Anirudh@Office

Why and When a picture is worth thousand words?

2010-07-23T00:54:00.000-07:00

I use Office 2007. Last week I got a mail request from my admin to upgrade to Office 2010 (listing upgrade changes). I thought I did not do it because I was busy. But later I realized that may be the message content did not convince me at once. I felt only if admin had shown me screenshots (Old & New) from both versions, it would have done the trick. Here's why:

1. In order to process text you have to view and read it. To process an image you only need to see it. Hence, second option leads to faster processing (this may not always be true e.g. when information is fairly new). I was already familar with the current product, hence only needed to know what changed.
2. Textual information can be expressed through a graphic in a compact and vivid way (this may require more efforts though). Its about showing an actual apple rather than describing what an apple is.

Disclaimer: Nevertheless, text description may be preferred over images when image/actual object is not available or not able to communicate effectively.

Friends, Colleagues and Followers: Shrinking degrees of separation

2010-07-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

This post discusses important features of Social Networking and its effects.

Features
1) Participatory: Anyone who can view a particular content is able to participate around it, with minimal restrictions. Content creation is not done in silos, its a collaborative effort.

2) Spontaneous: Any activity can be initiated immediately. It evolves/develops over a period time. e.g. Idea building through Collaboration. First idea is shared at once, participants can build on it over time.

3) Low thresholds for participation: It requires less efforts to participate. Anyone can jump right into the action, through a related action or just an opinion. e.g. I like mangoes. (Every opinion/activity matters and it adds to the overall knowledge of social ecosystem and its members.)

4) Incremental: First contributor is only an initiator, complete picture emerges only after other participants have chipped in. Other participants may provide feedback or modify the content. e.g. as different users leave comments on a blog, it adds to the original content; thereby modifying it and making it more relevant.

5) People-centric: Participants define what is important: e.g. using ratings participants can prioritize the content.

6) Trusted sources: Participation is enhanced when co-participants belong to a trusted circle (friends, colleagues). During e-Shopping people consider information from friends more seriously as compared to an advertisement.

Effects
1) Compression of information cycles: Information sources (friends/colleagues) are more trusted and known; hence information cycles are getting compressed. This also reduces people's action time on information. If 2 sets of information come from 2 different sources; you are likely to act quicker on info thats from a reliable source. Decision approvers are also the providers of information.

2) High impact and Dynamic: One can become very important (suddenly) due to dynamic nature and greater reach (magnitude of numbers involved). Visibility is too much. Stakes are high. Leaders of today may not be relevant tomorrow. All this can happen very fast.

3) Quick passage of time: With reference as number of events that have occurred; time passes faster in social mediums.

4) Shrinking space: One can connect to anyone w/ whom there is something common (interest, location). My friends' friends are now less distant than before. Circles of influence are formed easily, quickly and are available globally.

5) Amplification: Any stimulus (such as information) may grow and spread vigorously. This includes noise. However, as networks get strengthened over time, it will find smart ways to filter noise.

6) Discovering needs and Self: Our connections help us to know what we need. They also mirror our personalities. They define who we are.

Resisting the temptation of creating perfect information hierarchies

2010-03-26T01:59:00.000-07:00

Summary: Information architect may create a perfect information structure - where content items fall into right categories, but users may not be able to locate important items because they are buried deep inside.

Description: Sometimes an information structure, which has items falling under perfect categories, can be too theoretical and not useful for the user. This may hide important chunks of information from the user, at first glance. Items that are frequently accessed by the users might be too down in the hierarchy.

When? This may happen when IA has not interacted with the users at all (hence User priorities are not available. It may also happen when IA falsely assumes that the user would drill down the hierarchial structure and access the important item; since it follows a logical structure. However, users may bypass such logic and prefer such items displayed upfront (even if it is at the cost of not falling under any category).

Why Email is not a Social network?

2009-09-15T22:53:00.000-07:00

Some contend that Email is First –and Largest– Social Network. I disagree that Email is a social network. While Email may have some attributes that are common with social networking such as information sharing – these may be necessary conditions but not sufficient.

As you move from Email towards Social Networks world becomes more Open and less restricted. My Email tags would read Confidentiality, Selectiveness as opposed to Openess, Freedom for the social networks. We are moving from this information should be seen by ONLY these people to this can be seen by ANY one.

