Yahoo announced that they are opening up their search results for third party data integration. This will allow third party to contribute to Yahoo search experience and make it more useful for their users. It will be interesting to see how other webmasters use this open search platform to gain popularity by sharing data with Yahoo, while still retaining their competitive edge, by virtue of their database, in their respective area. We can expect to experience a long-tail of innovation in days to come. This will help webmasters, visitors and Yahoo! A perfect win-win-win situation.

On the other hand, Google already have a open platform called Google Co-op, where anyone can create custom search engine. As per Google Co-op,

“Google Co-op is a platform that enables you to customize the web search experience for users of both Google and your own website.”

Google also offer Google Subscribed Links which in their own language they define as:

“Subscribed Links let you create custom search results that users can add to their Google search pages. You can display links to your services for your customers, provide news and status information updated in near-real-time, answer questions, calculate useful quantities, and more”

The challenge

However, both the services that Google offers, has a great deal of focus on promoting Google, Google Search & Google Subscribed Links. Again, they are not directly making any change in the Google Search (at least it has not be publicly explained how it will effect user experience of a normal search).

Therefore, Google Search or Yahoo Search cannot be termed as true “user contributed” or “Web2.0″ as described by Tom O’Reilly. People won’t contribute unless they see that their contribution is making a positive impact in the search pattern and it is visible. In the current state both Subscribed Link and Yahoo Open Search will only help if a user wants to use the enhanced engine. Most Internet users will never switch these engines. Even if they are told the benefit of the plug-ins, how are they supposed to select the ones which will help them from a collection of thousands of user contributed plug-in channels? And what happens when new plug-ins come out?

Suggested solution

If search engines want to go the Web2.0 way with user contribution enhancing the overall experience and defining the way search engines display results, they need to bring user contributions to the mainstream. I feel that themed searches are the way to go. Google / Yahoo shall classify a particular user contributed plug-in into a theme. When a visitor wants to search for a business, he may choose a “Finding a business” theme. On a contrary when a visitor wants to learn about the subject he may chose the “Tutorial” theme.

Let us see an example.

We search for a very competitive keyword – “web design”. This is the result we get.

If you see, there are three different intents that the search result satisfies. A person might be searching “web design” because he:

• Want to find a web design company (blue marker)
• Want to learn web design (red marker)
• Get web design resources (green marker)

All three intents are very different. Most people do not type-in their intent in the search box to make it a specific search, because they are not specialists in using search engines. Therefore, a search engine should suggest a possible intent and display results only related to the given theme. The theme model can best work when they are formed based on a collection of user generated plug-ins. Thus user generated content can find its way to the end user in an organized way.

It goes without saying that pulling in the user generated content directly into the main search result has its challenge of weeding out spam. But this seems to be the most logical way as of now. 

 

Proper project management is key to a successful project. To manage multiple projects and teams which are geographically spread across the globe, you need a quality project management tool.

As a web development company, we looked around for some quality software which serves the purpose and does not burn a hole in the pocket. Here is our pick!

Basecamp HQ:- A nice, minimalist simple to use software true to the philosophy of 37signals, the company which built it. This software is only available in a SaS (software as service) model. IMO this software best suits small projects which are communication centric. It lacks version control, task management, project tracking along with cost-benefit analysis.

Overall, very easy to easy and adapt, but reporting is not up to the mark. If you are a small business and you do most of your project management yourself, this can be a good choice for you.

Intervals:- It seems to have picked up the baton where Basecamp HQ has left. It also works on a SaS (software as service) model. It has more features (specially in terms of reporting and role management) than Basecamp HQ, thus making it suitable to manage complex projects across a large organization.

Overall, it is a good attempt to overcome the shortcomings of Basecamp HQ. However it needs to improve on its usability. It also needs to provide staged progression in terms of features and complexity so that small businesses can adapt the system. I am sure that this software will become popular as they keep improving and become old. For a SaS model company, time-tested reliability is more important than anything else.

Ace Project:- A comprehensive project management software with user friendly interface and short learning curve. It has different licensing policies and therefore you can rent or buy off (with our without source code) the software to suit your organizational needs. This software is around for quite some time and therefore seems to be reliable.

It has decent reporting capabilities, but not as good as what Intervals claim to have!

