The Roads Less Travelled …

In the last few days Google launched two applications which I think are indicative of it's long term ambitions viz. the version 2 of its Desktop search utility and its new Instant Messenger.

For too long the desktop and the web have been considered separate domains, meeting only when it is inevitable. Google's gambit now seems point to a future where these become one domain - erasing from the user's mind the concept of local and global information. When Google launched its first version of the desktop search tool, it was seen by many as an upstart trying to ruffle the feathers of a giant. With the current arrivals Google had demonstrated its sustained interest in this area.

First to be released was the newer version of the desktop search. This tool however goes much beyond a mere desktop search; it gives you updates from your subscribed feeds and gets to you the latest news snippets, weather reports and stock prices. And they call it desktop search!! It is more like an aggregation tool - though not very intelligent - for information from various sources, both on and off the local machine. And all available to the user on a simple search. It gives a new meaning to MRU (Most Recently Used) lists - tracking effectively web pages, applications, documents recently used and making it very visible (contrary to Microsoft's MRU list which accessed by going to Document's list in the Start Menu). And all in a neat sidebar, expandable at will. This sidebar I believe will be the long term competitor of the famous Start Menu of Microsoft.

And then Google Talk. Despite its apparent immaturity in face of existing alternatives, this might well be Google's biggest release so far. Mainly because here Google is trying probably for the first time to enter into a domain where there are entrenched players. Innovativeness, for so long, the USP of many of its applications does not help here. What is interesting here is that PR strategy of Google seems to be pitching GT more against something like Skype rather than against Yahoo or MSN messenger. The ability to call over Internet is projected to be its USP and this article throws some light on these intentions. Keeping with Google's history, we might soon see a more elaborate and feature rich version of the current application not too far ahead.

When Google came out with GMail, it was yet another web based email service. Not any longer. Developments - including the current ones - clearly indicate that your GMail login might soon be your identity on the web. It would allow a user to seamlessly integrate varied actions into a coherent workflow. Think of you searching for a local florist who does home delivery. You search on Google and send him a mail. The agency on receiving your mail gives you a call on your Google Talk to take your order. This flow is possible today but not seamless. One has to switch between applications and worry about compatibility and other hassles that have got nothing to do with the business in hand.

Lastly, what does this mean for the MS and Yahoo. It is my view, that the belief in MS is that since the operating system is theirs, they will write the best applications for it. It is neither surprising nor illogical. However application development is much more than just getting the optimum performance from the OS and more so when the applications are web based. More and more people today are realizing this fact; and it is for this very reason that Microsoft Vista will be eagerly awaited by many. It is seen by many as MS riposte to Google's advances on the desktop.

Yahoo on the other hand seems to do its business on the web, completely ignoring the desktop. This policy will gain hold ground as long as WWW remains the most reliable, elegant and ubiquitous way of sharing content. But this might soon be a thing of the past; if Hello and Picasa like applications have their say.

While the road ahead for Google is neither clear nor without thorns, it is taking its first steps boldly. Creativity and innovativeness have been its elixir for so long, but how much forward can they take it in this endeavor where battle lines are much more clearly drawn remains to be seen. As for me, I have started waiting for the Google Browser.

Think of how many times you have pushed a door on the wrong side, turned the knob of the water faucet in the opposite direction or just stared blankly at some new funky looking gadget, which seems to have come from outer space and you cannot fathom for what earthly reason it could be used. And then waltzes in, the great all knowing dude to give you the knowledge to overcome the gaucheness on your part or maybe if you are of the adventurous sort you discover the knowledge for yourself after numerous hits and trials. But will there always be a omniscient guy around to help you or there be enough time for hit-trial methods when there is a fire in the building. Welcome friends to the brave new world of bad designs - the world where you and I live.

I have been ranting about usability for some time. But reading this book gave me a much clearer insight into the challenges and pitfalls of user interface design. And yes, it did convince me that by ranting about these things I do not prove myself to be dumb. I just have better things to do rather than remembering the shortcut keys to the new mobile phone in the market.

