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

View more presentations from ranzeeth.

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 :)

Hurraiah! Ignite Hyderabad a great success!

Successful organized & managed IGNITE HYDERABAD event Vol on 17th April 2011. What is IGNITE BTW?

Ignite is a global event spread across 100 cities worldwide, organized  by volunteers, where participants are given five minutes to speak  about their ideas and personal or professional passions, accompanied  by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds, and slides are automatically advanced. The presentations are meant to "ignite" the  audience on a subject, i.e. to generate awareness and to stimulate  thought and action on the subjects presented. The presentations are in  the realm of being inspirational, creative, progressive, transformational, out of the box, etc.

Ignite is independently organized on the local level. Ignite is almost  always free to attend, and is supported financially by sponsorship. Ignite is not elitist in nature and provides platform to anyone who is doing work out of the routine and has ideas to share. http://igniteshow.com. Ignite Hyderabad was held at Lamakaan (creative cultural space) on 17th April 2011. There were 10 amazing inspiring speakers who has ignited Hyderabad. 

Speakers Profile

Each Ignite event has 10 speakers to speak for 5 minutes each. The speaker profile for the inaugural meeting are:

1. Sugandh Rakha, Tech Lead, Amazon, on the topic,  “ I am a person with Stammering”
2. George S. Chandy, mathematician and logician and inventor of One Page Management System (OPMS)
3. Vivek Sign, IIM grad, Presentation Evangelist,on the topic, "Finding the mojo in your powerpoint"
4. AVS Prasad, a homeopathic doctor and a humorous public speaker on the topic, "Public Speaking for Fun"
5. Giridhar Rao, a linguist human rights activist on “Why the World Needs Esperanto?”
6. Jack Jigg ,India's #1 Rock DJ, on topic, “STEP INTO THE MIRROR”
7. Vinay Verma, theatre activist, who also worked with major movies and TV on topic, “ Stage is a World”
8. Ramakrishna Nagasamy, Product Manager, Sum Total System, a Pranik Healer on topic, “How can you heal the world?”.
9. Deepak Mittal, MD of La Belle and founder of youth party Jago party, champion of RTI Act, on the topic, "Politics will always be dirty!"
10. Vijay Ram Kumar, a sweet seller cum environmentalist on topic “Why I do what I do?”

It was a amazing event with live tweets project on the screen, amazing variety of presentations, interaction, networking and what not. We got great response and more than 300 people has joined for this event and will be continuing to organize more events in coming days. I am proud to associate with a great Ignite Hyderabad team and played a key role as a co-curator. It was really a great fun designing all the logos, posters, planning the event, branding, managing social media, inviting speakers, co-ordinating with other team members, brainstorming, etc,

 For more details check face book: www.fb.com/ignitehyd. 

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.

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!

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!

How do i get my self motivated & inspired to get fresh thoughts!!!

Motivation and inspiration are something which is very important to any designer. Designer should always have a fresh mind and should have good eye for observation and should able to think in multiple directions for designing a better design. For me design is "Every thing & anything in my life" and basically it’s my biggest passion. One good thing about me is that my career & my passions are almost aligned and they are same. So I enjoy my work and in free time I spend time on things which i love some of them are Creative direction, photography, arts, innovative thinking, experimentation, event management, travelling, attending conferences and meeting people who has similar thoughts. :)
Sometimes your corporate work may limit your thoughts or ideas or interests and may make you bounded inside the box. As a passionate designer some times gets a feeling like "What am I doing" and "My skill sets are not utilized" properly...etc, are some of the wiered feelings...  To overcome all these stuff, i generally find something interesting in work and try to come up with some design concepts and always try to sell to the company, so that it will create a value proposition. I think this positive energy always make me hungry for ideas.
To get motivated and get recharged I generally go for art exhibitions, photography shoots with like minded people, trekking, and short adventure or exploration trips with friends, etc. But these are some regular stuff and this did not really made me feel anything much different. Then i realized to start thinking different and started some creative stuff in my free time, which will create a "VALUE" for me and also get self motivated. This made my life more interesting.... now

Some of the initiation projects which have self assigned and doing it.

PROJECT 365: Capturing one pic a day!!!
Project 365 is a creative concept which is related to the photography. I have taken initiative from 2010 basically taking a pic every day and by the end of the year I will have 365 intresting captures. This is just similar to visual diary and will try different experiments and take one unique picture every day. These are updated in my flickr pro account every day. Photography is something which really helps a designer to get more patience and good observation / framing skill sets. Capturing creative stuff is some thing which is a great fun.
IDEA's 365: Idea's unlimited...!!!
Idea's 365 is something which is also a innovative project. Basically I have started this project to make my self start thinking of many creative ideas and make a idea pool by the end of 365. This will help to think in different direction and generate ideas.

I did not restrict for any specific domain or something. Idea can be anything right from a small pin to an aero plane ...anything and every thing which is useful in our daily life. In this project, on an avarage I spend 2-10 min a day in thinking some concept which make people's life better and write down on piece of paper (colored sticky notes) and dump in my "IDEA's POT".

Event Organizing & Creative project initatives:
Basically this concept is for doing something "different" and which makes "Stand Out" Event organizing is also something which i like. I have organized 3-4different intresting projects and managed successful. Some of them are

- 1000 Portraits project - Hyderabad (1day 10 people capturing 1000 portraits and making Hyderabad smile) Done an very big exhibition at Prasadz IMAX.

