Alt+Tabs of the Mind

Am fascinated by this word. How can we build a product so that the user feels some of the above?

Web2.0 has changed my reading habits. I read the comments first, the article later. With so many sources of information and each trying to be more authentic than the other, comments enables me to

1 Speak My Mind
* Lots of times while reading the article, a vague idea about something appears but I cant point a finger at it. Chances are people have already asked and answered the questions you had in mind while reading the post.

2 Think Ahead
* Helps deciding the credibility of the author and whether I want to read more from this author again or not.

3 Know Interesting People, Events, Relationships
* Wisdom of the crowds- know great people who give sensible comments, references to other links
* When was the last comment posted on an item (if people are still commenting on an article/post written months ago, it definitely in news and worth a dekko)

4 Makes Me Perceptive and Objective
* Gives cultural insights and viewpoints

5 Saves time
* The number of comments can show if the post is popular or not and if the post is worth a look.

Of course, in the end the judgement lies with the reader alone. What makes sense to me is the most popular for me.

Was going through posts in my old blog and found this! A gem by meg :)

Nowadays they have a record for just about anything! So now Firefox is aiming to be the “most downloaded software in a day” for their new browser. They have not decided a release date yet but you can ‘pledge’ to download it on their site. At this moment the numbers are reaching close to a million.

For me, Firefox has worked pretty well for more than 3 years now. So I’m taking the plunge pledge. Spreading this type of fire leaves no carbon footprint.

Update: The D-Day is on June18.

Update: Firefox had more than 8 million downloads yesterday. I even got a certificate from Mozilla for downloading it! Get yours!

Idea: What if Gtalk (or any other messenger) saves the status messages that we display, and then put it as a list like a twitter feed?

This way ‘twitter-ing’ could reach to a wider audience rather than just geeks/nerds. This page- lets call it “xxx’s Status Page”. As you change your status or put a new status, the page would update (see image). People following you will know what you were doing and you will be motivated to update your status more often.

Initial feedback for the idea was- “Why would anyone go to check your previous statuses?”.
Valid point. My point is- whats the need for twitter, then?

The motivation for the users would be-
1 No need spending extra on sms. People with gprs on their handsets can set their status on the mobile messenger and it can reflect on the page.
2 It works on the principle of “presence” on which twitter is based.
3 Some interesting link that you want to share with everyone can be displayed on your status page for later viewing.

Note: Oops! for the bad quality wireframe shot. But I think it conveys the idea.
Twitter Related

Warning: Tech Jargon Ahead. Lots of it!

RSS readers help me updated with what I like or what I am currently working on. I have tried to use almost all that are on the web right now. But there’s a catch. How to Know Which Feeds are Worth Keeping?

The problem with feeds is- they keep piling up. As internet throws up new information everyday, I keep finding new blogs on interesting topics and hence, new feeds. Hell, there was a time when I had 170 feeds which was highly inefficient.

RSS readers today have lots of features like bookmarking, clipping, putting it in a blog, emailing or tagging it and they’re are all fine. But they’re not intuitive.

The quest for finding those blogs that constantly supplies the best and inspiring feeds finally ended with a small bloglines feature I came to see only after a long time.

The advantages of “Keep New” over other alternatives are
1 I dont have to go to a separate page to see what i saved (like a blog, my email page)
2 There are other things that I want to do to a post other than ‘clipping’ it. Like simply reading it later. This feature helps you in exactly that.
3 All posts that you “keep new” show after the latest posts. So it keeps reminding you each time to read it.
4 When you are done reading it, then you can uncheck it and if needed, blog/clip it.

The implication of all this does not hit you directly. But when you see the feed list, you can see how many posts you have kept new for each feed. After a few weeks, I get to know if I am really getting anything worthwhile from a blog or not. The essential ones are separated.
No other reader I know does that (if it does, please let me know).

Moral for me: Features in a product are like alphabets, but only when they are placed in a particular order, they become words.
Only great products have meaning, otherwise they remain a jumble of alphabets.

eagerly clicked on the link to play Questionaut. After all, it was by the guys who had made Samorost.
(If you have not played Samorost, I suggest go play it before reading ahead. Make sure to play the game with your headphones on).

