IxDA F2F in Bangalore held on Sat, 3pm, 11 Aug 2007

Hi all,
The IxDA F2F in Bangalore was held on the 11th of Aug 2007 at Koshy's, St Marks Road. It was an introductory session and was an informal event.

It was an enriching experience for all those attended and we carried with us more inspiring thoughts and ideas, a promise of holding this again and of course, more contact numbers.

People who attended were (in alphabetical order) :
Navneet Nair - Interaction Designer, Google
Sarit Arora – Group Lead – Human Factors
Sudhindra V – Centre of Excellence – Lead, Human Factors
Suman Paul – Interaction Designer, TCS
Suresh JV - Interaction Designer, eTrade
Vikram Rao – Sr. Interaction Designer, RSA
The topics of discussion ranged from the very definition of professionals in our field to the social causes that we can contribute as professionals and India specific usability issues.

The important topics that were discussed were :

1. Future Events
We agreed that all future F2Fs should be :
- periodic
- informal like a barcamp/unconference
- explore new restaurants as venues for the event
- focus on participants to present

2. To work towards getting usability/interaction design due recognition from NASSCOM
To increase awareness with the Government and people as a whole regarding the importance of usability and its relevance in day to day life, we all agreed to take up the matter with Nasscom, the IT governing body of the Government. Any ideas/help in this regard is welcome. We can also look at how usability and the field of human factors is viewed by other governments.

3. Interaction Design as a social contributor
We discussed ways to help the society we live in through our profession. For eg, increasing accessibility in public/private buildings, reduce traffic hazards and easing of the traffic flow.

These were some of the main topics we discussed. Additionally, everyone contributed their concerns in their working environments and the ways of improving them, the importance of training etc.

Interaction and user interface issues

Panasonic handy-cam



As every other handy cam in town, it has two main operational modes - Record and playback. But the most annoying, "mode based" flaw it has is that the T and W zoom toggle button doubles itself as a volume increase/decrease during playback. Even though it doesnot affect in recording sound during recording, it is quite unintuitive to learn that it actually is a volume increase/decrease button during playback.

powered by performancing firefox

My experiences in Interaction design

Hi,
Just the other day, while taking a bath, I found that the place where the soap is kept in my bathroom lacks sense of interaction. It is a small projection from the side of the tub but what makes it horrible is that it is very flat. Since the soap is wet during bath, it keeps slipping down when I try to keep the soap back after using it. If the projection had been a bit curved at the bottom instead of being flat, it would have helped me to slip in the soap and also would have helped me to hold and remove the soap keeping my eyes closed.

The second usability culprit was my dustbin (as are many of them). They usually decrease in width (like an inverted cone) from the top to the bottom. This way, the plastic cover that holds the garbage cannot hold more at the bottom and the bin gets filled very quickly. But providing a bin with a lesser width at the top and increasing downwards doesnot look good.

A solution to this would be to provide the regular width at the top, curve it in the center and more width at the bottom than the top. This way, it looks good and is user friendly.

Welcome to Elegance.Experience

Hi All...
Welcome to Elegance.Experience interaction design blog. Lets discuss usability, interaction design, applied knowledge in user interaction, everyday experiences reg usability, user experience et al...