The author talks about three major things in the book - visibility of possible actions, evaluation of the results of those actions and allowing the user to build an accurate model for the object in use on the basis of causal inference. Additionally the author gives designers a new vantage point for viewing the eternal design anathema - user errors.

First rule of design - show the user what actions are possible. By its very appearance every object makes itself more suitable for certain tasks and at the same time ruling out others as unsuitable. Further constraints in terms of standards, cultural mores etc reduce the infinite set of possibilities into a limited set. The challenge for the designer is not only to make this set atomic and concrete but to expose the mappings that would allow users to explore the entire spectrum of possibilities.

When a user does something, show him what happens. Unless the user sees something concrete happening it is assumed by him that the action is redundant. Proper feedback is especially necessary for allowing the user to build a correct conceptual model, since it is the conceptual model, that is responsible for the users actions when an out of the ordinary situation, ill affording mistakes, arises. Further proper feedback will allow the user to backtrack if discovers that his actions are not producing the wished for effects and thus preventing some major error on his part.

Users will make errors. And they are not necessarily to blame. The author states that using an object can be seen as a dialogue, between the user and the designer, with the difference that they only communicate via the object in question. And as always, there are gaps in communication. And these are what we normally term as errors. Designing therefore, is not only about weeding out possible errors. It is about making the possible errors less malicious and hopefully completely reversible.

The author has lambasted the design of daily usage articles, doors, faucets and telephones enough in his book, so I won't be attempting to do that. Rather I will focus on computers, not again as a tyro, but from the viewpoint of someone who had been using one on an average of 8-10 hours a day for the last 6 years. Most of the time I have spent with computers are on very few types of applications - email and IM clients, editors and word processors, web browsers and development environments. A general survey, of applications used, might add a spreadsheet application, a PowerPoint like application and an image manipulation application to, and remove the IDE from my list. However the fact remains that the basic functionality required by an average Joe is not gargantuan. However it would be hard to find a user who is satisfied with his experience with this limited set of applications.

One reason for this disillusionment, is the lack of a common thread in the working of these applications. Each application demands a separate causal model. And I am not talking here of applications doing different things; even ones apparently doing the same thing probably will not lend themselves to a single model. If you want to try ask a hardcore Outlook Office user to shift to Thunderbird as his email client? I will not even go into the Unix\Linux and Windows dichotomy. This apparent lack of a common thread is probably due to the fact that most of computer applications tend to hide a lot of things. Hence the cause-effect relationship as understood by the end user is distorted, ending up finally as twisted user model.

As an example I remember of a situation I confronted some time back. I was talking with ,my colleague my hands resting on the keyboard; a pop-up suddenly appears says something will be disabled or enabled and I being engrossed in an interesting conversation just hit ENTER. Nothing happens. I go back to work and everything is fine till the evening when I had to cut-paste something and I discovered to my horror that the SHIFT-ARROW combinations have stopped working. It took me close to 2 hours to resolve this issue as nobody knew what it was nor I could remember accurately what had caused it. it turned out that I had pressed the SHIFT key for more than 10 seconds and something called STICKY KEYS was affected. These days while carrying around my laptop, I often have the same problem since SHIFT and ENTER keys are nearby. I just dread to think what would have happened one of these days had I not faced the problem earlier. I would not have actively done something and my computer would still be not doing the right thing.

As a result of these malformed signals to the user and the consequent distorted model, computer applications have the deserved reputation of needing high thresholds of learning ability thus scaring away an entire generation, who think their learning days are behind them, and for whom they might actually prove to be the most beneficial. And for me the real problem is fact that till today I continue to invest substantial amount of time troubleshooting various issues, when I cannot read as many books I want to because of lack of time.

The book, DOET, has become a bestseller. Things also have changed and usability issues are being given more thought every passing day. However, for every well designed Apple IPod I see a badly designed mobile phone, digital camera and a search site. We still have a long way to go on this road.

