Enough is enough!

Frustration. Anger. Helplessness. It had been a very emotional 3 days for me as I watched Mumbai attacked, yet again. And as the attack unfolded & counter attack started, I wondered what would be India’s view after all this gets over? Will the usual ‘famed Mumbai spirit’ & the usual clichés of the city’s resilience to get on with life start ringing again? But this time even Mumbaikars shouted back. Enough is enough. Damn the clichés. Life moves on but are our lives taken for granted by the guys whom we have elected? The home minister of Mumbai has the audacity to state that ‘such incidents happen in big cities’ and that too in a press conference. Felt like puking over the *****. Does the guy even know the magnitude of this attack? The guy then ranted about a committee being formed to investigate. Fucking Bullshit. I am sure a committee must’ve been formed even during 2006 train blasts. If that’s not all, I wonder what really drove Narendra Modi to even think of having a press conference on day 2 of the attack. How can someone even think of politicizing the whole issue!! Till the other day, BJP, MNS and the clan were pointing fingers on ATS chief Karkare and today they have put up boards across the city saluting him as martyrs and letting the commoner know that these boards have been put up by them – with the larger than life sized party logos of theirs. It came as a no surprise that Karkare’s family refused compensation from Narendra Modi. As the NSG mopped up the operation, in process losing out on 3 brave men – all from different parts of the country, I wonder what would Raj Thakrey say now? His ‘sons of the soil’ vaanar sena didn’t turn up to save Mumbai from the ‘outsiders’. The real men who lost their lives to save Mumbai were from North & South India. But when they entered in the hotel they were not fighting for Mumbai. They were fighting for India. The citizens who voiced their views yesterday on many channels echoed similar sentiments but sadly, vote politics is not driven by ‘elitist or English speaking rational people’ of the society.

I am a Maharashtrian born & brought up in Delhi. A core North Indian but still I am a Mumbaikar. It’s the city where I have spent the most wonderful 4 years of my professional life. It’s the city which is still close to my heart and will always remain so. And why only me; the city belongs to each and every Indian citizen. And as the city laid under siege, sitting in Pune I just cried in pain. Clearly the administration has not learnt the lessons and I am sure – they never will. But now the time has come for them to sit up listen to the growing voices of angry citizens who have lost hope with the system. Some day the scars on the Taj, Nariman house & the Oberoi would heal, the blood would be washed; all telltale signs of the burnt place would be erased but what about the voices of the innocent dead victims? Won’t they haunt us each time we pass from those iconic places? They say public memory is short. The people who man the system might live in that belief but this time it won’t be forgotten so soon. The country wants some hard answers. Mumbai wants some answers.

Ladakh Vacation

Wish you all a very warm & happy diwali. Off late, I had been very lazy in updating my blog. More than lazy, I'll say I had been too tied up with work & transition that had been happening at work, role and personal life. To escape from it all and bring focus back, I had cut myself off from work, emails, cell phones, laptop and escaped to Ladakh for 2 week break. It had been really refreshing and it has helped me in focusing on few things which i intend to plan & aim for in coming few months. Will share about my Leh experience and the transition that I am going thru in other posts.

9.11.2001

..Still remember that night. Me, Tanuj, his wife and few friends of ours were chilling out in Buzz at Saket, Delhi. Amidst the loud music and conversations over booze, we saw the silent images of aeroplanes crashing into World Trade Centre being showed on TV. The entire gathering their watched in amazement as the videos kept replaying. The flow of booze stopped. The music died out as someone switched on the volume of the TV. We forgot our conversations and got glued to the TV. The next 1 hr in Buzz was surreal - no music, no normal chitchat - as we witnessed the world being changed.

I still remember that night.

Been there…done that

Ok some cheap thrills. You will find me blabbering this for coming few weeks.

Friend: hey loks, were you on leave? Didn’t see you in office for past 3-4 days.
Loks: Oh no...actually I was in UK last week.
Friend: Oh…some new project.
Loks: Oh no no… had to meet a prospect…make a proposal presentation on how we can set up their offshore development centre and come back.

