Food For Thought : Ok/Cancel on left/right ?

Seems that order of Ok and Cancel on forms is chicken and egg issue… Few sites recommend Ok on left n few suggest Ok on right …

Putting some excerpt together. 

1. Listing OK first supports the natural reading order in English and other languages that read left-to-right. Many other button sets have a natural progression (say, Yes/No or Previous/Next).

2. Listing OK last improves the flow, because the dialog box "ends" with its conclusion. 

- Norman ( http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ok-cancel.html )

3. Sadly, the Windows User Experience Guidelines differ from the Apple Human Interface Guidelines when it comes to the sequence of OK/Cancel buttons:

• Windows puts OK first

• Apple puts OK last 

    

4.  Less visual fixations

   

                     

 With the ‘Ok’ button on the left, the visual fixations are more and flow in multiple directions.

 With the ‘Ok’ button on the right, the visual fixations are less and flow in one direction.

- http://uxmovement.com/buttons/why-ok-buttons-in-dialog-boxes-work-best-on-the-right/

5.  Gives users a more efficient task flow

A button placed in the bottom right corner of a dialog box is easier for users to click because it follows the Gutenberg diagram. In the Gutenberg diagram, the bottom right area is the terminal area. This is the area where the user’s eyes end up when they finish scanning. Placing your button in this area allows users to see the primary action they need to take last. This not only improves the visual flow, but the task flow as well. Users won’t skip past the primary action button as they’re scanning. Their eyes will land right on it when they’re through, so they can click it right away.

                      

Scanning the dialog box and taking action is fast and easy because the users eyes end on the primary action button.

- http://uxmovement.com/buttons/why-ok-buttons-in-dialog-boxes-work-best-on-the-right/

Personally, I am tending towards action button on right. 

-Girish

RETROSPECTIVE.... My internship at Microsoft

Diploma project was great experience in terms of place, people and nature of work.

Seemingly uncomplicated project was mind boggling once I was exposed to the number of variables and complexity involved in decision making of product planning. While working on brief I ended up arriving at an unanticipated but effective design process which was appropriate within those circumstances in which the project has been accomplished. The Agile software development model has significant impact on design process also.

Although, by end of project I understood the importance of problem setting verses problem solving. Crafting correct brief is most crucial part of design process. I could identify the constraints and custom define my own brief in the project.

Design brief being exploratory in nature, I cannot say the project is complete. But industry experience made me ask and introspect the role of user experience designer.

Here is my work in short summary at Microsoft.: http://bit.ly/1cVno4A

interactive 3D ( informarmation design )

I am helping my friend at NID with the data visualization exercise. We are trying to use 3d.dll built-in library in .Net to define all three interactions (Pan, Zoom and Rotate) at same time. Its been technically most challenging thing we ever had to achieve!

General Motors

'General Motors' the prestigious project to NID , was our part time project of 2nd semester.( Design for Digital Experience)
We were supposed to design dashboard of 'Cadillac' , future car for in India(2013).
Very well scheduled 6 months long project.
The brief give was And most importantly the guideline for 'design process' given to follow.

Roughly process followed was this

1. Brand research

2. Contextual inquiry

3. Persona building

4. Affinity and Wire frames

5. final concept.

The qualitative analysis of the brief was followed very well.We decided not to give any document directly in interviewer’s hand. To know true insights we were asking questions verbally and taking notes n to keep ingenuity of the conversation. We were able to bond and get some totally different perspective about meaning of 'Luxury' in Indian context.

Preparing questionnaire was tough task, because it should not bias the opinion of user in Yes or No , to justify their intelligence  And also aesthetics is totally different area as where text is useless. So we added pictures which very subtly tells about nature, speed , technology and music. Which I guess best thing we could do to get qualitative information.

Fortunately we could really great people for interview including MS Rammaya's grandson to upcoming IT youngsters. We finalized four personas after taking 13 personal interviews.

Next design challenge was pretty much decision maker in process. We had to deduct 4 persona's from 13 interviews , finalize 2 personas among 4 for business goal and from 2 personas to a design for Cadillac.

Information Design - Bangalore public transit

eye tracking test for Map designed for Volvo routs of Bangalore.

very few people actually understood the design of map as journey planner.
We actually tested the map at bus stop.
the sophisticated schematic maps do not work out in Indian context.


we conducted eye tracking test on the map we made for BMTC, Bangalore.
The test gave us few important insights about how we were wrong at pursuing users sequence about understanding information.
which made us to change the our design in significant way.


