MSEB Bill Payment site.... Simple and Precise, in short too good

I was just booking my travel form in my company and good daam it, it took almost 2-3 hours to figure out what mistake I did as everytime I try to submit some or the other error pops up and it was frustrating..... same with many Bill payment sites, vodafone site for example, either their site is always down or their payment gateway is down, sometimes odd error pops up. Surprisingly, I just heard of MSEB Bill payment from some of my friends, and man isin't it cool. It was so simple and it made me so happy as I had to just follow 3 steps and I was done, time : 5 minutes, thats what good user experience is all about. Any corporates listening Airtel, Vodafone, guys you need to follow MSEB..... learn learn learn.

But all said there are some internal issues that popup, like even after you pay next bill shows double amount, but gets rectified when you complaint, but do keep your eyes open after you pay and also store the transaction ID always.

Given below screenshot is after you login to Online Bill Payment

I wish somebody designs easy to use pram

I was taking a stroll with my kid and was just wondering why nobody cared about designing a easy use pram or child stroller, or maybe someone would have done that in US but in India it continues to be chaltha hai kind of prams.... I had 2 prams and both seems to have some or the other problem, not in terms of comfort for child, thats perfect, but usage of the same like folding, unfolding, adjusting the seat... these all things are really annoying and very frustrating when it cannot be done quickly. Most often when we keep the pram in car we need to fold the same and then put it in the car, but due to difficulty in doing the same we have to keep it in open condition, thus taking almost half the car space.

Manufacturers should really think of hiring some UX people or some researcher to understand what we as parent need....

Gopi

It's been a year : remembering my farther

Same day last year, I lost my father.... we are all gathered here in Bangalore to complete "Shradh" which is done in elloborative way in Tam Brahmins.

Modal Window

Modal window is something which was created just to avoid disturbing popups, as many thought as popups are becoming annoying to users and also many browsers have this popup blocker. According to Wiki, Modal Window is child window that requires to interact with users before they can return to operating the parent application. (Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_window)

But we had this debate in one of our projects wherein some business people who were making this user flow made all the data entry second level information in modal window, which is quite understandable to maintain the consistency, but then while user testing people realized that it was even more annoying as why would I fill up something in small screen? Why are you guys forcing me to work in prescribed window? Then we googled on the same to know that as per the research Modal window is meant only to display messages or any alert or vital confirmation messages. Why because as action is just to get confirmation from user, why would he want a popup or new window, he would rather want to see the backend screen while performing the action.

Very good research I learnt about Modal Window

Somehow I like this pic...

Laxman does it again to Aussie

What do we do with this guy, completely unpredictable guy, match winner only in test matches? This is amazing. After a long time we are witnessing some stunning test match. Anyways India Aus matched are always interesting.

Cheers...

Block some channels.... please

How I wish Star plus, Zee TV and Colors be blocked for a month. It is a real torturous channel, full of emotions and over the top drama....

Linked in is amazing

I was searching for one of my old college buddy, Vinod Nair. Had search a lot in many social networking sites, but went in vain.... finally got him in Linked In. He was shocked and happy to have spoken to me after a gap of 20 odd years.

This is truly amazing

Thrilling yet Adventures long weekend trip

We just had a great time last weekend (Ganpati time). It was meant for single day trip, which eventually turned out to be 3 day fun. Though we did not trek or did some adventures thing, but it was more of surprises and thrilling moments which will be remembered for rest of our lives.

The place was Titli/Tapola/Panchgani

Some of PICS which are very refreshing and very well taken by Sachin

1. River in morning


2. Terrific View

Importance of Internet

Roti, Kapda, Makaan aur Internet..... last one is as much needed as the other 3, with little bit of trouble I finally got internet connection at home....

Moving to new city is not easy

I have experienced this 3 times in 6 years…. This is one the painful activity especially dealing with totally un-organized packers and movers company in India. They give lots of promises and then finally on the D day they simply fail to deliver. Same happened with me.

So it was a hectic month for me moving from Bangalore to Pune.

Serial Killer !!!

