Whats the difference between Simple and Elegant?
Remember the Pen vs Pencil story that makes rounds in party chit chat, letting you know how dumb a decision it was for NASA to go spending a million dollars to create a pen that worked in zero gravity only to find Russian Cosmonauts doing the same with Pencils.

Ravi Sawhney from Fast Company blog provides an amazing article on the difference between Simple and Elegant and what really happened.

Design is an inbuilt process that all human being possess. We evaluate alternatives everyday to choose a possible solution to the challenges faced by us. The same is done by Accountants, Engineers, Household workers and the Heads of states everywhere.

For Interaction designers and Usability engineers design rationale is an important element that help us not only choose the correct solution but also justify the choice to stakeholders.   

• In large teams it’s often difficult to moderate the solution by mere presentation.  The designer has to often present the rationale for the solution including the options presented by other participants in the design
• Solutions made in this order become effective entrants for patterns. Thereby reducing your effort next time looking for a similar solution
• Transparency – there is a lot more transparency in the design decision
• Documentation is lot simpler since a lot of data is collected in content friendly format

“A Design Rationale is a framework of the reasons behind decisions made when designing a system or artifact. An understanding of the design rationale, or the justification for design decisions made throughout the design process, is necessary in order to understand, recreate, or modify a design” – Wikipedia

Looking at Design rationale, how would an interaction designer build a design rationale justifying the proposed solution?

• Constraints - State constraints that impact selection of the option.  These could be technical, functional, usability related, visual design related etc.    
• The alternatives – describe the alternative. For instance if you solution is about providing a choice box, describe technically the choice box.  This should include the physical properties of the solution and not what the alternative does.
• Benefits of using the alternative
• Drawbacsk of using the alternative
• The selected solution and the reason for final decisioning 

I usually do not blog about topics other than user experience. But recession is something that has caught notice for all of us. How I would love things to be back they were a few years ago. In many ways innovation was responsible for the big nightmare that we have today. The smart and savvy business geniuses created instruments to invest in the booming real estate sector in the United States and world over. Something that has lead to the crisis that has been causing loss of confidence in business and investment. And this way true about so many things that are not highlighted enough by the media world over.  

If innovation was responsible innovation alone can bring us out of this nightmare. And maybe educate us on how important, balance is for jobs and livelihood.

• Funding banks is not enough to make cash flows working in the economy. That’s the lazy mans work. It’s easy. Governments have to real go all out to solve this monster by taking up projects of big sizes and providing employment directly to people instead of letting capitalism takeover.
•  Shift to a higher gear – like in cars shifting to lower gears causes loss of fuel the same is true with the economy. Most investors are shifting to very safe bets which are resulting in loss of confidence overall. Investors are betting on gold and rare metals to help them see their money through the turbulent times. This could only lead to the cyclic result everyone is familiar with.
• Make quick and dirty a thing of the past – consumerism had led to a lot of quick and dirty approach to work worldover. I have noticed in US and developed nations that people never really repair what they buy. They just go for the next product. The innovation is so swift that you cannot hold on to any item for longer than a year or two. Innovation needs to smarten to provide longer to market lifecycles rather than the shorter ones that lead to incomplete products and services.
• Basics over greed – In India the stock markets were rocking like never before. And the optimism was worth watching. Today the stock markets have dipped and possibly might dip further before bottoming and recovering. The basics were always in making investment in sound companies that gave you profit over a period of time, rather than through quick gains. More this basic is ignored the more crashes we see.
• It’s a war – it’s not about strategies any more. It’s a war of survival for most people and all have to fight it together or a future might present itself with few things we like. Businesses, workers, NGO’s have to all sit together and weather this storm. The more everybody comforts each the better.

Am hoping that the economy does recover and does so with a lot more responsibility. 

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree”
Martin luther king

Designing within constraints

In a utopian world almost everything would have been perfect and according to our tastes. But the truth be told we live in a imperfect world. We usually have to do things in a more cumbersome way though alternative  ones can make life so much easier.

From a designer’s point of view, how do you design within constraints? Interaction designers of all sizes and shapes face this issue on a regular basis. We come across hundreds of possibilities and get wooed by them. Our next goal becomes to gift the ultimate experience to the user. Only to be rudely awakened by what’s really possible for the next release.

1. Stop looking at the negative aspect – A very senior member of my team once told me that you can achieve everything from a slick AJAX based interface from a much less technology oriented design as well.  You should start looking at the positive strengths of any interface and then drive towards a creative solution that provides a right fit.
   
   
2. Create a feature list of the possibilities in the application– What’s possible? What’s not possible? Create a list of all things that are possible within the environment. If you are not tech savvy enough get some help.For example: Layers in the application do not have drag and drop features. Or something like Layers in the application can have a background.
   
   
3. Next list down your goals, subgoals and the like for the application – Go through the basic design process that everybody follows. Walking from the sketchy details to creating task flows, navigation all centered around the goals for the application.    
   