Friend: cool.
Loks: yeah.. just part of the job…nothing exciting about it.

Don’t they have a telephone in your part of the world?

Couple of weeks back the European delivery head calls me in his office.

Head: Lokesh, you have to go to UK in two weeks time. You have to make a proposal presentation.

Me: Ok… and then?

Head: ..and then…come back.

Me: Err… so I’ll just be going there to make a presentation..? Why, I can do that even from here. All I need to do is just pick up the phone! Why spend airfare, precious pounds on accommodation, daily expense etc just for sending someone from offshore to make a presentation!!!

Samosa – 60bucks!

The management of Mumbai international airport have come up with a new strategy of letting the flyer get the feel of the ‘conversion’ prices that they normally do when they land abroad – at airport itself. Otherwise how to do you make sense that a stupid samosa for which I won’t have paid more than 5 bucks gets sold at 60 bucks at the airport!!! A 10 bucks black forest goes for 80 bucks. Yes, it’s a good way to make flyers feel the pinch even before they fly!

I hate night flights.

I hate to take the international night flights. They are a real pain in the ass. For starter, you need to leave Pune early so as to avoid the maddening evening traffic in Sion or Andheri and in between, skip dinner as you are caught in transit. As mostly flights depart at 2.am types, more than food, its sleep that’s on your mind. But after a quick snooze and a shot of Jack Daniels you realize – hey this is the late night flight, which means no dinner served! Only snacks and breakfast! Grrrrrrrr.

The other reason I don’t like taking the night flight is because at nights the airport bears a resemblance of a mela than an airport. You bump into all this kachra public traveling in kacchas & baniyaans to Gulf. Ok the Unddies & vest was exaggerated but seriously, the entire environment resembles a bus adda. All the gulf flights leave at night, so you would see all these mallus, tambis – with their loongis tied up to their waist, flaunting their assets, yapping away in a group waiting to leaving India to start a new life in Gulf.

But I am quite impressed with the crowd management at the new international airport. The privatization has really worked. Inspite of such a maddening rush, I was able to check in within 5 mins and clear immigration & security in 10 mins. Not bad…not bad at all!!

Cash for Vote

In the past one week, a lot of dirty, murky water has passed under the bridge. Finally we all got to see the 'true' colors of our politicians. The most 'ironical' moment for me in this entire drama was the closing part when after a dirty day at office, the speaker closed the session on 'Vande Matram' geet. Personally for me it was disturbing to see all these 'representatives of the common people' standing attentively in respect (were they?) as the national song got played.

If that was not all, the shape of things to come in future rolled off this week when Sushma Swaraj came up with her version on the serial blasts. Her 'conspiracy' theory of blaming the blasts on the government to divert off attention from cash for vote scam - broke all points of records on how low can a thinking get in politics. People who follow her theatreatics would remember how in 2004 when Congress came in power she howled and howled and threatened that she would shave off her head, sleep on floor and follow the life of a 'sadhavi' is Sonia is made the PM. Disgusting.

Where is Lokesh?

Caught with tons of work - shitty, exciting, maddning. Loads happening at work, personal life...Need to sit down and really think - think about why it's happening this way - think about why am i not getting time to do what I love the most - write, blog, connect.

Will be back soon.

World Peace? What World Peace?

' Beautiful women walking down the ramp in their swimsuits...you think world peace would be on anyone's mind...' - top of the mind candid reply from a participant of this year's Femina Miss India on being asked what she thinks about world peace.

Yeah baby, if I was the judge, my award certainly would have gone to you.

Washing Machine Usability

The studio apt. where I live in, has this 'fully loaded' washing machine that can do anything and everything you can think of related with washing clothes. You might ask - what's the big deal in washing clothes? All you need is a soap, water and - clothes! But then this machine comes with all those modes of washing different types of clothes (silk, cotton, polyster,etc) at different settings, various wash modes (depending upon how soiled is your clothes), water modes (to conserve water & use it effectively), various RPMs for various wash types..blah blah. Ok, so I was impressed. But now comes the big question - how should I operate it.
Unlike the previous generation washing machines, which just had 2 knobs to select timer and drain water - here was a machine that had a 'mini instrument' panel full of small buttons & various flashing LEDs.

