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    Upcoming event : Usability,why Should You Care?

  • Qurratulain Akhtar 8:24 am on November 27, 2008 Comments
    Tags: usability, UX

    Whether it’s consumer electronics, desktop software or a web application, usability comes first, i.e. the ease with which the user will use that product. The evolving technologies, geographical differences etc though cause a little variation, but standards are almost same everywhere. Usability itself is a standard, and any new, or enhanced product must follow the usability guidelines.

    Being a product developer, why should you care about Usability is a single question with hundreds of answers, some known and many hidden. Discussion is the only way to explore all those, and so Zigron Inc. and CDF Software arranged a seminar on Usability in collaboration with NUST Islamabad. Seminar will be held on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 from 5 pm to 8 pm (PST) at NUST Sector H-12, Islamabad Campus.

    The seminar will be a sort of discussion on current Usability practices round the world, the difference and similarities, the best and the successful, and the emerging trends. Another interesting part of the seminar will include a documentary on design Helvetica. Panelists of the seminar are people from different software houses of Islamabad and NUST, i.e. Babar Khan (ikonami), Faizan Buzdar (Scrybe), Haris Khan (Zigron), Osama Hashmi (CDF Software), Murad Akhter (Tintash) and Dr. Khalid Latif (NUST).

    The purpose of seminar is to discuss the Usability standards with specific reference to modern technologies, to make better use of it within our domains and to create awareness among future entrepreneurs.

    To register, please RSVP here or you can also register on Facebook.

User Xperience + Technology + Real World

  • Haris Khan 11:32 pm on July 1, 2008 Comments
    Tags: ATM, Technology, UI, User Experience, UX

    For some time I have noticed that in blogosphere, User Xperience has mostly been associated with Web 2.0 companies and hardware devices, well actually only one hardware i.e iPhone. So I decided to go out and see where I can find innovation in UX apart from the web.

    On this great adventure the first experience I stumbled across was Bank Of America’s ATM on Van Ness street in San Francisco. I had this old check, which I was planning to deposit for sometime, but hesitated because my last experience with Chase’s ATM in Chicago to deposit a check was very clumsy. One had to seal the check in an envelope, which the machine will vent out and then write the amount and your account info on top of it. One also has to feed in the check amount. Usually I don’t have a pen with me so it was another embarrassing moment and interestingly most ATM machines have a slanting face which makes it even harder to use it as base to write on it.

    Anyway this time around, when I was expecting the ATM to throw an empty envelope out, it just asked me to slide the check in a slot which had a blinking light. For a moment I was taken a back and didnt know what to do but the ATM kept beeping. After gaining some intelligence I decided to slide the check in and said to myself that worst come to worst I will just lose it as it wasn’t that big of an amount. It was from a friend who owed me some grocery money, luckily she wasn’t that hungry while grocery shopping.

    Eager to see what will happen, the ATM showed me the scanned copy of my check with the exact amount to two decimal points. It had scanned it on the fly and by using some recognition software had understood my friends handwritten amount to the exact amount. While I was still star struck and excited with the experience, I had my receipt in my hand with a scanned printout of the actual check I just deposited.

    Now I call this a true user experience. Next time I will make a video of it. So feel free to send me some checks and please feel free to be liberal with the amount :-)