Post Meet Update
Thanks to a full house yesterday, the second MoMo Bangalore meet turned out to be a great experience. We had a diverse group of technologists, entrepreneurs and businessmen gathering for an open discussion on the Mobile World as it is today.
Rajan set the ball rolling with an brief introduction on Mobile Monday. Out two spekers of the day were Sujai Karampuri on Next Generation Mobile Networks and Deepak Jaisawal on Mobile Value Added Services.
Sujai covered the vast expanse of 2.5G to 4G technologies in his talk. He pointed out the opportunities that lies ahead for startups in this expanding domain. His presentation can be found here.
Deepak focussed on the the market, the roadblocks and the future of Mobile VAS. The session was very interactive with everybody joining in and giving their own perspective. His presentation can be found here.
Thanks to everybody for joining in and making it a success. Also big thanks to Aztec Soft and SVB India Partners Ltd. in helping us conducting it. A big thanks to the speakers and all the contributors to the disucssion. Do have a dekko at the pics.
The next meet would be on the 4th Monday of August. We will follow the same format of having two speakers but restric the talks to around half an hour and leave some time for networking. Any suggestions on topics, comments, feedback and criticism is welcome. Hope to see you all there again. In the meantime do keep on monitoring this blog and the disucssion list for updates.
Update: Rajiv’s thoughts after the event on “Super Intelligent Devices“, Rajan continuing the meme on a post titled “Network Intelligent or Stupid”
Update:Mahesh’s a round up on the July event and also wondering “If users are dumb“
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Re: Users are dumb
Learnability and predictability is an important aspect in the success of any product. Clear navigation model, feedback (confirmation and error messages) etc are an important part of the ‘user experience’.
The product itself need not be simplified, but the learning curve ( time and effort) has to be simplified for the user.
However ‘experienced’ a user is with computers or smartphones the user is a novice the first time he uses a new application. As he uses the product more and more, he moves from NOVICE to INTERMEDIATE to PERPETUAL INTERMEDIATE and then to EXPERT USER.
Most users (read buyers) are Perpetual Intermediate users:.. E.g we all use MS Office everyday but we do not use (maybe never will) all the features available on it. Most of us buy the latest DVD player, the latest microwave oven, the latest smart phone, but almost all of us only use the basic functions available on these devices. But it is this segment that has the most buying power. Hence it is important that we design our products to make it easy for any user to move from Novice to Intermediate in the shortest span of time with the least amount of learning. Only then do I believe that a product will be successful in the market.
To do this we have to take great care during the user profiling and task analysis stages of product design. Once we have the usability study and product navigation ready, we also need to ensure that the appropriate style guides are implemented.
e.g: While designing an application for a Nokia phone try to maintain the same navigation structure and interaction design, because the user is already familiar with that flow. e.g: Most new Nokia phones have the Options button assigned to the left softkey and the Back button assigned to the right softkey. Users tend to click the “left softkey” more often than the one on the right - so try to ensure that “positive actions” are assigned the left softkey, this will reduce frustration for the user.
The product interface should not force the user to ‘think’. Nor should he be forced to memorize a particular interaction or navigation flow.
” If i press this START button what will happen?” ..
or
“If I press the “back” button what will happen?”…
or
“Last time did I click on “EXIT” or did I click on “CLOSE” ?
if the user is making such statements while using the product, then there is some usability issue with the product.
The user should be able to predict where he is being led…
The user should be able to get the ’scent of the information’…
The user should be given cues to ‘discoverability’ of features…
Use of clear and appropriate phrases and words for titles,links, buttons contribute for easier navigation and faster learning. Avoid using scientific or technical words on buttons and links. Most often this aspect of design is ignored.
KISS - Keep It Simple & Stupid, I think this ‘policy’ can be applied to the learning curve of the product and not to the product itself.