This how we see the Bus stops , where it displays when bus is gonna arrive , Based on GPS installed in volvos. ( currently 150+ vajra Volvos are equipped with GPS )


During design process we discovered that 'information on the move' is significant for public transit and we zeroed down to design application -1. SMS Service for low end mobile phones
2.Mobile app for high end mobile




n classic example of how media misinterpreted our project...
Project was about ' Information mobility of Bangalore Public transit' which deals with how people get the information about public transport.
Reporter conveniently titled ' Making Public Transport Popular'
nways ,,, whichever way its promoting ,,,
;-)

n few of the ideas we call 'miss world' ideas... Just to show case :-)

usability methods

I never thought usability methods would be so interesting and would raise our confidence. Unless a NID alumni Ripul , founder of kern communication which deals majorly with clients abroad, was in campus to teach us usability methods.

Our day started with understanding affordances of shapes. Affordance is property of object which tells us how to behave i.e. starting from very basic shapes like circle which gives us feel of rotation. One need not explain how to open cap of bottle. So rotation is visual affordance of circle.

The same subject led us to learn 'Gestalt laws' of visual perception. Ripul made us think really hard and to go away from lazy way of exploration 'google search'. He made us give real life examples making as well as breaking the law.

Day 3 started with widgets. Ripul calls any software interface element widget. Apart from basic affordances, we discussed logic and scenario of functionality of all possible widgets. We reached to the basics of UI design. Meanwhile was wondering what the hell I did for 2 years. We got very rich insights of how things work e.g. why we need left justification, why right justification is not good. When to use combo-box n when a drop down.

The same day, Ripul gave us interesting exercise of designing interactions for given scenario. Brief for my group was: 'Mr sharma works in small town in UP for Hindalco factory. Mr Sharma wants to go home in Indore to see his ill dad. He uses SBI ATM card to withdraw money.He uses mobile phone but he is not tech savey. Mr sharma wants to book a railway ticket as early as possible. Design interface for SBI ATM , Where Mr Sharma can book ticket train ticket.'

Interaction modelity we could use was only simple ATM interace with 4-4 buttons on side and numeric keypad. We were not given liberty use touch screen though it currently exist.

We had to present it in form of skit. So we tried to make it humorous.

Presentation1

While going through process we encountered with number of problems and found solution keeping priority of 'feasibility' in mind. But I found answer to many of questions i was trying to figuring out from last one year. May be it is output of collective consiousness.

We as people from software background people give equal importance to exception, but forget the regular user in process e.g. the system above could be designed for cases like : handicapped , senior citizens or illiterates. But we would have lost the regular ATM literate user in process. It was interesting insight as designer.

Process of building persona was introduced using same scenario. Goals and tasks played interestingly exchangeable roles in persona making.

We had been introduced to 11 different ways of navigation, which are used in highly efficient manner in day to day’s life. I was given task to discuss about linear workflow.We also were introduced to very time taking but important process of Card sorting. We had to redesign the navigational structure of BBMP web portal.

Card sorting

Day 4 started with most difficult and equally interesting part 'System Design'. Taking brief of our semisters project of Microsoft, we were divided in 4 groups and n given task to design system in e-Governance, Rural economy, Education, Solutions for small businesses.

All of our long brain-storming session started happening within few hours. The process took us to think about usage patterns, build scenario, design solutions, talk numbers and come up with profitable solution in few hours.Words like VC's, initial investments , running cost profit margin were floating around.

system design

Day 5 was very important, understanding 'usability testing' which I feel is little overrated in industry - The two open source software’s used were : Tincam and VNC to carry usability testing, where we can watch desktop and expression of user remotely. We conducted small usability test with junior for doing few simple tasks in photoshop. It showed us different ways that user uses product.

But at end of the day, it’s not usability lab or methods, Its designer and his perspective of looking at things gives you good usability.

Being in design institute, one learns things in different patches. I found this course bringing most of our learning’s together. All the credit goes to Ripul !

user experience design - Tiffinwala.com

It took us long process to actually build user experience around "food". But i am glad that we could able to reach towards feasible solution.

you can see prototype of same here ...