Making Winning Online Portfolios..my talk at "Freelance Fair Conference" 2011

I was a speaker at "Freelance Fair Conference 2011". My topic of my talk was on "Building Winning Online Portfolios" for designers, writers, bloggers and other freelance professionals. This was held on 7th august 2011 @ Hyderabad.

Freelance fair Conference - 2011

There were many serious freelance professionals attended this event which was organized by "Lectures for Good" organization. My goal for this talk is to showcase the importance of portfolios and make sure every freelancer should have a striking online portfolios. Overall, it was good and happy to see people noting down the notes.

Many people requested my presentation deck and hence i am uploading here so that any one can see it.

Making Winning Online Portfolios

View more presentations from Ranjeet Kumar Tayi

The Future of User Interface & Design Technologies

The future if user interfaces - The way we interact with technologies have evolved a lot over the years. Right from the punch cards, typewriters, prints, to monitors, mouses, keyboard, buttons to all the way to the new track pads, voice recognition, multi touch, hand held, gestures and interfaces designed to make it more easier.

Lot of interaction patterns has been changed from "Smaller Vs Bigger"; "Cursor Vs Non Cursor" ; "Less Text Vs More Images"; "More Design Vs Less Design"; "Single Cursor Vs Multi Cursors"; "Vertical Scroll Vs Horizontal Scroll"; "Fixed Layout Vs Scalable Layout"; "Audio Vs Video"; "Remote Vs Gesture" & so on...

Future of user interface design

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THE FUTURE OF INTERFACES still evolving & this gives more opportunity for us (UX'ers) to create great experiences.... I have created a presentation which has various types of user interfaces which gives you a flavor of future current / future trends of user interfaces.

I have uploaded this presentation in SlideShare and immediately got a email from SlideShare that this presentation "The future of Interface & Design Technologies" has showcased in SlideShare main Design section as a awesome master piece by SlideShare editorial team. Again after couple of hours got a email from Slide share that this presentation is hot in facebook and they have moved it to Slide Share Home page. This made me more happier, so called customer experience & satisfaction :)

Storytelling for User Experience...Crafting stories for better design

We all tell stories. It's one of the most natural ways to share information, as old as the human race. Stories help us gather and communicate user research, put a human face on analytic data, communicate design ideas, encourage collaboration and innovation, and create a sense of shared history and purpose. 

Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks have written a book on “Storytelling for User Experience … Crafting stories for better design” This book looks across the full spectrum of user experience design to discover when and how to use stories to improve our products. Whether you are a researcher, designer, analyst or manager, you will find ideas and techniques you can put to use in your practice. 

I had personally met Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks at Germany and had a good discussion on this. They have give me a good perspective & how imporant creating peronsas with story telling.  Unfortunately, I was staying in the same hotel where Whitney was staying and got some free time in the mornings to discuss & learn more on Story telling User Experience. I personally thank Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks for sharing knowledge and guiding me. I have taken some notes and made a graphic to share you folks!

Story telling help to share research and design insights in a compelling and effective way. Struggle to communicate the meaning of a large body of data in a way that everyone just "gets" and want to explore a new, innovative idea, and imagine its future.  Storytelling starts with listening. In formal and informal user research, make time for people to tell you their story. You might be surprised at how many great stories (or story fragments) you'll collect if you let them. Just say "Tell me about that" when you hear the start of a juicy story.

Put some stories together and you might have the spark of a design idea. Maybe you call them user stories, or scenarios, but they are all ways of thinking through not just what will happen, but how the characters (users) will react to the experience. And finally, what's a usability test task, except a story for the participant to finish. Make it dramatic or matter-of-fact, but tell a story that launches them into a situation they want to solve or an experience they want to explore.

Get your own copy of Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks book on “Storytelling for User Experience … Crafting stories for better design” and know more insights, this book is worth investing.

Nissan "Innovations"

New commercial from Nissan has impressed me using the word "INNOVATION" The interesting part is that they balance ergonomics with environmentalism and with a vision for a green & better future. 

My Last Hope..!

This old man (Yallaiah, aged about 70+) bought a Cock last year with all his savings. His aim is to breed it and make it a fighter COCK by this Sankranthi. He spent all his time, energy, money and his savings on this cock to make it as a FIGHTER. Yellaiah maintain this cock with full diet and exercise schedule. Morning & Evening swimming, rich nuts every day, Non veg dry foods, regular doctor visit, Almond Oil Massages, etc.