   
4. Evaluate and fit – Look at feature list you have developed and start using it as a design tool of sorts to assign features to the rough wireframes you have developed.  
   
   
5. Revisit – With design you can find solutions that have never been seen by you or others. If you revisit the same design with a curious eye you might be awed by the alternatives that you could have offered.
   

What happens, when we do not design within constraints? I have iterated many times with great looking interfaces only to be told that you cannot achieve a lot of stuff technically.  This takes a toll and you end up creating something that you don’t like.

Woudnt it be great if wireframe tools incorporated these features and let users design more effectively.  

When patterns initially arrived on the scene in Interface design i was pretty unconvinced about how it would be a viable proposition. What patterns did was pretty much common sense that any body with a little bit of experience in designing apps could do. But over a period of time, working in some of the best organizations i have come to respect the role that patterns play in decision making, especially in large teams with divergent types of roles.

Here are some notes that i collected from everywhere on the web with the keyword Patterns,

“An interaction design pattern is not a step-by-step recipe or a specification. It’s a set of things we’ve learned that tend to work in clearly defined situations as well as some known issues that need to be balanced or sorted out or otherwise addressed. A pattern is closer to a checklist than to a mock or a wireframe.”
Article in Boxes and arrows

“Interaction design patterns are a way to capture optimal solutions to common usability or accessibility problems in a specific context.^[2] They document interaction models that make it easier for users to understand an interface and accomplish their tasks.^[3]”
Wikipedia Patterns 

“In essence, patterns are structural and behavioral features that improve the “habitability” of something — a user interface, a Web site, an object-oriented program, or even a building. They make things more usable, easier to understand, or more beautiful; they make tools more ready-to-hand.”
Jennifer tidwell - Designing Interfaces 

Pattern Libraries 
If you are pretty new on the scene or want to start afresh with patterns here are some resources that could put you onto the right direction.

• http://www.welie.com/patterns/
• Wiki Patterns 
• Open Source Design Pattern Library 
• Designing web Interfaces 
• http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
• http://uipatternfactory.com/
• http://ui-patterns.com/
• Designing social Interfaces 

I have been hooked on to the ‘Google Book Search’ for sometime now. It all started with me looking for some piece of information i couldnt find on book shelves or the internet. Almost giving up i tried the Google Book Search. And there i was reading through numerous pages of otherwise totally unavailable text. The result has been awesome i am using the Book search more and more. I have started relying less on the Internet these days and looking forward to books for information! 

That about how cool, things are getting for me. But i can sense an oppurtunity here. An oppurtunity that will bring on the next generation of Internet for researchers and people finding information. An oppurtunity that will help book labels make so much more with online sales, An oppurtunity that will allow users to skim through books like they do in real stores and then decide to buy. Above all imagine a time when Users will begin reading to through reliable and published information using the internet. An entire new model that will change the very face of internet. Enough for us all geeks to design and redesign the future for the internet!

Google Awesome Agreement with book publishers : Link

The great internet giant Google has evolved over the years. It has moved from its core business of search to providing numerous other services including Media, Email, Mobile services, Browser, Document management etc. And is truly making a dent in the internet world. I have always admired  Google’s approach to design and minimalism. And i attribute this to the number one reason for its popularity.

That was until recent. Google is evolving further and providing bells and whistles that it dint before. Google applications are getting increrasingly themed. This is where i think Google might take a big wrong decision and loose its race to Yahoo. Google interface has been clean and no-nonsense. Which a true designer understand is difficult to achieve. In the short run, themes might evoke interest and give lots of place for advertising but in the longer run just lead to users migrating to other applications.

Microsoft is scheduled to release the windows7 which is bound to be a war horse comparable to the xp release. With the type of flack Microsoft has recieved for Vista features. with all the features i have my very own wish list. Some of the things i think can be done to enahance a users experience on the PC. 

• Get rid of the logon screen: I need a logon screen in my office. How else could i prevent my neigbhour from using my PC to play mine sweepers. But i dont need a logon screen at home (i need the remote there). When the older folks turn the PC on. They helplessly look at me for help.  Thinking about it, even i dont need a login screen at home (arr… sounds funny eh..). Would it not be great to let users select sections of the OS that need a login screen and the ones that dont. PC or maybe even the macs can do a lot better here.   
   
• File Productivity: This is probably not for the average user. This is for somebody like me, whose only tool to work is a computer and the grey matter. For me i work a lot with different types of files. Sometimes word documents, sometimes ppts, sometimes psds. A lot of time i go in spin looking for a document, even more with versions that i create and organizing myself. It appears to me this has to do a lot with how well i am able organize myself with the limited tools of organization available in Personal computers. File productivity taking a leaf from the numerous other apps can truly revolutionize Pc usage making them super productivity machines. 

  
   

• Wordpad on steriods - A lot of users like me prepare notes on a regular basis. Notemaking is at the center of hundreds of things we do while using and creating information. A wordpad like text editor thats shareable across application and available more easily in tagging files, folders and generally typing would help a lot. This app does not need to kill the Word processor cashcow.