Samorost2 (2005)

Samorost is pure magic! Its an engaging and well thought-out puzzle game. The basic goal of Samorost is to get the guy’s dog back. There are basic levers and push button mechanisms which u need to “play with” in order to solve a puzzle and move ahead. The ambiance of the game is amazing. But am not reviewing the game here.

The same creators have made a ‘educational’ game for BBC titled ‘Questionaut’. The goal in this is to get the guy’s hat back. On various levels, there are planet-heads who ask you questions. The gameplay is almost the same as Samorost. Still, the magic is missing.

Questionaut (2008)

(Click on the image to play the game)

How the magic is lost? I think its because it feels as if we’re playing two games- the ‘Fun’ game and the ‘Questions’ game. The fun part is when you to make the planet rulers ask you questions. After that, its just multiple choice questions.

I don’t blame the creators, but I certainly believe that this kind of parallel format neither brings fun nor education. The only motivation for me was to see the fun part in the next level. By the time I’ve finished the game, I forgot what is a preposition and a conjunction. They did not think about how the questions could be integrated into the game. And its not easy to make such a game.

Have a few ideas how to do it. Will share them in another post.

I Want Gmail to Let Me Separate the Mails From the Conversations.

Explanation- I was clearing my mailbox the other day, which is mainly filled with emails from InteractionDesigners mailing list IxDA. Now I had decided long back to read each one of these e-mails, specially the conversations that happen sometimes over interesting topics. I still want to, but- there’s no time!

So now I want to shorten my reading list from some 3500 unread mails to a decent number. Gmail search helped me there by filtering and deleting all emails with subject [Event], [Job], [Reminder], F2F, course, seminar, workshop (these become irrelevant after a few weeks anyway). Thanks to the members of the list who found this ‘usable’ way to separate mails!

What it did not help me with was filtering the emails which had no replies. I wanted to do away with those mails because they probably did not generate enough interest to start a conversation. It would have been a great time and effort saver if such a filter existed. I had to manually delete all those mails (about 10 out of every 50 mails).. phew!

Will the next gmail have this feature? Anyway, for now I am proudly sitting on 1875 unread IxDA mails :D

ps: I Want Gmail to Let Me Search for Posts That are not Tagged Yet
Explanation- Later

There are lot of casual games which are fun to play as well as tingle your basic cognitive skills. For enhancing creative thinking, I would really look at this game I played recently called “Mystery PI- Vegas Heist“. Its a puzzle game which involves finding lots of hidden stuff at places around Las Vegas to solve a robbery case.

I say, this game builds creative thinking. How? well, it reminds me of my first week of design college. Our course guide during our creativity workshop talked about “making familiar strange and making strange familiar”. The exercises were aimed to
1. question our assumptions about what we see everyday
2. to establish that there is nothing called a ‘correct’ solution

This game opens our minds to seeing everyday objects in a different way. While we are searching for an object, the game hides the objects with these basic principles.

MysteryPI- Vegas Heist
(click the image for a larger view)

color (”air-pump”- the object and background have similar colors)
size (making a small object big or a big object small- a penny can be the size of a giant wheel)
form (”Lighthouse”- Notice where it is placed)
look (”Telephone”- photo-realistic or an illustration)
type (”Camera”- Can you spot the two types of cameras in the picture?)
perspective (the train looks very different from our perception when seen from the front)
cryptic (”toy deliverer”- who delivers toys?…)

I’m not sure playing the game once will permanently upgrade your creativity, but repeated exercises like these will certainly brighten the grey cells. Unfortunately, I expired my trial. Eagerly waiting to play the whole game!

Am a huge fan of PopCap games and the games they create, not the ones they publish. But this time, I’ll make an exception. Also, check out the awesome player profiles that they base their games on.

So finally, I’ve hopped on the twitter bandwagon. I was avoiding to signup for the service for a long time, ignoring all the praises and accolades from bloggers. Its odd how services doing something so basic like ‘What Are You Doing Now?’ becomes a rage. And would you want to tell that to everyone, anyway?

There are almost a million people twittering around the world now (not counting other similar services like ‘jaiku‘ and ‘pownce‘). Its still used mostly by hi-techies. Probably its the ‘presence’ factor that works for techno-enthusiasts, who keep staring at digital displays all the time- PC, phones, TV, PSP…

Like wikipedia says about Tweety- “Tweety is, for the most part, a good-natured character happily spending life in his cage or a nest.”

Now I’ll have to write something witty and play twitty… another burden of technology :(