building exercises out there in this freezing weather.

Two days passed away very fast where we had great fun playing games which involved strategic thinking as well as physical.(time to test our stamina..hehehehe)

We had review session after each set of games and basically learnt - how as a team we could have worked better or align better etc., Credit goes to the organisers(team of mountainers) who were conducting this program.

Thanks Abhi for taking such beautiful snaps during the trip..

View from the Guest house!


On the Way



Dhwanit Saxena(Give me Red) & Me(right)


Guest House in the mid of the hill station.(Use to be a booth bungalow earlier - no kidding)

Pic from one of those strategic games

Folks,

Most of us start the UCD(User Centered Design) process with the firm belief that users are the ultimate stars, but often we lose that focus overtime. One of the attributes that contribute to failure in meeting the user needs is BIAS in these methods.

I personally experienced this in my past UX assignments where we have to cut short the UCD process or align the recommendations report based on other constraints.

End result ==> Constraints Centered solution rather than User Centered Solution

Here is the list of factors that leads to BIAS in think-aloud and focus group methods?
---------------------------------------------------------------
--> Selection of task
--> Multiple stakeholders
--> Domain Knowledge of the UX practitioner
--> Business objectives
--> Pressured deadlines
--> Selection of users

What else do you think that possibly contributes and creates BIAS in UCD process?

Does this BIAS factor arise because - UX practice is still not at its matured stage in most of the IT companies?"

Thoughts!?

Cheers

MuthuKumar.R
-----------------------------------------
User Experience Design Consultant
http://www.thedfactor.com

The Future of Customer Care
(Jus Hilarious!!!)

Operator : "Thank you for calling Pizza Hut .. May I have your..."

Customer: "Heloo, can I order.."

Operator : "Can I have your multi purpose card number first, Sir?"

Customer: "It's eh..., hold on......6102049998-45-54610"

Operator : "OK... you're... Mr Singh and you're calling from 17 Jalan Kayu. Your home number is 40942366, your office # is 76452302 and your mobile is 0142662566. Which number are you calling from now Sir?"

Customer: "Home! How did you get all my phone numbers?"

Operator : "We are connected to the system Sir"

Customer: "May I order your Seafood Pizza..."

Operator : "That's not a good idea Sir"

Customer: "How come?"

Operator : "According to your medical records, you have high blood pressure and even higher cholesterol level Sir"

Customer: "What?... What do you recommend then?"

Operator : "Try our Low Fat Hokkien Mee Pizza. You'll like it"

Customer: "How do you know for sure?"

Operator : "You borrowed a book entitled "Popular Hokkien Dishes" from the National Library last week Sir"

Customer: "OK I give up... Give me three family size ones then, how much will that cost?"

Operator : "That should be enough for your family of 10, Sir. The total is $49.99"
Customer: "Can I pay by credit card?"

Operator : "I'm afraid you have to pay us cash, Sir, Your credit card is over the limit and you owe your bank $3, 720.55 since October last year.

That's not including the late payment charges on your housing loan, Sir."

Customer: "I guess I have to run to the neighbourhood ATM and withdraw some cash before your guy arrives"

Operator : "You can't Sir. Based on the records, you've reached your daily limit on machine withdrawal today"

Customer: "Never mind just send the pizzas, I'll have the cash ready.
How long is it gonna take anyway?"

Operator : "About 45 minutes Sir, but if you can't wait you can always come and collect it on your motorcycle..."

Customer: " Wat!"

Operator : "According to the details in system , you own a scooter ...registration number 1123..."

Customer: " *'!^ *%^**%^I7*"

Operator : "Better watch your language Sir. Remember on 15th July 2007 you were convicted of using abusive language on a policeman... ?"

Customer: [Speechless]

Operator : "Is there anything else Sir?"

Customer: "Nothing... by the way... aren't you giving me that 3 free bottles of cola as advertised?"

Operator : "We normally would Sir, but based on your records you're also diabetic....... "

Most important functions in a mobile device

Thought I would share the results of the user survey, regarding the most important and the least important functions in mobile devices done by Park associates.

Voice communication and address book functionality lead the list of the most important functions, while PC synchronization and Internet browsing are among least important. 2,112 Internet users were surveyed for the report.

Cheers
MuthuKumar.R

Bright Smile!

Gave a big-smile to all my folks I bump-in at work today. Guess why? Yes, long waited dental cleaning happened today.

The electronic cleaning process was quick and funny - and dentist (gud looking lady) was saying not to bring in my tongue close to the electronic cleaner else I may lose my speech after that...Hehehehe!

Cheers!

Task Analysis : In Simple Terms

Methods of analyzing people's jobs:
---> what people do
---> includes requirements, actions, results, equipment & materials
---> what they must know

Who conducts Task analysis? Used by Information architects and interface developers to get "outside the box" and focusing on underlying operational problems to solve, rather than implementation problems.

Why Task analysis? A thorough task analysis is essential to preventing workflow design errors that could be very costly to repair later in your development cycle.

Advantages:

• Provides gap analysis of your user's needs against the services your business provides.
  
• Help you consider the architecture from new perspectives, ultimately making a superior experience for the end users and making the design team and stakeholders more confident in their design.

Disadvantages:

• Unfortunately, a task analysis of users' current activities is not sufficient to predict what they will do in the future. It is well known that people's use of computers change over time and that new and unexpected uses are found for most new systems

Output:

• Leads to "mental model" visualizations that clearly depict how audiences approach their work.
  
• Develop and present recommendations for changes to the Product/Application

Feel free to send your thoughts to muthukumar(at)thedfactor.com

References:
useit.com (Goal composition)
adaptivepath.com(Task analysis and Goal mapping)