When i spoke to him personally, he said this COCK is my LIFE and i am living just with this HOPE! I am sure this will WIN in todays Cock fighting Betting. All my efforts, money and lot of time taking all the care with a hope that you will participate in Sankranthi Cock Fight and my COCK will WIN my life. Today is the day my COCK need to FIGHT, This decides OUR FATE... IF we loose this COCK FIGHT, i will be loosing everything...everything..everything... including my COCK.. Taking rest in this shade, my heart!... Few hours remaining....!!! Just with my LAST HOPE... HOPE...!!!

I was totally soundless and could not know what to speak. Just told him that you will WIN and HOPE your HOPE will get TRUE. Hoping this cock will WIN and make this old man's HOPE TRUE!

Microsoft Surface FLIRTED ME!!! & My Facinations!!!

Microsoft dropped a bombshell with their new Microsoft Surface touchscreen computer that is a touchscreen coffee table.I have been very fascinated by the Microsoft Surface since the first time I tried & explored it in June 2008, at Microsoft Redmond. My manager was X-Microsoft UX'er and we both went there to play around with it and experience the touch.

We met some of UX folks and bit explored Microsoft Campus, Usability Labs, etc. and it was my first visit to US. You can imagine how exiting it would be!!!! Later we played for a while with surface table. It didn’t take time for me to fall in love with this Surface table... IT FLIRTED ME :) and felt WOW!!! We played and experiencing different applications. Amazed with photo gallery applications and very involved in exploration. The good part is that you can run several apps and multiple people can use at same time using multiple hands / figures.

Played some music, videos, maps, browsing, games... and what not dear!!! Just loved it. You know one thing... i read e-newspapers too! If you find an interesting article you want one of the others to read you can send it to him/her with just a wipe with your finger.

Tons of ideas and interaction imaginations bubbling on my head!!! and thought for a while... What am i doing, Where am I, Why am i still in a floppy disk era!!! Still old design school..Blah Blah Balh..! I was very curious to know how the surface table works and what kind of applications can be developed. Read many articles online, checked videos...done some exploration at that point of time. As usual left all these thoughts aside and back to my original work!!!

Again, never thought of Surface...Did not get an opportunity to design or think about multi touch. Recently (May 2010) again i got an opportunity to play with Surface in Europe. UID ( a leading UX design firm based out of Germany) has developed some kool apps for Microsoft Surface and they were gifted a Surface coffee table by Microsoft. Again looking at that UID - Surface Table... same fascination & same excitement....!!!

UID team showed me their demos, interactions and some cool apps which they have created for Surface and they are really cool. The new learning here was they had some RFID chips attached to some objects. Placing these objects on the surface will display the action / interaction accordingly and it was awesome! I asked many questions to get more clarity...& my brain started processing ideas...tic tic tic..!!! Again second time even after 2 years, my interaction with Microsoft Surface...it FLIRTED ME !!! Same old story.. all my ideas gone to trash & back to my original work.

Again surprisingly, very recently i came across a design firm in Hyderabad and they develop surface apps. I never though that surface apps are getting done currently in Hyderabad, as Surface is not officially launched in India. Their surface apps portfolio which they developed were bit impressive. They walked me through RFID object interaction apps like BMW car interiors apps, Credit card apps, TV news paper apps, Games, etc. Most of them are developed using WMF & Silver light. Experiencing Surface, I felt the multi touch is not much smooth as apple i pad or iphone. Sometimes it was hard to close or to interact with action buttons, navigations, etc.

Let me talk something about my iphone & ipad Multi touch Interactions. No doubt that Apple is Apple and they make sexy and sleek with great experiences. I did played & explored with iPhone & iPad too (Yes, i have taken a pic tooo) and it rocks! If Apple comes up with coffee table size iPad (they may call iTabel), We don't know what in Apple's mind :) but I will vote for Apple :)

From Microsoft point of view, we are hearing these multi touch technology from past 6-7 years. I don't know why Microsoft was unable to launch innovative solutions and introduce to market quickly and expand their business rapidly. I feel they always miss their market share in many consumer centric areas and small players will be crossing them.  Any way they have launched surface first and hope tons of apps comes up and surface gets cheaper & available in coming days.