I sincerely hope for one week they stop showing serials or soap operas. It is really killing me…. Almost all the serials are too over melodramatic and full of crying and crying. At the top of it, my family tortures me by switching from one channel to other from morning to the night. I accidently happen to see a serial in ZEE, called pavitra rishtha, my my whole of the serial everyone was crying and all the scenes were over the top melodramatic. My head started to swing and I could have fainted if I watch the same everyday…..

More worse people also watch the repeat telecast also which comes in morning. I mean there are some 5 to 6 entertainment channels and at times ladies at my home miss the emotional overburst in one of the channel because of clash of timings, no probs they see the highlights – repeat show next day.

Real serial killers…… IB please save me from this torture, strike out for a week, please….

IPL: its chennai all the way

Hooray, simply amazing the way Raina and Dhoni played. Best team won on the day. People say pollard would have sent earlier, but result would have been the same, maybe margin of loss would have been less.

IPL desperately needs to be outsourced

One thing is clear we cannot handle the fame and money. Both gets abouve our head and then some people tend to dictate in their own terms. High time IPL needs a clean core team, and to get one it needs to be outsourced. YES Outsourcing is the only way to tackle this.

Back to finals yeah its IPL 2010 finals – Mumbai vs Chennai real fun

Who is going to win ? Based on form Mumbai has the edge, but Chennai are real fighters and can upset any team.

Why are we so obsessed with whites ?

I was very eager to write this many a times before but was unable to mark my words to it. There is this white colour or fairer colour that we are so obsessed and we become so low in our morale that we shamelessly beg in front of them and obey their rules right or wrong like a bonded labour.

One example when we went to Malya Mall near MG Road in Bangalore and there was this fountain, where if you lay your leg in one of the pores from the fountain water just peeps out of it. Kids just love those…. Now that there were 3/4 white kids playing and also my daughter for some 10-15 minutes, there was no objection from anyone. Moment everybody left and only my daughter was left playing in the water, guard shamelessly came to us and said “Sir children are not suppose to play here”, why didin’t he realize the same when others where playing.

Forget the foreigners or white men/women, when it comes to white color especially in South India, people can do anything to attain color. I had one of my relative who was a bit dark in colour and their parents were looking for a suitable bride. Main criteria was girl should be white, what the hell man ? look into yourself why do you need to keep such a criteria.

There are few girls/boys who (I won’t term them black but sort of dark brownish complexion) have some darkish complexion and they think that bathing for hours and applying loads and loads of soap will make white, so you will find them glued to bathrooms for hours and hours, hoping their complexion changes

Very funny, we talk about racism and all and media blew a big whistle on Shilpa Shetty row in UK, but what about us. At least they are doing it to outsiders; we are doing to our own country men.

Testing in differnt IE Browsers.... try IE tester

This is too good and quite a helpful tool. I was in a project in London and was desperately dependent on our offshore team for HTML delivery. After receiving the same, had to review the same on IE6,7 and 8. This is where I got IE tester installed in my machine. It has simple to the point interface where you can check all your UI stuff instantly in one go. Good thing is that this even does not take much of your memory space. in my office where there is just 512 mb ram I run this.

URL is http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

Go ahead download the zip file if exe is blocked in your office. They have the Zip file also in their website.

Usability by HFI (good one)

Find more videos like this on HFI Connect

Postcard from London - My Visit (Feb-March 2010)

Check Google Phone Interface

Just have a look at the interactivity in this..... truly amazing. Only google can do this. This is what user experience is all about.
http://www.google.com/phone

3 idiots or 5 point someone- both are in win win situation

Well I haven't seen the movie but have read the book 5 point something. Quite refreshing novel which all agree. Now movie based on the same and that too aamir acting in the same is like cherry in top of the cake.

Now back to controversy, chetan accusing filmakers for his name to be displayed in the story credits (agreed) and film makers blasting chetan saying he has signed contract and taken 11 lakhs for the same. Now who is right or who is ethically correct...... pretty tough, logically film makers are the winner here but personally writer needs to be given some credit, he is asking only for a name in story writing, so what's the fuss all about ?

You know what whaterver we have seen in past 3 or 4 days both are in win win movie as well as the novel. People who have not yet read the novel, will surely go and buy and offcourse people like me who have read the book and are keen to know on the differences will go and watch the movie. This is called a perfect marketing strategy for Movie as well as a Novel (re-run), producer, publisher and the writer pray that this continues and get more publicity....