Email and Twitter would be good examples, of the two extremes. Social networks like Facebook would fall in between; so that your information is typically shared with NOT everyone, but with a wider group of friends. You can apply filters (e.g. Groups) in social networks and constrain them like Email. But they are at their best when Open, while Email inherently has specific or targeted audience.

Some may argue for Email as a collaboration tool. But Email was primarily aimed at communication. I always feel that Emails have that passive element in them as opposed to the buzz of social networks; which makes it natural for collaboraion to happen more easily in social networks.

In the future, I see email as a subset of social networking. Something like Twitter Direct messages – while by default, information would be shared across the network; you can always limit the receivers for privileged information.

Enterprise 2.0: Do small pilots fail because of their size?

2009-09-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

Michael Idinopulos from Social Text has a thought provoking perspective on pilots for Enterprise 2.0. He believes that if small pilots do not work for Enterprise 2.0, it may be because its too small. Michael feels that while Traditional IT systems are primarily transactive, Enterprise 2.0 are interactive; therefore small size for Enterprise 2.0 pilots may not be sufficient.

My response:
Traditional IT systems are getting obsolete; and have moved/are moving towards interactive mode. So its no longer fair to see such systems as just enabling transactions. They are very much interactive. Hence, the recent emphasis on areas like Human-Computer interaction. I dont see a practical need for the divide between transactive and interactive modes here. Consequently, I do not see why there should be a need for different pilot size based on this criterion.

I do agree that there needs to be a representative sample for a pilot. But then again I am not convinced that it necessarily means larger pilots for Enterprise 2.0. What we need is carefully designed pilots that are strong enough to capture the multiple dimensions of social collaboration.

If a small pilot is not working, I would ask why? I suspect there could be culprits other than size, e.g. Organization culture, relevancy of product features that may be responsible.

Kiva: Social lending to enterprenuers

2009-07-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

Kiva allows you to lend money to enterprenuers across the world. You select an enterpreuner from the featured list, decide how much you want to lend. Enterpreuner returns the money over a period of time. When you get your money back, you can lend it again to another enterpreuner.

Its a cool tool for those who want to give back to society/help out others and still get the maximum out of that buck. Your money helps out someone, and then it comes back so that you can use it again. Instead of making a one-time donation of $100, I would rather give that away over and over again and still not spend it. Its like having your cake and eating it too.

Content is a Service Business?

2009-07-14T03:42:00.000-07:00

Here is my reply to the Original post on O'reilly TOC:

I think there are four differnt factors here: Content, Service, Experience and Consumer. Getting content easily without putting in much effort comes under Serivce, whereas what you derive from the content - pleasure, entertainment, thrill comes under Experience. Content, Serivce and Experience - all three matter to the Consumer.

Experience with the content is not just dependent on the content quality, but also on who is consuming it - the Consumer. Same content will lead to different experiences with different people, no matter what the content quality.

This is not to say that High quality is not a factor (if the content is Original, Unique, Innovative etc. it has some inherent value). When people buy Jim Cramer's books they buy it for its unique content (perspective/knowledge), which has not much to do with Service.

Why would people pay the same price for goods of (often vastly) different quality?
Well, because this price is fixed by the seller; whereas the quality is perceived by the buyer. If I really need to download my favorite song, I may not mind paying even $5 for it; iTunes charges around $1. In other words, consumers wont mind paying $1 as long as they perceive its value equal to or greater than $1.

UX vs Business: Song remains the same

2009-07-08T03:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some similarities between UX and Business:
1. User-centric Vs customer-centric: In UX, while the focus is on end-user needs; in business, its about customer needs. In UX, at the end of the day, User requirements should fit into the bigger picture (in harmony with business needs).
2. Moving up the value chain: Your focus moves from "how would this impact the end-User" to "how does it impact the top-line". However, its still about the value added.
3. Right-brained or left-brained: I feel that you continue to challenge both sides of your brain, in both streams. General notion may be that UX people are right-brained such as graphic designers, but this may not be true for UX analysts. Similarly, you continue to use your right-brain (creativity) in business problems. Ever heard of intuitive insights?

Man-machine Interaction and Information Technology

2009-07-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

1. Identifying the need: First stage of the man-machine interaction. There may be latent or obvious needs for man e.g. tastier food, stronger bridges, shinier diamonds.

2. How to do it: Whats the basic concept or know-how behind the solution. How do you build stronger bridges?

3. Automation: Bringing in more efficiency through automation. This is where machines get in. This also entails bringing/translating existing solutions from non-automated world to automated world.