NOTE:: As a personal opinion, I did not think very highly of the way the book itself was designed. My copy is the standard international copy, available at Amazon, so I do not think I was shortchanged by a cheap edition. Test referred to pictures in different pages, notes which could have been made footnotes were added to the end alongwith others and the cover distorted itself after the first reading. Some of things I definitely don;t look for in a good book.

Do or Die probably describes the state that Manchester United staff and players should find themselves this season. With no success both in cup and league for the last 2 seasons, each time coming third in the league, getting kicked out in the first knockout stage of Champions league and clearly nowhere near the top teams, the pressure will be on Ferguson to deliver.

However to get anywhere near the top prizes ManU have to be first and foremost more consistent than the previous years. They cannot afford to drop points against teams in the lower half of the table because you can be sure that Chelsea under Mr. Mourinho won't do so. The pre-season training has went well for the Red Devils, with Rooney-Ronaldo duo shining and RVN finding himself amongst goals again. However they have failed to strengthen the squad. Van der Saar might be able to fill the big boots of Peter Schmeichel, but who will take on the mantle of Roy Keane. Without the marauding Keane of yesteryears United risk being completely overrun in the midfield.

Over the last couple of years Ferguson has tried hard to unearth a new Keane. Djemba-Djemba, Miller, O-Shea, Phil Neville have all been tried at the position. This year it seems to be the turn of Alan Smith. But you do not get a new Roy Keane everyday. There would only be a handful of players today who can dream of replacing the Irishman and none of them would be available. This episode more than anything else allows me question Ferguson tactical nous especially when compared to his counterparts at Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. Apart from Keane, Giggs, Scholes and Gary Neville even now integral part of the squad are not getting any younger. Ferguson should take this opportunity to give Darren Fletcher an important role in this campaign and as well introduce the likes of Kieran Richardson to regular first team football.

While the once feared midfield is now derelict, the new forward line could probably be counted amongst ManU's finest. Rooney, RVN, Ronaldo being the usual suspects and Louis Saha and Soljskaer their compadres ever willing to fill in for them. And not too many problems in defense, which suffered terribly when Ferdinand was banned in the early part of last season. With him signing a new contract things would have become much more stable. Also there are rumors about the Brazilian Cicinho joining Old Trafford, which can only mean good things for ManU.

Though Ferguson is building his new team steadily, this year I do not think will be a match for Chelsea. Neither do they have the quality of a A.C. Milan or Barcelona, to hope for any Champions league glory. However, they would probably be on a neck to neck race with Arsenal for the second and third positions.

I wonder if any country has seen as much misery and suffering, as has Afghanistan in the last thirty years. Starting from the Russian invasion, the Mujahidin infighting, the Taliban era and finally the American invasion, the country has been in a constant state of war. The bitter skirmishes and the false hopes have left behind many scars, but none probably so deep as the sense of fear ingrained in the general psyche of the people. But as Afghans say, Zendagi Migzara - life goes on.

The Kite Runner is the story of Amir, the son of a rich Kabul businessman and Hassan, his friend, confidante and servant. While Amir is a Pashtun, the majority ethnic group in Afghanistan, Hassan is a Hazara, doomed by his birth to serve others. The book traces the life of Amir in mid seventies Afghanistan watching Hollywood movies dubbed in Farsi, eating Kabobs and flying kites, with Hassan a constant presence by his side, to his being a refugee in USA, studying, marrying and being successful. However, he has to come back to Afghanistan once more, to exorcise the ghosts of his past, to redeem his friendship with Hassan and to protect his lineage. And he has to return to the Afghanistan, not of the communists or the Mujahidin, but that of the medieval Taliban.

Khaled Hosseini rarely puts a false step in his taut narrative. He succeeds magnificently in two particular areas - letting the users know intimately the various characters and in bringing out the cultural and sociological aspects of the Afghan psyche. Kabul, both of the seventies and in Taliban days, becomes alive in the writings of Mr. Hosseini. The conflict between the various ethnic groups and the ill-treatment of the minorities will lead a reader some way in understanding the mess that Afghanistan is today. Each character seems to epitomize some trait of the a general Afghan. Their passion for the bloody game of Buzkhashi matches their enthusiasm for the subtle art of kite flying. The same hands which are responsible beautiful calligraphies and pictures from Herat are also responsible for publicly stoning people to death. A study of Afghanistan brings out two apparently irreconcilable facets but which still continue to co-exist.