I took out the Instructional Manual and started reading it carefully. 15 mins of 'chatofying' the book and and I still couldn't figure from where do I have to operate the water tap! I checked the washing machine and couldn't figure the point from water pipe had to be plugged in or the draining pipe outlet. Finally I figured out that the water inlet & outlet pipes were already attached to the machine - though there was no 'knob' to turn it on/off. Ok, so this is Uk and perhaps here machines are already attached to the water outlets but shouldn't the manual have instructions for 1st timer users about these things or is it just assumed that people might be knowing about it. What if a person moves into a new house and wants to install the machine? How will he know about these things? The manual should have had instructions about plumbing or how the machine has to be installed -right to details of fixing it to water/drainage outlet. This way, I would have come to know that there is no need to seat about the water outlet. Anyway, this was just the begining. The next part, selecting which clothes type. There were pre-defined clothes type and I selected 'cottons'. The instructional manual was well documented in the remaining steps and after 5-6 steps, I selected the START button and voila - the machine started! But hey, hang on! What's this? For my 'cottons' selection & even wich 'quick wash' option selection, the machine calcuated that it will take 2hrs 45 mins to wash my 9 shirts!!! Quickly I checked the manual. I did not wanted to waste 3 hrs in washing some stupid 9 shirts. The process had started and I realised that if I cancel any pre-defined programme, I have to start the process all over again with the already 'pre-defined' wash modes.

Why couldn't the machine come with a 'customised' wash mode option too? An option where I even select wash time period instead of letting the machine doing it for me. What I felt really missing from the machine was the option of letting the user to customise his washing choice as per his preference. Comparatively, I felt the 1st generation (manual/semi automatic) washing machine was much easier to use (you don't need manual to use those 2 knobs of setting timer & draining water). Ofcourse once you get a hang of a fully automatic loaded gizmo like the one I used, you do start liking it but is it really helping me in any way to make my washing more effective than the 1st gen machines. Those in favor might say that you don't have to worry about anything - put the clothes in and do your other work and come back only to dry clothes but what about the electricity consumption? I spent 3 hrs of electricity (and water) to wash 9 shirts which I could have done in less than 40 mins in semi-automatic washing machine.

Its good that you have a product that promises to 'automate' or ease out the way you have been performing certain tasks but shouldn't we let the user take control of the product instead of the other way around?

My trip to Lords - The Home of Cricket

If there is one stadium that any true cricket lover would have grown up hearing about is Lords. Majestic as it sounds, arguably it has always stood as a mighty colossal in the cricketing empire. As an Indian, there are many cricketing moments that are linked with Lords. The 1st test match that India ever played was at Lords. The vivid memories of Kapil's Devils lifting up the Prudential Cup to the not so recent one of Sourav Ganguly doing a jig in the visitor's Pavilion after Nat West Final victory. It was one stadium that I always wanted to visit and finally got my opportunity on 5th January, 2008. I had heard about the Lords Cricketing Museum - which is one of the best cricketing museums in the world and that visitors can have a conducted tour of Lords on off cricketing days. With that info. I headed off to Lords.

God must be a cricket lover!
I think god must be a cricket lover - after all its not everyday that you see so much sunshine in London and not a drop of rain! The main entry to Lords is through the WG Grace Entrance. A feeling of excitement crept in me as I began my walk through the gate. The facade of the stadium is massive though if you compare it with Eden Gardens or Chinnaswamy stadium, it might not look so overpowering but then there is so much history attached with the stadium which makes it look larger than life. On the huge columns, there were quotes of different cricketers mentioned sharing their experience at Lords. Rahul Dravid's face & quote greeted me the moment I entered in. The Lords Cricket Museum is right inside the stadium. They charge £12.00 for the 2 hr tour which includes a visit to the Long Room, committee room, dressing rooms of the players, pavilion, stands, the new Investec media centre and of course the museum itself.