4. Efficiency: Faster and smarter machines. AI?

Lets map each step with an IT example:

1. We want to build an enterprise wide platform where employees can collaborate on work activities leading to higher productivity.
2. Abstract solution. Create new ways in which employees can collaborate in non-IT world. For the current problem most of these already exist in 21st century workplaces e.g. Share right/relevant information, Form groups with similar interests etc.
3. What all features an IT product should have that would increase work productivity. Translating the solution in previous step to an IT environment is a challenge. Abstract solution is already there, but how do you re-present/re-create it in an IT environment. Are there any restrictions of IT which would limit the abstract solution? How do you over come such restrictions?
4. Picking the Winner. Which is the best Enterprise product amongst these? Does it scale to different Users, Businesses, Cultures? Is it predictive/pro-active so as to adapt to changing paradigms?

Analysis and Conclusion: Coming up soon...

Social Networking in Finance

2009-03-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

Take a look at how social networking has already found applications in Finance:

Social Network for Investments: Motley Fool Caps
-community of investors that help each other to beat the markets
-members give their top picks for the stocks and other investment ideas
-members rate each other based on accuracy of predictions

Here is the primary business flow:
1. Users rate the stocks on how they will perform.
2. Performance is compared with some benchmark (S&P)
3. Caps gives high ratings to those whose ratings were accurate, and low ratings to those whose werent.
(Above cycle is iterative and goes on. Now here is how Caps makes money.)
4. Caps sells these stock ratings to paid customers

It also tracks the Wall Street heavyweights like Jim Cramer, which then gets reflected in their overall stock recommendations.

Founder David Gardner, in his interview compares Caps with Deep Blue - the chess computer that IBM built that defeated Garry Kasparov about a decade ago. He basically claims that symbolically it was 100 programmers who beat Kasparov; similary here Caps (community of investors) beats your Wall street analyst. While this analogy holds broadly, but it doesnt take into account atleast 2 factors. First, unpredictable nature of stock market as opposed to systematic chess where after each move you have only fixed number of moves that may follow. Second, problem solving by programmers compared with stock recommendations, that itself may have several catches.

Anyhow its a great example of how social networking can be put to a good use. If you find social investing interesting, here is a review of some other social investing sites.

Moving on here is another example of social networking for Banking: My Bank Tracker
-one-stop-shop for comparing bank account and rate information
-compares numerous features and offerings of banking services
-supported with "real time" rate updates
-leverages knowledge of existing banking customers through experience sharing

This one like Caps is based on community intelligence paradigm. Ratings are based on actual experiences of customers.

Social Networking: Need for new business models

2009-03-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

Users come to search engines to search for information. Lets say I am looking for some info on automobiles. While the engine may rank Automobile safety page as #1, in reality this may appear much lower in Search results. Instead, what may top the list is advertisements related with the keyword - BMW, Mercedes etc. Point being while the user is actually looking for most relevant information, the search engine itself may be biased towards the advertisers (since its taking money from them).

Having said that your search engines too have become crafty. If ads are overwhelming and at the cost of the content users are seeking; users may soon vanish and run away to competitors. Google claims that its much cleaner and transparent as compared to others, and very often the sponsored ads are clearly demacrated.

Now let me talk a bit about what social networks such as Facebook, Twitter are doing to generate revenues. People are on these social networking sites not because they are searching for information (Google paradigm), but because they simply want to connect with others - friends, colleagues, like-minded people. And if I am here to bond with my friends - advertisements would only be a noise. So the big question is what do networking sites do to generate revenues? Or rather what are they doing now?

Facebook, follows a Google-like business model based on ad-revenues. Basically, users are shown relevant ads based on their data and usage patterns etc. Facebook revenues were around $350 million in 2008. Twitter may follow the suit soon. But potential acquirers may think twice before acquiring companies like Twitter for their lack of revenue source.

Social Networking is an exciting but tough space to be in, at the same time. Although, some suggest that for social networking focus should be on user value rather than the Free business model (which comes with the headache of ad bombardment), its a difficult choice. Moving from Free service to a paid one may not be viable, since it would be at the cost of eroding your user base. (I even think its dishonest in some way to start charging for a service which has been Free so far)

Whats needed in social networking space is a move towards new business models that draw upon its uniqueness of social aspects. And these need not be in advertising.

