Where IE scores over FF

I often have tens of tabs open while I work. And every page I am on has several other links that I am curious about.

Right click -> open in new tab in FF opens up the link in a tab that is at the far end of the tab deck.

Whereas in IE, it opens up in the adjacent tab - much more useful to me because:
a. It keeps me in context and doesn't make me feel lost and b. I don't have to 'travel' with my cursor to the extreme right end of the tab deck to see what I just opened.

Digital Handwriting

Would there be any charm in having different hand writing on a shared digital document?

I am not talking notes, highlights, and different fonts. I am not even calling for every person to have a tablet pc :P.

I am only wondering if digital scribbles can be personalized to give a paper scribble hand writing effect, which bring a personal touch to a shared document/whiteboard. You know, a personalized font generator. Related FB App: What font are you? :P

Two nice questions

I decided to document these two really nice questions. I was asked one of them and read the other.

Kind person : How's your world?
Me : My world is fantastic!
KP: What makes it fantastic?
Me: The wonderful food I just had :D

Read somewhere: If you were to describe this to a friend in a few words, how would you do it?


Their friendly nature belies their smartness in actually uncovering someone's emotions. The actual answer didn't matter when answering them as much as the state of mind was revealed just by the choice of words (for the answer).

Next time I'm out user testing, these will be used for sure.

"The Design Problem" Problem

Just wrapped some early user validation and paper prototyping session at ASUG in Orlando. Was a fruitful exercise even though the none of the concepts we had seemed to fly with the users.

Through weeks of intense user research and now this three day user testing we seem to have uncovered...err... let's say an enterprise design problem, for lack of a better term. My previous post questioned how we could better study enterprise culture. This I think is actually part 2 of a question. Part 1 is to actually question even what qualifies as a design problem when it comes to the enterprise. There seem to be levels to the enterprise problem which run way deeper than the usual social, cultural, economic, material and technical factors that we take into account.

I am sure I am not the first one to raise this point, but we really need to define the place of the designer in an enterprise. The problems are abstract and fuzzy alright, but when it comes to actually defining the boundaries for the design there are challenges that exist far beyond the users and their context.

So again ,when should the designer step in to solve an enterprise design problem? We have responsibilities that go far beyond creating interfaces but when we encounter certain very fundamental problems that lie beyond the realm of our influence, the designer's problem gets reduced to just that (creating interfaces).

Kind Acts

I have experienced three kind acts in past two days! First, a total stranger offers me a ride to a train station when I was stuck bad. Today, I forgot my phone in a cab and the driver was kind enough to return when I called.

These simple acts of kindness are very touching. Most people, I think, will not hesitate to help out another person when needed. We need to recognize and appreciate this natural human tendency, a bit more often.

Enterprise culture and the UI

I think in today's times its a given that we as designers take cultural factors into account while designing. The term 'culture' is actually quite bothersome to me, because it seems really difficult to pin point the exact characteristics that make up this 'culture'.

Of course answers can be found about the culture of a people with anthropological studies, looking up some history etc. Poets, writers, film makers and other media all contribute toward shaping and 'preserving' a culture. Blogs like the this one (I am co-authoring and hence promoting :D) are the also examples of artifacts that help you understand culture.

So the term 'culture' is ambiguous I think because there's no one direct way of understanding or defining it. Now think about the term 'work culture' or 'enterprise culture'. How hard is that to grasp? Will understanding it actually help in designing better UI's for enterprise software? What sources could I tap into if I need to understand this? Who are the gate keepers of the 'enterprise culture'?

Surprise,Surprise!

Ok I admit that I have been harping on this surprise in a service theme in the last few posts, but I had to write this one since I just realized a great example. Woot! No, literally, I mean Woot!

Surprise plays such a big factor in the success of woot.com that it literally drives the user community. Of course, there's some awesome economics involved also, but just the surprise factor makes it a sticky website. Linking back to my previous post just what kind of surprise theme does it follow? "Anticipation", if you ask me. With a strange mix of suspense ;).