A walk down the history
The museum is a sheer paradise for any lover of the game. You will find vintage photographs of teams, cricketing moments, artefacts, old autographed bats, balls, gloves & other cricketing accessories. Bats used by famous cricketers like WG Grace & Sir Don Bradman to score some classic centuries are also on display here. Other cricketing gear used by players like Victor Trumper, Jack Hobss and some of the contemporaries like Shane warne, Lara, Glen McGrath, rahul Dravid, etc also find a place in the museum. A painting of Maharaja Ranjitsingh facing the bowler as he prepares a fresh guard adorns one corner of the wall. But the biggest exhibit is the Wisden Trophy and the original Ashes urn which is kept on the 1st floor of the museum.

The Long Room
Many times I had heard of this 'Long Room' in commentaries. Finally got to see this room. Long Room is the main room through which all players enter into the field. Its right behind the pavilion and that's the only accessible way for players. The room is more of an art gallery with portraits of may old players and cricketing events adorning the walls. There is a huge chandelier in the room. On normal cricketing days, there are benches in the room where drinks n food is kept. Right in the middle of the room, my eye caught a few old photographs of a cricketing team & some news clippings which had turned yellow. As I leaned to have a close look, my eyes just sparkled. The news clipping dated back to 1932. It had the scorecard & post match review of United India's (that's how the team was known in those time) 1st ever test match that they played against England. On 1st day of the match a sizable audience had gathered to see this team of 'unique’ cricketers. No one had given India a chance and yet within 1 hour into the match, England were reeling at 19/3. Surely, the 1st hour itself was the biggest upset for the English side and though as expected India lost the match, but this spirited performance from the Indians drew praises from the British public & media. I wish I could paraphrase the actual news clipping here (btw, photography is strictly prohibited in the museum, long room & dressing room). A diverse team which had 2-3 Mohammedans, Hindus, a Sikh too, people who had never experienced cold in India - forget the British weather and moreover captained by a maharaja famous for his royal tantrums, yet found a common cause to bond together in cricket - said the article. The vintage photograph was of the Indian team who played that day. A sense of pride enveloped in me. The long room is frequented by everyone who plays there and this news clippings & the photograph is the only prized artefact of any test playing country that has been displayed in the long room. Surely it means a lot which perhaps also shows the 'respect' the britishers showed for the 1932 visiting team.

The Pavilion & the dressing room
The door to the long room opens to the pavilion. The view from the pavilion is truly majestic. The players come down from dressing room, walk through the long room and exit out through the small pavilion gate onto the field. Just for information, if you want to become a member of MCC, there is a waiting period of only 18 years :-) Another shortcut is, start playing for Middlesex and after 10 appearances or so, you get a restricted membership.The dressing room is on the 1st floor. IN both the dressing rooms, there are 2-3 honour boards fixed on in the room that records the guys who have scored centuries or got 5 wickets or more at Lords. The guide who accompanied us shared lots of anecdotes related to the dressing room about how Freddie is possessive about a particular chair and always prefer sitting there, where do other guys sit and all. As I walked to the visitor's dressing room, I eyed upon the Hall of fame board on the top. You'll find many Indian names on the plaque but then like the guide said, having a name on the board doesn't mean they were the world's best. It was just their day or else how can you explain the name of an Indian guy who shares the world record with Glen McGrath for getting out on 5 consecutive ducks in matches highlighted there for his 109 no in 2000. That's Ajit Agarkar for you - the centurion who was not supposed to be even in the final 11 but got his lucky break on the eve of the match when a frontline bowler got injured. Everyone dreams of hitting a century at Lords and Mr. Agarkar celebrated all his birthdays that day in 2000. Interestingly, the world's top 3 batsmen, Lara, Ricky Ponting & sachin - none of them have ever scored a century at Lords. The feeling of standing in the balcony of dressing room is really awesome. As I stood there on that spot, somewhere in the back of my mind background score of Gladiator started playing - as I could imagine & feel the joy & excitement that Sourav would have gone through when he exactly stood at the same spot where I stood and flinged his shirt in air with excitement, or Kapil would have hoisted the prudential world cup trophy in air, or in the summer of 1979 when India were down and out and were trailing by over 300 runs, Vensarkar & Vishwanath scored fine centuries to bring the match to draw. Incidentally Vensarkar's name appear thrice on the board and his 3rd century in 1986 also led to India's only win at Lords. Standing there, I couldn't help but think about all this - after all like I said before, there is so much history attached with the stadium that you can't help but travel back in time.