Enterprise 2.0: Enriched information

2009-03-06T02:27:00.001-08:00

Enterprise 2.0 provides a platform for an employee to network with colleagues, exchange information and collaborate in office. It helps in innovation, ideation, knowledge sharing - all that eventually leading to $$$ for the organization.

One interesting feature of E2.0 is incremental information. As in any other social network, information gets aggregated from multiple sources (users). It’s the collective or aggregated information that matters.

I share some information with a group.
John got a new car last week.

As others read this information, they add more. Information grows and becomes richer, through exchange between people over a period of time.
John bought a blue BMW 3 Series Sports Wagon last Friday.

Individual contributions add on to information pool available to the entire network.
I think he financed it through Wachovia.

Content creation becomes a by-product of content consumption - as people go about reading the content, they enrich it through additional information. Similarly, people also rate the content as useful or not useful; telling future users whether this content is consumable. e.g. in Digg. In social networking, it’s the people within the network that drive the flow and richness of information, hence the term social design.

There are tons of E2.0 products out there, offering million functionalities such as wiki, blog, Discussion, Social Bookmarking, Documents, Workspaces, Micro-blogging, Tagging etc. However, the winner would be the one who would be able to integrate these functionalities and actually motivate the employees to use it. Just by giving the people all the necessary tools, wont make it actually usable. Motivation for using such tools should be there in the Organization culture, or should be ingrained in the tool itself.

Enterprise 2.0 products: Interesting Features

2009-02-25T04:24:00.001-08:00

I was looking at the E2.0 products out there in the market. Here are the features that I found interesting:

Connectbeam:They have linked User-Group-Content. If you pull up a User you also get to see Groups and Content related to that. Very networkish, and powerful.
1. Provides integration with Microsoft Outlook, Sharepoint etc.
2. I liked their concept of Social Search. It intertwines content with users. e.g. for a particular Bookmark that appears in Search result, it shows related Users and Groups also
3. Provides notifications through RSS also
4. User Profile also includes his current groups and bookmarks

GroupSwim
1. Functionalities provided: Discussion, wiki, Documents, People, Groups
2. There are two default groups: One for admin, other for Non-admin users
3. Tags (upto 3) can be applied to Groups too.
4. Announcements can appear at the top of the Home page.
5. Purchase ad is present throughout the evaluation
6. Sort discussions by Recent activity, Latest discussions, Most Popular
7. Sort documents by recency or alphabetical. Filter by Doc type such as Word, pdf.
8. Group Profile has information about number of discussions, documents, wikis etc. in the group.

SocialText contains Profile, Workspaces (wiki), Dashboard (Home Page), Blogs, Tweeto, Spreadsheets (in Beta), Tags. Blogs and Spreadsheets are part of Workspaces, and inherit most functions that are applicable to wikis.
1. Navigation is centered around People and Workspaces.
2. Important things that are missing include Discussions (they provide commenting in Workspaces) and Groups (although you can search a group of people using tags).
3. Ability to work offline
4. Mobile access
5. Connectors (in Beta) which provide integration with Sharepoint and IBM Lotus
6. RSS (feeds are generated automatically for ALL pages)
7. Deployment: SaaS or install an appliance (on-premise or hosted in data center)
8. Designated Customer Service Manager to help you set-up things. Not sure if they charge extra for this.

Also, take a look at this comparison between Clearspace, Lotus Live and SocialText.

Usability Testing: Part 3

2009-02-18T04:38:00.000-08:00

Once the User testing is complete, its important that the results are documented and presented in a proper fashion. I have used CIF (Common Industry Format) format for reporting Usability reports.

It is always useful (and fun) to bundle your User Testing videos along with the report, its a good selling technique. When the stakeholders see how the end users are struggling with their product, it can make the difference.

Other methods like Think Aloud protocol can also be used during Usability Testing esepcially for Formative Testing. Think Aloud methods encourage users to "speak out whats going on in their mind" as they interact with the product. This can help the evaluator to pin-point what exactly is problematic - this icon? that drop-down menu?; and sometimes it can give insights into possible solutions. e.g. Users says "Oh, you should have put that icon over here - it makes more sense". Think Aloud is typically avoided during Summative testing, since it may interfere with performance measures.