Coming back to Surface, I see there is lot of scope to create great user experiences with multi touch surface and the surrounding also adds more impact on the user experience. Physical interaction with bare hands and flipping items with your figures ... its awesome!!! How about thinking about designing some kool apps and FLIRT our own users???? I cannot express much and you should personally experience yourself...

More from the retail, hospitality, travel and banking sectors soon, there will be lots of very interesting consumer-facing stuff coming up in near future!!! Now its time to think... think... think...!!! How we can explore great user experiences with the multi touch technology!!! As a User Experience Designers, if we are not thinking... then we are definitely lagging behind competition & defining / crafting great eXperiences..!!!

Team Work Wins - Inspirational Video

Really a heart touching video for inspiration how team work wins. Be a leader!!! Drive things!!! Dont just follow! and dont wait thinking that some will do.

Hungry for creative inspirations, design ideas and found ZOO....a right place!!!

I had been thinking of visiting Hyderabad Zoo for a long time to see the new Giraffe. Wondering why? Yippee!!! Giraffe is the latest attraction at Hyderabad Zoo...nearly after 25 years. It was traded for 2 Marcus and 2 Asiatic Lions. I remember i have some photographs with old Giraffe taken in my childhood. Okz! let me reveal you one secret "Why Giraffe"???? Some kids in my family tease me as Giraffe, as you know i am just 6ft short guy!

My photography friends (Team HWS) planned up for a Zoo photo walk on 18th July (Sunday - weekend) and i not surprisingly I'm IN :) The weather was nice & sunny, When i arrived at the entrance of the Zoo, Amazed to see 50+ photography friends gathered for a group pic. Parked my car aside and just appeared jumped into the group pic capture!

Given a small intro session to new friends and moved ahead inside with all my gears. I'm exited to experiment with my new Canon 70-200 F2.8 L Series lens. Splitted into groups and slowly explored few areas which i find interesting in the reverse route. You have to see my happiness & excitement when i saw the new Giraffe. As usual clicking clicking clicking!!!! and enjoying the colors and the texture in the fresh air.

In fact, I am hungry for ideas and looking for design inspirations and found ZOO is a right place. The zoo is an artificial forest created by man. Though there are few trees compared with the natural forest, the animals, birds and other creatures found must always remind us of the forest. It is indeed an interesting place to visit for good creative ideas & inspirations from the animals. We can learn lot of things from animals, they too have affections, emotions, expressions, etc. just like us. Some of them are very cute & lovely where some wild makes us bit scary!!! :)

There are some small lotus ponds filled with beautiful lotus (white & pink). Spent some time capturing their beauty from different angles. I found many kinds of interesting animals and other creatures like Lions, tigers, reptiles, and other animals were moving about lazily in their cages. The monkeys!!! some from our gang too..., however, showed their natural agility.

The beauty of the birds and their color contrast & beautiful feathers fascinated me and mainly the peacocks. I really felt from my bottom of my heart that "THIS IS SOMETHING CALLED BEAUTIFUL" Birds are indeed one of the loveliest creations of god. I was completely thinking about the nature and god's creativity how nicely he have crafted and how artistic / creative he is.

As usual we have taken self portraits of each others in our gang, which was again Great Excitement again! Explored zoo till 11.45AM and headed back early to home as i had some personal appointments. Did not explored entire zoo this time. I am an animal lover and a frequent visitor of Hyderabad zoo (visit atleast once a year or so). I have also been to Nandankanan - Zoological Park of Orissa in my childhood which is called "Garden of God" and most recently Sea Loins caves @ Oregon -US in 2008 and Bangkok Safari World Zoo  @ Bangkok- Thailand in 2009 which was huge.... & no more words, it was just AWESOME!!!!  Thank you folks! who all joined with me for this photo walk!

Futuristic Google Device

If you don’t know what Google could do in the future life, you should check out this concept design.

This design is shaped like a normal frame. However it is a portable Google device which could search information based on real objects. Just frame the aimed object, such as one strange building, in the device, it could get and display information on the transparent multi-touch screen. If you need any detailed data, just target the picture like iPhone. Moreover, it could also be used to search words while reading and provide the GPS information for traveling.