The Nursery End
You might have heard about the nursery end in commentaries. On the opposite end of the pavilion is the nursery end. There is no nursery now but once upon a time there used to be a big nursery there. Now the ground is used by players for net practice.

The futuristic media centre
And finally the space craft shaped media centre. In 2001 it was acclaimed as one of the best 50 buildings in Britain. The view from the Investec media centre is really cool. The media centre itself is very well equipped and quite spacious unlike a few press stands I have seen in India. There are 2 floors in that giant 'cockpit'. On top floor the TV commentators sit. I stepped into the dingy little ESPN room from where Harsha Bhogle, Ravi Shastri, Gavaskar, Akram and company give their commentary & match analysis. On both corners of the media centre are 2 reserved hospitality boxes for the main sponsors - Investec.
Needless to say, the guided tour was really engaging. Our guide, one elderly gentleman (forgotten his name), was really well versed with the history of the game, the stadium, the anecdotes and made the entire duration really entertaining. His sense of humour was also flawless & so were his timings (sample this: "see that boolding there? That's where the ICC used to sit...and now they have shifted their based from the home of cricket to another wooonder-fool cricket playing nation called Duubaai").I had a lovely afternoon over there and as I walked back from the WG Grace gates and looked over at Rahul Dravid's face, I could now truly understand why Lords is known as the home of the cricket.
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Snaps that I took at Lords can be accessed at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lokeshsapre/

Sachin Rules!

Image source: Rediff.com
Commit all your crimes when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed because even the Lord is watching.

- Reads a banner at Sydney Cricket Ground

How many times have we crucified him and how many times he has risen up from the ashes. That's Sachin Tendulkar for you.

Fabio Capello & Kabir Khan

I have been following British football for a while and let me tell you, these guys take their football verrrry seriously. To see how Britishers are passionate about football, visit any pub during a league match- like I used to do when any important matches used to take place involving Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U, Arsneal. Life comes to a standstill if any of these teams are involved against each other. The pubs are packed and overflowing. Everyone there turns into a footballer and like us back home tuned into cricket, turn into a couch player. There are 2 men who have the most enviable jobs in UK. Jobs which are high risk, under constant pressure and media & public glare.

The first person to hold that job is Gordon Brown - The Prime Minister. The 2nd person who have that job is the England Football team National Coach which in this case is Fabio Capello. Skeptics have questioned the ned to hire a 'foreigner' for the post who can't even speak proper English! But the guy has balls. He is a no nonsense tuffie who know how to do his job. Reputations and egos don't matter to him. He has proved himself out in club level circuits and in many ways draw parellel to Kabir Khan - the role that Sharukh Khan played in Chakh De India. Like Sharukh he too has to deal with king sized egos of many star football players in the English team. It would be interesting to see how he manages to do that coz knowing his reputation he is a real hard task master. This could be the real antidote that English football team needed.

Old books like old soldiers don't die

I have been a diehard fan of Commando Comics since god knows when. So imagine my joy when I stumble into a book shop that had stocked commando comics and was selling the 'Best of Commando' series compilation for half price. Have ended up buying a whole set and gearing up for picking up few more collections. My only dilemma - each compilation weighs like a thick dictionary and my luggage is nearly touching the 28kilos mark. Don't want to end up paying penalty again at Heathrow.

London Musings -2

I couldn’t make it to Page 3 but I have successfully managed to make it to a little black book of Metropolitan Police, London!