Another interesting point is comparison of User testing with other methods such as Expert Evaluation. That would need a new posting.
However, the highlighting point is that User testing allows you to see how real Users actually perform real tasks with the product. This takes away the guessing game and makes everything more objective. Identification of issues is driven by real data. Most importantly it helps in understanding mental models of the User by observing them during these tasks.

Usability Testing: Part 2

2009-02-18T04:37:00.000-08:00

For any User testing, here are some steps that are typical:
1. Getting representative users: Based on User profiles of end-users who would be actually using the product, recruit representative users for the Usability test.
How many users? More the better. However, after certain number of users, data coming may not add substantial value. For formative testing 5-6 users is a good number; for summative testing a certain minimum number of users is needed(typically around 10), so that data analysis can be done statistically.

2. Doing a task analysis: This helps in identifying cricital and frequent tasks that are performed by the end-users. This would be helpful in creation of task scenarios.

3. Creating task scenarios: Task scenarios are like real-life situations depicting how users would interact with the product.
Example: Imagine that you are travelling home on Diwali along with your family. You want to book cheapest return air-tickets. How would you go about this task using this website?

4. Test material preparation: Preparing other material such as Pre-test or Post-test questionnaires, Consent form etc. Questionnaires help to gather more data around the User and his interactions with the product.

5. Conducting a user testing session: After greeting the user and giving him a background about the product and Use testing, invigilator gives Consent form and pre-test questionnaires to the user.
User is given a task sheet and asked to complete the listed tasks (typically 3-5) using the product. These tasks may or may not be timed depending on the goals and nature of testing. Also, these tasks may be more explorative/open-ended in nature (to understand how the User interacts with the product as a whole) or more focused/close-ended (especially during summative testing).
Activities during the testing session may be recorded. Camtasia/Morae may be used for capturing screen interactions of the User, cameras to record facial expressions/body movements, voice recordor for recording voice.
Once the User has comleted the required tasks, Invigilator debriefs the user - gathering his feedback around the session, telling him what the whole thing was all about and talking around specific incidents during the session.

6. Data Analysis: Analyzing data coming from User testing sessions can be a tedious process. Voice recordings, Screen interactions, camera recordings, Performance measures such as task completion time, Qualitative data such as likes and dislikes - data collected can be overwhelming.
In formative testing, the goal is typically to identify problems with the product and give recommendations (if needed, with priority ratings). In summative testing, in addition to above it may also be of interest to see how users actually perform on particular tasks. Summative testing may also be used to compare a product with a benchmark or competitor products. Summative testing data may also require statistical analysis using tools such as SPSS, SAS etc.

Usability Testing: Part 1

2009-02-18T04:36:00.000-08:00

We come across so many buzz words trying to describe Usability - easy to use, intuitive, user-friendly. According to ISO's broad definition Usability has 3 components:
1. Effectiveness: accuracy and completeness with which users achieve certain goals. This can be measured using number of errors.
2. Efficiency: pertaing to resources spent in achieving those goals. This can be measured using task completion times.
3. Satisfaction: user's comfort and attitude towards the system. This can be measured using subjective scales such as SUS.

One of the most widespread and accepted way of measuring usability is through Usability Testing or User testing. Usability Testing is of two types: Formative and Summative.

Formative Usability Testing is aimed at identifying problems with the interface. This can be done at any stage of the product/project lifecycle; however its typically done in early stages when your product is still evolving.
Summative Usability Testing is more elaborative in nature. It is typically done in later stages of the lifecycle, when product is close to completion. It uses quantitative methods to measure the usability of the system - this implies usability measurements are quantified with metrics such as Task compeltion time, number of errors etc.

Usability Testing does not always require a state of the art Usability lab; infact there is only one indispensable thing for Usability testing - the Users.

Expert Evaluation

2009-02-18T04:31:00.000-08:00

As the name suggests Expert Evaluation is done by experts - people who have a good understanding of Industry Best practices, business domain and various factes of User experience. It is a method used to assess the current state of the application/product/website in terms of various User Experience parameters such as Navigation, Visual design, Interaction design. Very often terms expert evaluation and heuristic analysis are used interchangeably; since typically Experts use certain heuristics or rules of thumb for expert evaluation. It is also known as a “discount” method, since it was designed for quick turnaround so that the deliverable can be attended to as part of an iterative design process. Here is a widely popular list of heuristics (proposed by Jakob Nielsen):

Expert Evaluation may be Qualitative or Quantitative. Qualitative analysis helps in identifying important User experience issues with the software. Typically 4-5 evaluators come together and assess the software. This assessment may be done using any of the following:
1. Standard Checklists
2. Customized checklists: Evaluators may come up with their own checklists based on business domain and their experience
3. UX areas: Evaluators identify key UX areas such as Visual Design and then note down problems in that area
4. Task scenarios: Evaluators put themselves in shoes of a real user using a real-life task scenario e.g. Imagine you are buying an air ticket from Kingfisher website, identify problems encountered as you go about completing this task.

