Please don’t disable ‘esc’ and ‘backspace’ functionality

Recently I had a word with one of the super heads of an Indian IT company regarding common usability issues problems and why they occur and how they can be avoided. Lets me recall you the conversation

IT Manager –
Can you tell me the most common problems that can be avoided in web based applications

I said
Common key features like keyboard back button, escape button….. print-screen, control, alt keys…. These are the most used keys a user always presses. Now imaging if any of these keys are been disabled or you will get an alert that you cannot use this…. Oooh gosh whats going on ??? how to do this now…. And even if you see the alternative you will again commit the same thing. That’s human mentality

IT Manager
So how to avoid this…..

I said
It’s simple, please don’t disable such common functionality, it disturbs the human nature and so the task which he is doing gets disturbed.

IT Manager
Can you give me an example where you have seen or faced this issue

I said
Ya sure…. Practical example is the ICICI Net banking. I was seeing my account and went to another link within the interface, then again I wanted to go back to previous screen, I pressed backspace from keyboard, and then the whole session was expired and annoyingly, system said that “you are not allowed to press backspace” and it took me back to login page…. Why did I do anything wrong.

IT Manager
There are some securities issues so banking applications are forced to do this…. Technical issues are hard to tackle you see

I said
That does not mean that you limit users action…. Another example is HDFC bank net banking, here the interface if clean and crispy, to the point talking, you see the account, do transactions, clearly press back key to go back to the previous screens…. NO error prompting…. Cool I say. At the end of it I felt more secure and I had completed my task quickly, without any glitches. So point here is why then disable common elements things.

IT Manager
What if the project demands

I said
We need to communicate this and tell the project person the issue

IT Manager
What if he dosen’t agree or if he is adamant on doing the same

I said
Well in that case the error should be such that it should prompt in the same screen and the language should be appropriate not demanding or ordering the user. Lastly he should not be taken to a session out page of new page wherein the whole task which he is doing gets lost

IT Manager
So you mean to say that one should not play around or tamper with the common key functions which users are costumed to use right

I said
Exactly…. That is what I meant….

Bangalore, it's chaos....

People who are staying and working in so called IT hub of India, god help them, chaos all around. Bangaloreans are the most horrible people I have ever met….. especially the vendors, rickshawallas, workers. Either they are not worried about their living or they pretend to be arrogant. Traffic is worse than Bombay, only good thing I can see is that people have some road sense. Every road is either one way or leads to different location. Even if you loose out on one route, you will be landed in a different place. And frustrating part is for the 4 wheelers. Workers (I mean those who deliver goods to your house) keep pestering you for CHAI PAANI (bribe) and horrible thing is that they demand that instead of requesting. Order placed in a big showroom will reach only after 2 or 3 weeks and that too after 100s of follow up. Catching a rickshaw is one more headache… mostly rickshaw drivers refuse to come and even if they come they charge you more (again they demand). Lastly language problem….. you need to know kannada or to an extent tamil to survive.

Hyderabad LINGO at its best, watch this clip

Funniest video from the film "The Angrez"..... hyderabadi lingo at its best

Mouthshut.com.... Product review site

Have you guys wanted to eagerly know about a product, what are its benefits and how users perceive it after its usage.... yep sometimes you see it in some news channels, but then they show only advertisements. So here is a site wherein you can come to know about USER's review on particular product or service..... yes you can even write your own review, website is http://www.mouthshut.com/

But then why I got involved in mouthshut, it happened when we were to buy a TATA car and were dying to know what people who are actually driving it say about TATA Indigo, so as I spoke to many of my friends to assist me on where to find correct review, then some said mouthshut.com (Indeed teh name suggest that this website works on word of mouth), so went there registered there and read some reviews written by people, some mixed reaction, some praised it, some abused it, but overall I got the sum of review that I wanted to know.

Now comes the critical part, that is disadvantage of reading such reviews, at times many people who are a result of harrasement from service providers or showroom guys tend to put it in the review and many a times even I do so.... so you won't come to know if the product is reliable or not. And if you buy a product and then read abuses written about the product you will feel bad and then you will write a review praising that product, even if it is not worth the praise.