Why London is such a dangerous city to live in and why there are so many crime cases recorded during Christmas time, I got a live sample of it yesterday night. 1AM . Me and my 3 day old room partner from Delhi were smoking outside our hostel. Down the street I could hear a roar of a car speeding. We both turned back and saw a car roaring in on the street heading towards us. Instinctively, we stepped back, knowing that at that speed the car would surely miss a sharp turn ahead and that’s what happened. The car went crashing into the boulevard and then into a fence surrounding the building in front of the hostel. Such was the impact that along the way it ripped apart solid iron fence along the way, swirled 360 degree and finally banged into a staircase. It sounded as if a bomb had exploded. 3 young guys got donw from the car and started swearing at each other. They were badly shaken and started running from the scene. We realised quickly that the car must be a stolen one. We and few more people ran upto the car. The airbags saved the guys but the front of the car was badly damaged. It was a BENTLEY 2 door sports car! Very soon the police and NHS ambulance came in. Since me & mydelhi friend were the only2 witneses who saw it happening, the police questioned us, took down all details and noted down our phone numbers & contact addresses. So this way, I managed to make my entry into the records of Metropolitan Police but the incident really shook us up. We have been told that such incidences rise a lot during christmas & new year in London. Booze related problems & crimes have been on a rise in UK especially in London and what happened ysday was another proof of it. Mr. Brown himself is struggling to come out with a tough law related to it but I doubt if they can do it.

London Musings....

So much that I want to write but not getting time at all. Like how I almost missed my flight to London last week, my action & adventure on Mumbai-Pune expressway, my experience this time around in London, the weather, life, the people.....so much thoughts parked in my mind but so less the time. After ages I can see the sun out today, hopefully it would be a sunny day. Let's hope this sun shine extends its warmth on this project too, which at this stage it seems is heading towards a cardiac arrest.

My recent experience with user research

For the past few weeks I have been involved in a very low key, exciting project. Why low key, coz except for 2-3 people, no one in our Usability & Elearning team really know what I am doing and exciting coz it involves near about full life cycle activities of 'user centered design'. Our Elearning group is developing an assessment module for dealership sales team of India's largest automotive group. For this project, we have been doing extensive usability activities right from the word go. For a change, the customer here itself have been harping on getting a usability person on board who will oversee that the deliverables meet user expectations. Its more of a participatory design process that we are following. At every stage of the design, user is actually kept in the picture. Constant feedback is taken from end users & all design & interaction feedback are incorporated. Its the users who are evolving the design.

The process started couple of weeks back when me & 2 of my elearning team members went to conduct contextual inquiry at the dealer's location. We spent time in the dealership, observing the sales team at their work, noting down their routine, way they handle queries, the kind of queries they face, the various aids & enablers that they bank on, etc. We also spent time individually with each sales person gathering their understanding & views. The focus of this session was to gather insights that would go into making of this assessment module. Contextual Inquiry can at times throw up really wonderful insights. For instance, we were told that most of the TA for this eleraning module are matric pass and are very poor with english. When they come for any company sponsored training, the evaluator had to personally 'interpret' the question form to sales guys and let them know where they had to tick. In our CI exercise we came to know that not many of these guys are too conversant with computers outside their work domain. So how do you design an interface for a guy who has never spent time on computers? Will he adapt to mouse or keyboard interaction? What will be his learning curve? These were some of the challenges that propped up But these were still fine, what came next was really unexpected. During interviews, we popped the idea of localization and many users readily accepted that localization of content would definitely help but then we came across a user who though was not so good with english still said that he would opt for the language in any kind of test. On further pressing he hesitantly shared that in the 'class' where he belongs, 'knowing' english is seen as a step to move up in the ranks. More soever, speaking in english, or for that matter even attempting questions gives him some kind of confidence inside. So it has more to do with socio conditions around him that motivates him to 'attempt' in english irrespective of his knowing that he can fail in the test. Imagine, there can be thousands of users across the country with views like this user. So another design & content challenge for us. How do you define what is 'simple english'? Something so simple that it conveys the message & users understand it immediately. Later during design stage we realised that to make it quite simple to understand, we need to make it short n snappy and at times grammatically incorrect!

Last week we were in user's environment again, this time conducting usability testing of our designs & key interactions with users. We even video graphed the entire user 's interaction with the screen to capture where his mouse movements went, how he interacted with many of these features, etc. These video shoots helped us in analyzing many of these user's 'comfort' pattern with the mouse & keyboard too. Of course besides video analysis, me & my team was involved in f-2-f interactions too. There were many valid design suggestions made by the users too.