Typically, combination of above methods may be used. Based on their assessment, evaluators assign severity ratings (Low, Medium, High) for each problem. Findings and ratings of evaluators are then aggregated, and recommendations are made to improve the existing software.

In quantitative analysis, in addition to finding problems; evaluators also assign numerical ratings (e.g. on a scale of 0 to 5) to the problems or high-level problem areas. Quantitative charts may be generated using these ratings. Quantitative assessment allows to see relative performance of the software across different problem areas. e.g. Product A rates 4 on Visual Design, but only 2 on Navigation. It can also used be for comparing different products e.g. Overall Usability of Product A is 7 out of 10, as compared to 9 out of 10 for Product B. Quantitative analysis may be time consuming, hence should be used when it justifies the costs incurred.

What is Information Architecture?

2009-02-18T04:26:00.000-08:00

Information architecture is design of information space to facilitate task completion and provide intuitive access to content. IA can be further divided into three different aspects for better understanding:
1. Navigation: How do Users go from one piece of information to other?
Navigation is a functionality, a technique, a way to reach desired content. There can be different types of Navigation such as Global (across the site/application), Local (relevant to a particular section), Contextual (pertaining to a particular piece of content) or Supplemental such as Search, Guides etc.
2. Labeling: Does the content make sense to the User? Good labels are easy to understand, terse and meaningful. Think of labels on a jar or a bottle; they tell you whats inside that container - milk? jam? gasoline? acid? Similarly, labels for menus, tabs, buttons, links tell you what that content or functionality is about.
3. Organization of Information: Top-down or Bottom-up?
Top-down organization of information is like bird’s eye view looking down on the forest, it helps you to look at totality of the content. E.g. Organization has Departments; Department has Groups; Group has people and so on.
Bottom-up organization is from the ground-up. Its opposite of top-down. E.g. You have a book "Designing Usable Interfaces" by Dr. XYZ. You search for top 10 Design books by same author; then you may search for all books (Design and Non-design) by that author; then you may search for all books by all authors and so on.

IA Prototyping
Visio is the most common prototyping tool for any Information architect. Lot of people prefer using Powerpoint. I have even used Word and plain paper. Again these are just tools, what matters is what goes inside the IA.
IA is the backbone of your site/application especially for content rich websites. It serves as a starting point for designers - blueprint on which all your front-end development is based. It also has key information for developers, since it helps them to understand the workflows, interactions etc. in the site/application. For example, what happens when I click on this button? A developer would typically read the IA document along with business specifications, before he starts coding.
It would also specify the UI behavior of screen elements and other specifications for a page, if required. Again it depends on what extent do you want to go - keeping possible trade-offs in mind.

Engaging your Users

2009-02-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

I am working on an E2O product and needed some ways to keep our users engaged. What can we do so that our Evaluation users get converted into buyers, and our existing customers stick with us. Apart from the core functionalities that your product supports, you need a punching bag which your user comes and punches once in a while just when he is getting bored using your product. This punching bag needs to be so designed so that it offers the right challenge level to your user. - neither too easy nor too hard. Kicking this bag would re-kindle their passion that would help them to stick around, for one more round of knowledge sharing. These punching bags should be programmed to make your brain feel that they are amongst 1% of the things that it finds remarkable.

In addition to these punching bags, your product needs to be fun, so that your users use it longer and even get addicted to it. Easier said than done. How do you make your product fun? Very simple - Reward more, Punish less. Reward your users for their interactions, for example, through positive messages that would enthuse your users. Also, dont punish them for exploring - give them more than their space.

Summing it up, your functionalities should be laid out in a playful environment. Such playfulness can be created by diverting them from your mundane functionalities on need basis, rewarding them when they make efforts trying to use your boring functionailties and avoid punishments when they tread forbidden spaces.

Welcome to Anirudh at Office

2009-02-13T03:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my professional blog.