Dot Project:- The best free open source project management software that I have come across. This software looks flexible and extendable. You can plug in various modules, including Mantis (for bug tracking). The usability and reporting leaves much to be desired. So if you are looking at free project management software with access to source code, Dot Project is a good choice.

Conclusion:

There is nothing called a perfect project management software. The usage, the users and the desired result determines the one which suits best for a given organization. So take your pick from the above mentioned toolset.

 

Apart from doing software / web development on Open-source platform, Indus Net Technologies also customize and implement open-source products for clients on demand. Some popular (and free) open-source products are SugarCRM, Drupal, osCommerce for CRM, content management and e-commerce respectively.

IMHO, these are some limitations that I have observed. It is important to know them before initiating a project. These are not very serious in nature and using free open-source products remains a good option for many small and medium sized enterprises around the world.

1. Like any product, it is very important to align the product with your workflow and/or requirements. You must fit the product into the organization by making necessary changes. Therefore a gap analysis should be done and the effort must be estimated for aligning the product as per the current work-flow and/or requirements.

2. Most free open-source products lacks in usability. Therefore if you are doing a major implementation which will be used by thousands of people and you are going to pay for their time, you must consider a major overhaul of interface by involving a usability consultant from your vendor. Otherwise you will end up spending a lot of money.

3. Most free open-source products have very poor reporting system. These reports are not good enough to run a business as they fail to provide any insight into the business function that you are tracking. They should be re-done as per your company requirement aligned with your key measurement matrix for the given business function.

4. The programmers who can change the software as per your needs are the code-hackers types, who love to dive into an existing system architecture and make small changes to achieve the desired results. Therefore you must identify and hook up with the right programmer / programming company (like Indus Net Technologies – a bit of shameless self promotion) to get it right.

5. It is a myth, that implementing open-source software is free. Software code is free, not the hard work of programmers and analysts which goes behind implementing it. And you need the later to successfully implement it in your scenario and reap the benefits of the solution. Yes, it considerably reduces the cost, improves reliability and gives you a head start from where you can take informed decision about your IT needs.

Do not get me wrong. I am only listing the limitations. The benefits are well-known and they out-live the limitations any day. However it is very important that these limitations are known before proceeding.

Feel free to discuss / debate!

 

Of late there is pressing demands of kinds of professionals who suggests user experience and are called user experience experts. But what is user experience? A common idea is, behind a website’s success two factors contribute; namely great design and flaw less script. The third perspective is often ignored and this is the most vital aspect of a website. It is called user experience. A great design can lure you to stay glued, some good dynamic HTML can make you feel elated and flawless code can add joy in the exploration of the web site. But what if the messages, graphics present in the website are confusing or ambiguous? A small example will help you. Say in a shopping cart after adding an item to cart, the message flashed is ‘Thanks for buying this product’. Will it not confuse you, when you actually are not buying the item but adding it to cart?

Some eye-catching designs sometimes found to be totally ignorant in terms of user perspective. I often come across blogs which have light colored fonts against dark background. A blog is meant for reading and if it is not soothing at all, you will not be able to concentrate leaving a bad user experience. CAPTCHA is one other case where more than 50% of websites only harass visitors. CAPTCHA is to block automatic form submission through script and it is often distorted so that electronically it cannot be read. Often websites remain ignorant of this fact and make CAPTCHA text so complex and distorted that one need to hire a calligraphist to decipher it. All these only leave a long sustaining bad impression in your mind and whenever you visit the website it haunts you in the back of your mind.

The wikipedia definition of user experience states that ‘User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user’s perception of a device or system. The scope of the field is directed at affecting “all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used’. For every successful product or service there is a context and content of website is built upon it. The content and context is enjoyed by the user of that product or service. If we go by user perspective and satisfaction level and if our website answers in positive for all the questions asked below, and then only we can claim it to be satisfying user experience.

• When the user first visits the website (and every time) is it accessible to him?
  If it is accessible then can he find information easily?
• The information he gets, is it useful?
• Is all the information he gets credible enough? If he ever gets wrong information, he will never trust you.
• When he browses the website, then all the messages or helps he gets, are relevant?
• If you providing any text, message etc in any area, then are the placement of such texts, images desirable?
• Is there any flaw exists in the usability of monetary transaction in your website? The user will never come back if he is harassed with payments.
• Is the website overall bug free?
• Is it eye catching?
• And last but not least how unique is its service or product? Are all these information valuable?