Yesterday I was back in the field again, this time to test semantics of some icons for the application with the end users. At times we tend to 'assume' that a particular icon would convey the desired meaning. The icons that we wanted to test was for Timing meter & audio option. While the timing meter which we felt would work, did work with the users, for the audio option , we got interesting feedback for some icons which normally we would have assumed that it will work.

For instance:



A user thought that this icon stood for Shouting Loud.


For this icon, a user felt that it meant that Talking can be a nuisance to others, while another user felt it meant a horn button but an indication to wake the next person, push him!


The best was this:


User view: Loud talking can be injurious to ears!

I won't share what did work with them coz that would be violating the copyright clauses but this exercise reinforced my belief that why for each & every design step its important to keep users in picture.

Personally this whole project has been very stimulating & enriching for me. We are closing in on product rollout soon & would love to see how users across India receive it.

Designers: Does this ring any bell?

Recently my wife & I were scouting for electrical fittings & accessories for our new house. After purchasing most of the stuff, we got into an argument over which bell to buy. She fancied instrument which had Bollywood tones as ring while I wanted to settle for old fashioned bells which had high, if not shrill ring. For me the ‘ting tong’ bell worked. We finally went for the Bollywood one and got it installed. It’s been a week now and we all are still struggling to get a hang of it. First of all, it takes more than a few seconds for the mind to register that it’s our door bell which is ringing! The reason being, it sounds more like a mobile ring tone than a bell. Worse, the instrument is located in my bedroom & if we are standing in guest bedroom balcony and there is lots of noise around, at times it takes more than a few push & “laila-o-laila’ encore before anyone can get to hear it! The other day I had to spend 5 mins outside the house ringing the bell and then flash out my mobile and call wifey inside to open the door! I suspect had it been the old fashioned bell, the sound wouldn’t have caused these problems. Somewhere in back of mind, the bell still stands for ‘ting tong’. A sound like that registers immediately in your mind no matter in which corner of the house you are and perhaps the reason lies in the fact that we have grown up listening to bells which had high pitch noise. Bells which most of the times had always gone ‘ting tong’ and less on ‘gayatri mantra’ tones.

Similarly in software design, it’s very important to know about your user’s mental model, about the way they perceive things to be. Users will take on to your product like a duck to the water only if they find it designed the way that mirrors their work & thought flow pattern.

Bringing simplicity in interfaces

The most intuitive interface ever designed is the human nipple.

I came across this statement while I was researching on some topic and ever since, it has just stuck in my mind. Come to think of it, how true it stands in its meaning. If you have ever observed a lactating mother feeding her baby, see how the baby’s tiny mouth opens up as the nipple comes near. The baby will stare blankly at faces but recognizes the feeding point immediately. And for babies of adult kind, they don’t need any intuitive visual cues!

That’s the power of simplicity. And it’s this simplicity that creates a brand out of an intuitive design. Oliver Reichenstein from Information Architect Inc. in one of his post on his blog talks about his McDonalds experience in Japan. Out of plethora of options available on the display tile, he settles for a plain Cheese Burger. Not that he has a fascination for it, but according to him, the visual of cheese burger is something he can relate to easily out of all other ‘local palate’ suited burgers. Walk into any McDonalds around the world, a plain cheese burger would look exactly the same way. When an interface becomes so simple, language or any other cultural barriers hold no fort. So when he has to place an order, not knowing Japanese language doesn’t matter to him. The visual of plain cheese burger is an instant recognition for him about the burger’s content.

Simplicity leads to intuitiveness and intuitiveness leads to creation of a brand. A brand that doesn’t always need the support of marketing for its creation. A brand that gets created by its own virtues.