- 1000 Smile project - Goa (1day 40 people 10 locations (entire Goa state) and capturing 1000 smiles) and making Goa smile.

Career Guidance & Knowledge sharing:
When ever I get time, I do some career guidance sessions and also some knowledge sessions to the new upcoming designers. I feel most of freshers will fail due to lack of proper guidance or mentor who can help him in career planning. This is one interesting thing, where I can learn & share my experiences and this makes me mentally very happy.

There are lots of stuff still to mention but i think the list grows...!!!! I am just sharing this in my blog as I feel some of my ideas may give some inspirations to others and helpful to align their career and personal goals. As designers I feel we are very "Valuable" and very responsible and we must create a "VALUE" to every one (company / users / government / society /environment / etc.

There are just my thoughts which my mind is currently moving around. If anyone needs a help / suggestion or want to know more about some of my personal MIT's please feel free to reach me - ranzeeth (at) gmail (dot) com. Thank you very much for reading :)

Is Building Brand Loyalty Tougher Than Ever?

With more ways than ever for consumers to get what they need when they need it, it’s tougher for retailers to build and maintain brand loyalty online. Online shoppers are in fact the most demanding of all shoppers, with high expectations surrounding the breadth of products offered, up-to-date pricing including sales and promotions, a variety of shipping options and more detailed information than is available in a retail store or catalog.

It is a highly competitive online market space and it is not always the traditional multi-channel retailers that are top of mind when shopping online. In our newly released Brand Loyalty Whitepaper leveraging privately-funded research undertaken with BRS Group Modern Research earlier this year, Adobe found that only eight e-retailers score higher than 6% in unaided recall among online shoppers. Further, social media, more than advertising, is shaping customers’ perceptions on businesses (reviews, feedback forums, blogs, etc.) and the result is an influenced economy that is forcing everyone in the public realm—including the owners of products and brands—to become more transparent, open, conversational and honest. Merchandisers are now in a position where they will have to rethink the way influence is distributed and the new role of marketing communications in an information landscape dictated by consumers.

A few affordable suggestions to gain the much-needed traction e-retailers are after include price transparency, product interactivity (connecting with customers via live chat), RIA’s to create an overall engaging online experience and feedback forums to encourage shoppers to share their recommendations with others.

Our research shows that online shoppers are still walking away from shopping carts (an epidemic rarely seen offline) mainly because there is a lack of information, even less engaging content, and little promise that security (still a top concern for consumers) won’t be compromised. How are you stopping this trend? Adobe would love to hear about loyalty tactics that have worked for you. It’s important to us to share that kind of insight with our customers and reveal problem-solving techniques Adobe know can make a difference in ROI.Download the new whitepaper here.

eXperience a Wonderful New Year

Wising you & your family a wonderful new year..2010

Just back from office and bit hungry for some concepts to design a greeting card for you folks! This was bit late night and other side; my friends are calling up to join the New Year Bash! ... Kya Karo...Checked couple of my old photography captures...but i am not convinced...much!!!! So...finally...got an idea...and just play around with the camera and my fingers. And finally tried different lighting / camera settings... But this was awesome..! and made my DAY 01 :)

"Hey! By the way.. I did not reveal you right! what is this "Day 01" and why i am specific..here? ....I am starting a New Innovative Project Initiative from this New Year called "PROJECT 365"... Basically.. i will be capturing ...one photograph every day! ... :) Is it not...Creative & Interesting.. folks!? ...Yes..It is! .. May be lets how far...i can do this.... Now i will be updating in a separate folder called "Project 365" My Flickr pro account. My positive energy say that... I will be posting one unique...rocking! Capture...every day! You can view and comment on each photographs...let’s...keep an eye on this....& please do comment..!

"Project 365" - Day 01

http://www.ranjeeth.com/

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

Feel proud to be a UX'er...

Usability Experience Specialist is considered as Top30 careers for 2009
Overview: This profession has a hard time agreeing on a name for itself. It's called, for example, user experience specialist, interface designer, information architect, usability practitioner, user-centered design specialist, and usability manager.

Whatever you call them, their job is to help ensure that products, especially technical ones, are easy and pleasurable to use. How? First, they observe and interview potential users to identify their needs and preferences. They may conduct a task analysis to break down the user experience of a product to its component parts and make suggestions for each. After a prototype is developed, they may watch and interview potential users again and suggest revisions. Usability specialists may work, for example, on voting machines, the next generation iPhone, a medical imaging machine, an athletic shoe production line, a shopping website, or a bricks-and-mortar store.

A potential downside of this career is that shortsighted companies believe they can make products without a specifically trained usability expert, so you may have to spend considerable time justifying your service's value. Another drawback is that you may need to make efforts to avoid being typecast as someone who can help design only one kind of product.
Those concerns are usually dwarfed by the ongoing creativity and the good feeling of continually creating products that are a pleasure to use.

A Day in the Life. Because you're the only usability specialist in your company, you're involved in all stages of the product development process. You might actually never get to participate in all aspects in one day, but here, we'll suspend that bit of reality so you can get a better idea of what the career is like.

Is this intresting and want to read more... http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2008/12/11/best-careers-2009-usability-experience-specialist.html

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