Mouthshut has this review of the day in daily basis wherein they put in reviewer's name and their review in home page. One of such article written by me featured (http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Bajaj_Discover-131788-1.html)
So next time if you are wondering on what to but and is it worth a buy, take a moment to stop by mouthshut.com.

My Mouthshut id is http://www.mouthshut.com/user/gopionline.html

LIC website - simply great - pay premiums through http://www.licindia.com/

This is simply great.... many of you maybe already doing this, I mean paying LIC premiums through INTERNET http://www.licindia.com/. Mark my words its simply great. How to do it is the problem. I mean it depends on branch to branch.... steps

Log on to http://www.licindia.com... and register, key in all your LIC policies here.

Now you need to physically enroll your policies for internet premuim payments. How to do ??? sems simple but sometimes painful because youy need to take a printout of a form from the website then take a signature from branch manager of LIC, then after a week or so you can pay all the premums ONLINE

STEPS for payment are very simple and almost alll the banks are been listed so that you can directly pay it through net banking . Also provision of CREDIT card is given

Good thing is that you can see the history of your premiums paid, who is and was your agent, what benefit you will get.... site is quick and very much user freindly. Not to mention, it dosen't have the usual jing bang.... TRUST me go in for online premium pay through http://www.licindia.com.....

HTML DOCTYPE... whats that ???

Ever wondered what is this doc type doing at the top of every HTML screen when you start building htm's in dreamweaver...... NOPE, frankly speaking I just blindly followed what dream weaver published, but was forced to learn more on the logic behind that because all HARSHLY UI recruiters started asking the defination of DOC type and why is it been used...

Why specify a doctype? Because it defines which version of (X)HTML your document is actually using, and this is a critical piece of information needed by browsers or other tools processing the document.

For example, specifying the doctype of your document allows you to use tools such as the Markup Validator to check the syntax of your (X)HTML (and hence discovers errors that may affect the way your page is rendered by various browsers). Such tools won't be able to work if they do not know what kind of document you are using.

But the most important thing is that with most families of browsers, a doctype declaration will make a lot of guessing unnecessary, and will thus trigger a "standard" parsing mode, where the understanding (and, as a result, the display) of the document is not only faster, it is also consistent and free of any bad surprise that documents without doctype will create.



So start with an basic defination, ul, liThe !DOCTYPE declaration is the very first thing in your HTML document, before the html tag. This tag tells the browser which HTML or XHTML specification the document uses.

According to HTML standards, each HTML document requires a document type declaration. The "DOC TYPE" begins the HTML document and tells a validator which version of HTML to use in checking the document's syntax

HTML 4 Strict

The document type declaration for HTML 4.01 Strict is

"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

HTML 4 Strict is a trimmed down version of HTML 4 that emphasizes structure over presentation. Some elements and attributes (including most presentational attributes), frames, and link targets are not allowed in HTML 4 Strict. By writing to HTML 4 Strict, authors can achieve accessible, structurally rich documents that easily adapt to style sheets and different browsing situations. However, HTML 4 Strict documents may look bland on very old browsers that lack support for style sheets..... so think twice before electing to this

NOT RECOMMENDED.... until client cries a lot demands for the same


HTML 4 Transitional

The document type declaration for HTML 4.01 Transitional is

"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">


HTML 4 Transitional includes all elements and attributes of HTML 4 Strict but adds presentational attributes, elements, and link targets.

RECOMMENDED highly.....


HTML 4 Frameset

"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">

HTML 4 Frameset is a variant of HTML 4 Transitional for documents that use frames. The FRAMESET element replaces the BODY in a Frame set document.

Not sure because people are nowadays going away from FRAMES.... use it when there is a FRAME

Navigation model for Desktop Application

Ever thought just a simple approach without much of jazziness or visual changes can improvise on your traditional desktop application.... even we didn't until we made a research on it while prototyping.

Here is an traditional OLD desktop application MAIN NAVIGATION BAR which we used to see many a times and our PMs would often say, not much can we do to change it sir....


We asked them and even ourselves WHY ???? we will try it... and we came up with this...

Little more interaction we added.... like getting back to MAIN Title Navigation, which is like added additional cheese to the PIZZA at the same rate, howzat....