Proper mingling of content and graphics in the light of context will draw visitors to your website and accessibility and usability will keep them loyal and contented.

Sometimes we click on some buttons or links of many websites but nothing happens. It sometimes just takes you to the top of the page (if you are somewhere below on the page). I am sure everyone has experienced this at some point of time, in one or the other website. If we see carefully, a “#” symbol is visible on the left of the browser’s status bar on moving the mouse over that button or link. It signifies that the button or the text-link is not connected to any page or section. The creator has just placed that for future work. May be the designer is working on the page to be linked and once it is done, the file will be uploaded and link will be updated with the real one (xyz.html etc.).

It’s an example of poor experience design. It just makes the visitor feel frustrated. If your page is not ready, simply don’t put the link on the button or text from where it will be linked. You can link it later when you have the file ready for the visitor. We see the same thing in case of navigation bar. If you have to design the navigation bar and you don’t have a few pages ready to be linked, simply omit those navigation items. You can update the navigation bar later and do a “find-n-replace” through out the website. If you are lazy enough to do that or feel it will look odd, just give a clear “coming soon” message when people mouse-over the item.

Sometimes designers handle it in an other way too. When the page is not complete they use a general template and put “data coming soon” on the content area. This is also a bad practice. Why taking a visitor to a page where you have nothing to say? You can say it before he goes there by putting a simple “coming soon” tool-tip kind of stuff on the related link or navigation item!

It might be a small thing to you, but think about a person who is not as “tech” as you are. He or she might feel that there must be something wrong and try clicking randomly to find the information he/she is looking for, but in vain!

Definition:
Information Architecture (IA) is the art and science of structuring data, and defining user interactions before actually creating the website.

Why IA is important?
It is the blueprint of the site upon which all other aspects are built. They are:
1. Form
2. Function
3. Navigation
4. Interface
5. Interaction
6. Visual design

Steps of IA:
1. Define goals of the website
2. Define the user experience
3. Prepare/gather website content
4. Define website structure
5. Create visual design

1. Goals of the website
Defining website’s goal gives us a clear, well documented idea of what we want to build.

Steps:
- Ask questions
- Filter the answers
- Prepare design doc: “Website Goals”

2. User experience
User Experience is the overall experience and satisfaction a user has when using a website (or product or any system). The experience is commonly defined in terms of “ease-of-use”.

Steps:
- Define the audience
- Create common scenarios
- Analyze competitors
- Prepare design doc: “Audience, Scenarios, and Competitive Analysis”

3. Website content
In this step we have to gather the content for creating the structure and organization of the site. You will need to answer two questions:
 What pieces of content does the site need?
 What sorts of functionality will be required?

Steps:
- Identify content and functional requirements
- Group content
- Label the grouped content
- Prepare design doc: “Content and Functions”

4. Website structure
It is the skeleton of website which holds the body made with information and data. Ease-of-use of a website is primarily defined during this step.

Steps:
- Website structure listing
- Define navigation
- Prepare design doc: “Site Structure and Navigation System”

5. Visual design
In this step visual materials (layouts) are developed to create an experience. Visual Design includes: Graphic Design, Illustration, Typography, Layout, Color Theory, Iconography, Photography, etc.

Steps:
- Layout Grids
- Design Sketches and Page Mock-ups
- Prepare design doc: “Visual Design”

Consider the following scenario:

Lets say you have a balance of $300 in your Paypal account. You want to partly refund $225 out of a $400 payment that you received some time back.

When you go to refund this money, you will not be allowed to do so even when you only want to refund $225 which is less than your available balance of $300. This happens because Paypal checks the available balance against the total transaction value (in consideration for refund) and forgets that they have a “part-refund” option.

I hope they fix it soon!

 

This puzzles me!

With a lot of excitement I downloaded both IE 7 BETA and Windows Media Player 11. For all I know, Microsoft is very good at usability i.e. they make sure the interface is really very easy to use.

To my surprise both in Media player and IE 7, the file menu is not visible by default. Why will microsoft do that? Seems like I am missing something here or they are?

IE 7 BETA & Media Player 11 Screenshots