Wow, you’re surprised? I believe that all the description will come true IN THE FUTURE.

Comparing UXD Business Models

This manifest need for UX leaders to learn—and share—best practices was the rationale for the authors, Jim Nieters and Garett Dworman, to write and present a CHI 2007 Experience Report on the organizational structure that Jim Nieters created for his UX group at Cisco

[1]. It also motivated us to follow up that presentation with a CHI 2007 Management Special Interest Group (SIG), “Comparing UXD Business Models,” in which participants compared different models of UX organizational design

[2]. Our intent was to share experiences and systematically explore them in the hope that this information will aid companies in structuring their internal UX functions. To this end, we generated SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analyses of four UX business models.

Visit: uxmatters to read the complete article

GOOD DESIGN in 'Ten commandments’.

Back in the early 1980s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design?
As good design cannot be measured in a finite way he set about expressing the ten most important criteria for what he considered was good design. Subsequently they have become known as the ‘Ten commandments’.
Here they are.

• Good Design is innovative
• Good design makes a product useful
• Good design is aesthetic
• Good Design helps a product tobe understood
• Good design is unobtrusive
• Good design is honest
• Good design is durable
• Good design is thorough to the last detail
• Good design is concerned with the environment
• Good design is a little design is possible

For more details check : http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/gooddesign
Vitsœ’s designer Dieter Rams. Photograph by Abisag Tüllmann

What the Heck is User Experience Design??!! (And Why Should I Care?)

Some describe it as making things easy and enjoyable to use. Others describe it as all the elements that impact someone’s perception of a product or system. Jesse James Garrett says it’s a lot like going on a great first date.
For those who haven’t heard of it before: You’ll be surprise by how much it impacts your life.
For those who know it well: Believe it or not, the complexity made simple. You’ll finally know what to say in the elevator when someone asks you what you do for a living.
Have a listen to Teresa latest podcast on www.TeaWithTeresa.com.

Words to inspire user experience designers

Inspire UX - Great quotes!

“Good design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible. It’s only when it’s done poorly that we notice it.” - Jared Spool

“I’ve been amazed at how often those outside the discipline of design assume that what designers do is decoration—likely because so much bad design simply is decoration. Good design isn’t. Good design is problem solving.” - The Art & Science of Web Design by Jeffrey Veen

“For businesses to bottle the kind of experiences that rivet minds and run away with hearts, not just one time but over and over, they’ll need to do more than hire designers. They’ll need to be designers. They’ll need to think like designers, feel like designers, work like designers. The narrow-gauge mindset of the past is insufficient for today’s wicked problems. We can no longer play the music as written. Instead, we have to invent a whole new scale.” - Marty Neumeier

“When we blame the user, we teach them that technology is perfect and that the errors are their own. Because technology is hard to use, we are teaching a generation to be afraid of technology. We are teaching a generation to believe in their own stupidity… It’s not the user’s fault.” - Jono DiCarlo

“Most [clients] expect experience design to be a discrete activity, solving all their problems with a single functional specification or a single research study. It must be an ongoing effort, a process of continually learning about users, responding to their behaviors, and evolving the product or service.” - Dan Brown

“Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.” - Leisa Reichelt

“If you want to reach the greatest number of users possible, it’s best to write clearly and simply and design your interfaces to be consistent from page to page. For some people, simple usability advice like this is an absolute accessibility need… And anyway, people of all abilities fail tasks that are confusing. Why should we all suffer an interface that proves itself to be unusable?” - Matt May

“Technological advances have always been driven more by a mind-set of ‘I can’ than ‘I should’… Technologists love to cram maximum functionality into their products. That’s ‘I can’ thinking, which is driven by peer competition and market forces… But this approach ignores the far more important question of how the consumer will actually use the device… focus on what we should be doing, not just what we can.” - John Maeda

“It’s always helpful to look outside of the web for your inspiration, to places where you might not at first expect to find a solution. The world is a collage of inspiration, from newspapers, magazine publishing, and advertising to product design, architecture and the fine arts.” - Andy

“Designing a website can be a bit like being a kid and inheriting a sweetshop. It’s easy to get carried away. There are so many choices. A website can be like an attic that never fills up. Space is not the problem. Attention is.” - Gerry McGovern