Now you see these small interaction features can add to hell lotta difference to the screens.... I learned this lesson while designing screens.

My car.... not so great but good one

Some designations on Usability

For some who are unaware or bit confused or for some who term UI guys as web designers (harsh part is even my wife thinks the same), I am forced to do research on this and list it down some designations of members who are into usability…. And what they do, Here we go….

1. Interaction Designer

Interaction designer is often associated with the design of system interfaces but also concentrates on the aspects of the interface that define and present its behavior over time, with a focus on developing the system to respond to the user's experience and not the other way around.

2. User Interface Designer

UI Designer is someone who is involved in designing of computers, appliances, machines, mobile communication devices, software applications, and websites with the focus on the user's experience and interaction.

Now role of a Graphic designer or web designer is to apply a theme or style to the interface without looking into END user’s look or in other terms its called user centered design…. This is where a user interface designer comes into picture wherein he not only designs it but also sees to this that it’s easily accessible or user friendlier to the END USER, who will be actually using the thing. So in other words people who used to work as web or graphic visualizer are automatically converting to UI designer, only exceptions like AD AGENCY people who debate on this term and say that it kills creativity, maybe to an extent yes but in a long term view, even visual ads are been made fro whom…. For whom…. For common man right ????? so why make absurd ads in the name of creativity to make people think what it is…..

3. GUI Designer
A graphical user interface (GUI) is a type of user interface which employ graphical icons, visual indicators or special graphical elements, along with text, labels or text navigation to represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements….. it’s almost same in lines with UI designer but some people term it as GUI designer to make it technically sound.

4. User Experience Designer

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….

MORE polished version of UI designer

5. Visual Designer

It’s almost the same as UI designer but this person gives more emphasis to visual components. Generally in most design firms Visual Designers are hired to create or visualize the design (mostly adding 3D elements…. Sort of ), but to me he should be someone who can effectively use graphical elements to meet the user centered principle.

Other designation like

User researcher

Usability Analyst

Usability Architects

Managerial level.... ya some firms do have

Business Analyst - Usability

Principal Usability head or lead

Are more inclined towards research and focus completely on adapting usability principles and user centric approach towards organization and projects, they rely on user experience and do full study on human behaviour, so they take help of designers to make their research into practice and to make it presentable.

In reality we all, I mean UI, interaction, etc, etc…… designers all do the same thing but many are not aware about what we do.

I realized that while on working for a long time in design field, slowly inclined to that not purposefully or forcefully but through nature of work or projects, at some period you will realize this that for whom are you designing for yourself or for users ???

Why I like Gangster movies....

Not all but almost all bhaigiri films (gangster movies) in hindi, I always had this liking for such movies, not because its full of violence, but I felt that gangster movies has the intensity and the attitude, maybe acting skills for some come out in such films.

Though not all, there are BAD to WORST films made in the name of gansters in hindi but films like Ankush, Company, Black Friday (this maybe dosen't fall under ganster film....), Sarkar (something was still missing in SARKAR, still I liked it because of both the ABs), Sanju baba's bhai wala films (though they are loud but SANJU fits in better than any other actors) VAASTAV in particular, though VAASTAV was not a great film but looked awsome only because of sanjay dutt, maybe the way he carried himself in film, The film would have been bombed if he weren't there in VAASTAV. But this all started with Biku Mhatre in Satya, this is were our directors uplifted themselfes in making gangster movies. But even before satyam there was an eye opener film called Shiva, simply great direction and storyline.

Another great movie was Ab ak Chappan, great performance by NANA (not his usual GAGS), good because of great direction and crispy storyline, climax was awsome in this. There are certain disaster movies made in the name of gangster (particularly hathyar, so called vaastav sequeal)

And the one which comes at the top is SHIVA(1st) and SATYA(2nd).....

60 years of INDIAN Independence and we still cry ???

• Rupee value goes up….. but many think dollar value is gone down, funny can’t believe even we can grow
  
  
• Domino’s, McDonald’s…. etc. have come – with price tag four times more than our very own desi UDIPI restaurant but we still go there to loose money and gain FAT, that’s URBAN India
  
  
• We criticize and crib badly about our NETAS…. But are our youth doing something to join politics or just dream to join INFOSYS or WIPRO…. Paisa - paisa power !!!!
  