After the publication of the book, the author went back to Afghanistan for some soul searching of his own. Some of his comments in the essay he wrote after the trip, give us a sense of how the diaspora - atleast the first generation - feel about their homeland. A sense of belonging and being a tourist at the same time. As he said, the author had forced Amir to go to Kabul, but when he himself went, the same feelings and emotions as his protagonists' raged inside him. But both the author and the protagonists trudged on in their respective journeys unfazed by these misgivings - displaying yet again the strength of the Afghan spirit.

More than anything else the book is about the fact that life goes on. Mr. Hosseini sums it up beautifully in the end when he says,

"It was a smile, nothing more. It did not make everything all right. It did not make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight.

But I'll take it. With open arms. When Spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I witnessed the first flake melting"

Zendagi Migzara.

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

ps:: I have to say that this is pretty accurate.

Yesterday, completely jobless (as I often am), I turned on the television set to see some kind of public debate program on NDTV on whether cricket was an issue of national importance. Amongst the august participants we had MD of ESPN-Star probably the most popular sports channel in India and the CEO and the ex-chairman of Prasar Bharati, the organization responsible for Doordarshan India's national channel.

The issue in contention was that TEN sports has refused to share the broadcast rights of the current India-Sri Lanka series with DD. Doordarshan on its part is crying foul saying such a move deprives the general populace of the pleasure of enjoying the Indian cricket team in action. The officials at Prasar Bharati feel that cricket brings some light into the dreary lives of Indians and therefore it should be mandated by legislation that all channels have to share their broadcasting rights with DD of those matches in which India is playing.

Identification of cricket as an issue of national importance is something that makes me deeply uncomfortable. Are we so advanced a nation that we can claim a sport to be an issue of national importance. I do not think so - not while people are still dying of hunger, children cannot educated because primary education is not accessible enough, India's financial and corporate capital Mumbai, grinds to halt every year due to heavy rainfall. The proposition that cricket is on par with these issues seems inane.

Another problem is, why cricket? Does DD want to do this for all sporting events of importance - whether it be soccer, athletics or hockey. I do not think so. Cricket is at many levels restricting other sports in India from developing, garnering a huge proportion of talent, finance and sponsorship. Sports in India is in a vicious circle. People do not watch anything except cricket because cricket seems to be only thing that we are good at, and no one goes into anything other than cricket as there is a huge disparity in fields. I find it ironic that the recent Hockey premier which brought so many of us a welcome respite from hours of Indian cricket or English premier league soccer was pioneered by ESPN and Star sports. I found people were genuinely enthusiastic about the whole thing - religiously following teams. On the basis of that small experiment I would differ if someone stated that cricket is the panacea of the sport loving junta here. Shown properly we can appreciate other things - hockey, soccer and F1 being some cases.

Coming to Doordarshan. From the quality of programs they show it is no wonder that the entire organization needs a huge shakeup. Basically as the world around them changed with liberalization they have still retained that monopolist attitude that we are the only one. Yes, with satellite channels yet to permeate into the deep of Indian hinterland, this assumption might be correct in many places but the guys in DD have to realize that the situation is changing and changing fast. They have to realize that they are providing a service and are being paid for it by their consumers (taxes in case you wondered). They have to understand they would have to compete (if not now then in near future) with private firms on an equal footing - bidding for the same events and fighting for the same advertisements. And that there is nothing like a free lunch.

On the other hand, even if cricket is not a topic of national importance, it is a national obsession. It would be nice if DD can come to terms with other channels, so that Indians in the remotest corners of the country are on level terms with their more connected counterparts atleast in cricket. But DD has to take the responsibility for affecting this. It has to make the other broadcasters offers they cannot refuse. What is not acceptable is not taking up this responsibility and instead trying hide behind legislations.