In the Indian context, one of the brands which have a very intuitive interface I can think of is the erstwhile Mother Dairy logo. Since its inception till recent years, they had adapted the Operation Flood logo. The operation Flood logo is the most powerful & yet simple design that I can think of. It’s just not about logo design but the recognition that comes with the brand. Mother dairy has been around since I opened my eyes for the 1st time. No Delhiite can ever say that they don’t know what the logo stands for. In the early 80s, there was no concept of milk in poly pack. If you were living in Delhi and wanted milk, you had 3 options. A) The good ol’ Tabela milk delivered by the vendor. B) Go to the nearest Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS) booth and get bottled milk – which was again run by sarkaari karamcharis and somehow used to be a nightmarish experience and C) Go to Mother Dairy Booth. Now these Mother dairy booths were quite ‘hi tech’. They had automatic vending machines (yeah for the 80s…that’s hitech). You pay money to the booth guy, get tokens in lieu of the cash, place your diiba in the vending machine, put your coin in the slot and watch in fascination as half litre milk poured. If the coin used to get stuck, there was a lever which you had to pull and the coin used to come out in a slot below. There were 3 such machines in a booth. 2 machines used to pour half litre milk per token and the 3rd one used to pour 1 litre per token. So it kind of bifurcated people accordingly. Its been over 20 years now. Lot of cosmetic changes has come across the booth. Now it even sells Safal & other Mother Dairy products but the front end of the vending machine still has the same interface except few minor changes like addition of a LCD display to show how many tokens you have deposited in the machine (in the latest machines, you can insert all tokens one after another and then wait as milk starts pouring automatically). For more than 20 years the same interface has worked successfully and the only reason it has worked is because of its simplicity.

In the software context, the most complex task is to bring about simplicity in interfaces. As a designer at times we try to bring about lot of interactivities, marry technology components, bring widgets, thinking that this will bring around simplicity for user’s task but unknowingly we add complexity to the visual & interaction design. All these are just enablers. Focus on basics. Ask the question: Is your interface helping your user fulfill his key tasks without making him take support from other external factors to complete the task? In organizations where usability & processes related to it are still struggling to find a place user the sun, most of the time designers & usability analysts have to work with their hands tied. Lot of these ‘user research’ activities are left to ‘client knows the best’ and requirements come in some fancy documents to the designer. It’s a humungous job changing mindsets in the organization. Well after all Rome wasn’t built in a day so understandably, it will be time before usability processes gets implemented & awareness fully dawns within organization. Till that happens this is what I usually advice to designers when they get a voluminous BRD, HLD or any other fancy document in their hand. Don’t directly jump onto the design conceptualization. Scan through those documents, take a piece of paper, draw three columns on it and jot down the following things in the columns – various user roles, the tasks that each role can perform and finally in the 3rd column jot down according to “you” the steps that a user would need to perform to complete each task. Many times these requirement documents can be misleading & at times even designers tend to stick to it or get influenced by it. But even if we manage to crystallize these three things, rest follows. In 2001 while I was designing the Information Architecture for an online banking application, I came across a business analyst who was not willing to buy the flow that I had designed for the application. His wafer thin argument: the customer has asked us to design it in the way he wants and that’s how we have documented it! In next client meeting I accompanied him to client’s office to hear out their rationale. Then I drew out these 3 columns on their whiteboard with the details that I felt and explained my flow in that context. The customer was partially convinced but somehow his ‘ego’ didn’t allow him to accept the flow (that was 2001, usability was something unheard and customers especially Indian ones still thought they knew everything!). So I did the next best thing. I dragged both of them to the bank branch which was on ground floor and in their presence asked some of the bank customers questions which were in context with my proposed flow. Their replies vindicated my flow & made a few faces around go red. The customer had to accept that the flow that we had designed was indeed ‘user led’. Later, we even tested out prototype of the application with end users and worked on few teething problems that customers would face. When the application was launched, users accepted it wholeheartedly. It was profiled for its simplicity & ease of use in various tech magazines. Circa 2007. Except for a few security related changes, the netbanking application is still running the way we had designed it and is ranked amongst the best internet banking sites in India.

To conclude, just stick to basics. Remember, the mother dairy customer’s need was only milk and that’s what he got in that vending machine interface. 1 slot to put the token, 1 lever to retrieve the token and a clearly visible big compartment where he can put his jar for the milk to pour.