  
• Half of urban Andhra population is in US of A and other half think US as their ambition, NOT strange, money can make us a slave
  
  
• Bangloreans….. or Bangaloorians are going a USA way of living. Funny in some article I read Bangalore IT programmers are just a literate labour, they will do exactly what is told to them, even if they know they are making a blunder..... parrot kinda (POPAT bole tho apunka IT banglorians)
  
  
• Do how much cleaning of Mumbai, but Kurla and Dadar area will be as dirty and clumsy as ever.
  
  
• Amir khan thinks that OSCAR is the only award which is superior, other desi awards are all showbiz…. I hope he realizes where he is ???
  
  
• Indian cricket team looses to Bangladesh, forget world cup…. And the charm of world cup goes down no ADVERTISING no REVENUE in Carabian island, you see how much has India grown, Loss of Indian cricket is loss for everyone, something to cheer.
  
  
• Indian Hockey is rusting, Shahrukh is out to bring back the old glory… I hope sometimes our schools and colleges think on the same lines...
  
  
• Laloo Prasad may be a hatred man but he has brought Indian Railways grow in such a peak that no others in past have done anything like this… HATS off to you sir
  
  
• Cars and cars more brands more competition, we see many carolas and Toyotas and Honda city in urban India,, but are we not worried about the GLOBAL WARMING… what’s that ?????
  
  
• Cinema hall is been replaced by MULTIPLEXES, good for cinema makers but bad for 20-30 rupees wala film watchers and bye bye to black marketers
  
  
• Private banks making nationalized bank sweat harder…. Long way to go SBI, UNION Bank, etc… need to speed up on service or else will face the consequences

All in ALL….. PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN….. only place where we live with full freedom in a complete democratic land…..

Some inspiration for few, watch this new video of A R Rahman.

Are we serious about UI ???

NO is the answer ??? we become serious only if the client demands. Why is it so? why can't we build a UI team that is taken more seriously and sales people do market the team's capabilities. Is it unsaleable or we Indians don't have much usability gyan, or is it because our people themselves don't know what usability is all about.

I met a guy who is in top position in cognizant technology pune, he asked me what do I do. I said I am into Usability..... he gave me a strange look, then I said UI team, he gain was a bit confused. I wasn't shocked by his behavior. This is the scenario of whole IT industry in India. more than half of the working staff are unaware of what is usability and what is UI ???? strange ! but thats bitter truth, other half who know or pretend to know claim that Usability is to do with look and graphics, animation, mind blowing 3D look. Yes this the view of some great managers of Indian IT industry.

But the emphasis goes higher when client wants his product or service to be user centric and he goes in and hires and design firm on his own, why because our business analyst or PMs are unaware of user centered principles. Now not everytime the client gives it to design firm, due to cost and cross functioning. Imagine if have a strong usability team and supported by the managers, how effective would the project result be ? Imaging how much time would be saved and understanding of the project will be more clearer. Profit for all no losses.... think fast before we miss the bus.

I like IRCTC...

URL-http://www.irctc.co.in
Long ago in India we used to hate to book train ticket... why because of never ending lines and lazy officials in ticketing counter who used to take unnecessary tea breaks, lunch breaks, system shut down... horrifying. It used to be a nightmare for me when I was asked to book tickets for holidays… stand in that long long queue and still cannot figure out if tickets are available or in waiting list and then after standing in the line for hours we come to know that the waiting list if 150 or so…. Daam you are lost and have no option but to curse the Indian Railways….

Gone are the days. Today if you see IRCTC which brings in eTicket has become so very convienient and easy to use. Also if not eTickect we can atleast see if the tickets are available which all trains go from where and to where… Hats off to Indian Railways Network.

Now lets me analyze on 3 points on IRCTC

1. Is it usable.... or easy to use ?

2. How is the steps of online transaction ?

3. Is it safe enough to book or can we rely on it ?

Lets go point by point….

Point 1. Is it usable.... or easy to use ?

Now those of you who are regularly using IRCTC.co.in for railway booking might wonder what’s big deal... we have to deal with it, taxing maybe at times but not that bad after you get the end result. Hmm so why am I asking to myself is it usable enough.

Let me now go round and round.... first of all the whole booking area is fantastic, but the home page is like an Kumbh MELA... don't know why are some weird ads kept in chaotic manner. These ads can be grouped at one area. You will feel relived once you enter the your user name and password. Aah at least you get the screen wherein you get to see the actual screen. SO now you are logged in. The page looks good at the start wherein you see all the possible links like your booked tickets, cancel tickets, special trains and all others… maybe too long list in left links but if you come to see all are important links. You may feel that it’s of no use to you but in future you will use it mark my words. But But hey this can be improved more by grouping items and placing it in proper place. Like for example some elements are in one group and the same interlinked element of that is in some other group. SO you need to really search for that…. Naah that’s OK we are Indians we are used to these.. that’s our mentality NO PROBS, chaltha hai….
OK lets look at the actual one to book trains…. Now if you look at this there are 2 simple columns like From and TO destinations where you enter some text and it opens in popup (for e.g. I type in Mumbai and press the icon it opens up the popup stating some station code like ddr (dadar), CST and so on….) that’s perfect because they have made it work according to station names, but many a times as the bandwidth is slow, the pop up doesn’t display at times due to overload of traffic. Now how to tackle it ???

There comes AJAX technology, if you type in DADAR and click on the icon, they can display the list of stations at the same page with tree structure and the even the page doesn’t refresh, that’s the beauty of ajax…. OK ppl you would say AJAX cannot be used in this technology… then some other alternative like usage of javascript to display on the same page without refreshing. Now if nothing is possible then display a link which will have all the station names with their station code names… this will be either downloadable one or a simple HTML.

Another useful thing which they missed is to explain what is eTicket and what is iTicket… even till now I get confused, as iTicket is for printing and eTicket is for paper ticker. SO that can be shown as Paper Ticket and Print Ticket or some other words so that the confusion can be avoided

Now lets get to point 2

2. How is the steps of online transaction ?

This is the most important and very much what we are looking and have come to do… booking a ticket. Now the steps of transaction is shown excellently and there is no need for a change as its already user friendly. We can’t get friendlier than this…. Now this is Ok if we are going in for iTicket, but some improvisation can be done in eTicket address saver….

How, though they have the provision to save but many a times it dosen’t work, don’t know why??? Now here user should have provision to save some 5 to 6 different addresses so that every time he doesn’t need to type in address and there will be a time out.

Till now working fine….

3. Is it safe enough to book or can we rely on it ?

Now comes the important point where all of us in India face… faith on electronic media ??? do you trust these online…. Like my father says…. These are all useless things, I never rely on online stuff, why make a mess of ourselves when Govt. is providing Ticket window??? Some might say point is valid but is outdated.

But I will give you an example why this is most secured and reliable. I had faced this problem… I booked this ticket and while ending the transaction there was an error and page was not getting displayed, this is after I paid through my bank online and amount was also debited, but no ticket was booked. I was worried… but I received an eMail from IRCTC that the amount will be credited to my account. Though it takes time for these processing of refund but it happens… we can rely on them. This is good thing about IRCTC we don’t have to be behind them like it happens with some private travel agents like YATRA and CLEAR TRIP, wherein we need to really push them and keep on following up for the refund. Even many of my friends said the same thing… it takes time but you will get your money refunded within a week…

So that’s my view on IRCTC…. So next time if you are against online train booking at-least in India…. Think again… This is one of the best online ticketing and that too which has world’s largest railway network….

URL : http://www.irctc.co.in

Table or Table-less design ???

Hmmm… that’s a new or some might say stylish and appropriate way of designing, is it ? Some still debate on this. This made me think about the same that why use table less DIV based layout and make a mess of UI designer’s life when editors like dream-weaver give you spoon feeding on table design.

Now when I started or realized that I should give an hand to DIV, I started gaining an hatred on why should we make it in DIV when we can achieve so much beautiful things using table. Also for DIVS we need to write HTML and very few help we get from the editors… might be my designing ego hurt me from switching to DIV based layout, see its simple a person or a designer to be specific who has been designing applications and websites blindly using dream-weaver and photoshop, why in the hell he will want to switch ?

This is the question I wanted desperately as my hatred was increasing day by day not because I didn’t explored on this but because many interviewers questioned me about my knowledge of DIVs. I was blank and angered by their way of interviewing.

Day finally arrived when I was forced to work on an existing portal which was already converted from table to DIV and was on development cycle. Many Ui bugs were reported and I was deported there with my colleague. It was MS share-point portal and I began to explore more and make changes, it was like doing R&D on development server. With some Online help and push from client we finally made it a complete MS Share-point intranet portal using table less design. Though some parts were hybrid (I mean outer container was in divs and inside TR TDs), but my interest gained and I started realizing the importance of table less design.

See it gives you a delight to make the css based layout and on learning more about positioning with CSS and DIVs we can control lot of things and that too the things that were looking tougher in table design or when we use n number of TR TD and nested tables to achieve the desire output is very simple in DIV. Classic example was tab based overlapping image menu (for transaction steps). Problem here was we needed to make tabs (5 different images), thing was each image was overlapping with each other, I mean some portion were behind one image and so on. I started making design first in table and then realized how will the coding happen onMouse hover event color change. The simple way to tackle was to create 5 different DIVs with playing around in positioning and FLOAT we achieved it in 10 minutes. See the example below



But debate continues that not all of them can be used or should I say complications will arise when we start making some 10 rows and 10 column data grid displaying data. To control each in DIV is like putting each row Div and that much style, which is painful and also the visual which you get is not that accurate and intuitive as in table design.

So what I conclude to myself is that make DIVs, it’s very good way of representing your HTML but limit yourself from making complete structure to it. I mean in some areas where traditional TR TDs might require, don’t force yourself from makinf it only in DIV. The outer container might be in DIVs but if there are complications making n Number of styles to display just small information, go for table inside a DIV.

So happy designing in a Exciting world of table-less design….

Mansarovar Heights 2 - secunderabad

What if someone has to write about their place of living... no no not your about your lavish bunglow or VILLA, am talking about an RARE High Rise apartments in Hyderabad.... What High rise in hyderabad and that too 300 plus flats... this is amazing.

But thats true.... concept of 300+ people staying in one place is quite familiar in Mumbai or now in Bangalore, but in hyderabad its rare. And MH2 is one of those.

When I came here first to see the flat I was not that amused and astonished because the surrounding area was not that attractive and GOODY feeling. But when Ramu took me to the flat I liked it in one go... why because of its size and the way it was laid the flat I am saying. Very few places you see flats are as independent as in MH2. Can't beleive it just went as casual approach to see and withing one week I purchased the flast from the owner.


Unfortunately I left Manasarovar heights Mid of 2007, and was hoping to be back on April or May 2008... Well that didi'nt happen and I am slogging in Bangalore right now

Ramgopal Varma - loosing his grip on movies

I was in 11th Standard when I went to see this movie SHIVA, and was completely blown out seeing the movie.... what a sleek direction and what excellent screenplay. This was because in the 90s the Hindi Film was on dying stage and no films had a class… That was the first time I was really appreciated Ramu (Ram Gopal Varma)’s works and had become a fan of his movie… then came Rangeela which OK can give full credit to Aamir’s Mumbai accent… but was not that Ramu kinda film.

Satya was one film which everybody knows was of one man show of RAMU to bring Manoj’s character a greatness. COMPANY was yet another class film which nobody can make it better than RAMU. Then second film which I liked was SHOOL and then even MAST was really MAST. For some reason I didin’t like some stories of Darna Manna Hai… some were really good like the one of Nana Patekar and Saif ali’s story. Lastly Sarkar was no doubt good if you see character wise but did not have the punch in story and moment you feel that story is becoming gripping it ends abruptly…. This is where I felt RAMU has lost his touch a bit.

One reason maybe that the class of HINDI film is raised and there are many RAMU like people who are giving some good movies. But the main problem with Ramu is that he keeps on takingthe same topic and ends up the film in a mess. Maybe he uses more directors and moves more on research. But you might have noticed that Film climax is pathetic in Ramu’s latest movies not all but mostly… like if you see ROAD. It was an excellent movie to start off with but as you went ahead the movie was going no where. So I feel while doing something different Ramu has lost his touch…. Though I haven’t seen Amitabh’s Nishabdh as yet…

I have this feeling that he is capable of doing some excellent movies but he tends to overdo at times. Solution to this might be that he should now concentrate on being the director himself and not rely upon others like his assistant to direct. Take a new subject (Not LOVE or SHAADI or GANGSTER) add in your flavour and then people will enjoy it…

But he is one of the best directors among HINDI film makers and I always like to see his movies.

GADWAL - Real Adventure cum Fascinating experience....

It was exactly some 8 years down the lane year 1998 when I was going to Badrinath. They call it Gadwal area. I was with my parents and some of my dad’s wierd friends who were not very interesting people… infact very boring people.

So lets get to the subject, I was a bit down when I agreed to accompany them… because what I heard of these Pilgrimage centers was not that encouraging for a young person (OK I was young 8 years back )… but as I traveled, though being alone that experience was absolutely amazing. Let me tell you why ???

First we went in the scorching MAY month and landed at Delhi…. Ooooh Delhi and May month horrible. But then I didin’t feel happy about the tour until as we progressed ahead from Rishikesh. Firstly it was very steep hilly area and we were told that it was an JUNGLE. And the drivers went on to say some stories about how Wild Animals would obstruct their ways during driving and how they could move ahead… When we moved ahead I could see one thing that was FOLLOWING us…. it was the River Ganges… gosh the sound was so powerful that you could feel that some waters were sprinkled to you. Great simply great and the fact that the water was very close to road that you could feel that it is following you or you are chasing it…

Then those small towns which used to come in between. Suddenly you would feel that you have come to city. Then those SADHUS walking on the streets… I was told that these Sadhus walk for months to reach Badrinath..

We had to stop for the night as that area was restricted to night driving because of attack of TIGERS and that happened to one of our drivers. We hired 4 cars and one got repaired and he had to go some 50 kms down to repair it. So we were sleeping in a open terrace this man came at around 11 pm and told an adventures story…. While driving he met an TIGER in between the road and he had to wait until it went. And it came closer to his car. He was so frightened…

So back to badrinath after 16 hours of traveling…. Was CHILLY absolutely CHILLY and We could see ICE mountains and then there was a HOT spring near the temple which was amazing and we felt so relaxed after having bath.

The thing was reaching there you will feel that you are not in earth maybe another planet… such is the beauty of Badrinath… Guys don’t miss it. Need to visit. A must to see for people who like Adventure a bit and Fun while traveling and Enjoy traveling

Graphic/web Designer or User Experience Designer

Sounds a bit confusing for all Non IT people or also some IT managers who fail to understand the difference between these 2... Well to an extent even I get amused or confused sometimes when people ask me what do I actually do in IT.

I used to say them that I am a User Interface Designer then after some time name became sophisticated... became Interaction Designer. Finally people would sum up and say ooohhh... so you are an web designer. It becomes very difficult for me to explain them and finally I surrender.... YEAH I say I am a sort of Web Designer with a disgusting face.

But to be precise what I do is design websites or applications or portals or whatever relating to interactive medium... keeping USERS who will be seeing or using it... but does it really happen... you create some designs as per Usability guidelines and many a times its controlled by the customer. But doesn’t matter I make sure that at least 70% of what I do is been implemented if not 100%.

But I enjoy doing that no cribbing I am daam serious…

To be very frank Designing was not my cup of tea 10 years back….. I was very bad in drawings and in my schooling days my drawing teacher used to hate me. So again the point arises…. So what do I do then in JOB…. MAN MAN this is getting a bit weird. Things changed when I luckily got into an Advertising company, don’t ask me as what? Yeah as Data Entry Operator. After slogging for a year in there as FOX PRO data entry operator…. Got into designing BILLBOARDS (In India we call them Hoardings) and then DOT COM happened and then I was pushed to IT.

So name it User Interface or Interaction Designer or Analyst ….. finally (Zensar’s so called Usability LAB) got designated as Usability Consultant… sounds COOL right

Gopi