I have recently signed up with this wonderful social media website Sphinn.com which aggregates news and articles on search engine marketing and social media landscape. The site has got excellent content and an active community.

However, while signing up, I got confused (for a while though) on the signup page.

The point of confusion is the disabled "Create user" button at the bottom.

The concept is that the user need to verify the availability of username (compulsory) and validity of email before the "Create user" buttom becomes active. The problem with this approach is that:

• By doing this, the webmaster has put the onus of verifying the username and validity of email on the user and is stopping him from moving ahead in the signup process.
• Above all, it is not in line with the general user experience in most signup forms, thereby resulting in a learning curve for its users.
• People may not like to learn a "new way of doing thing" for something as simple and one-time activity as signup with a service.

The user initiated verification can be an additional benefit and can be provided as a feature to improve user experience, but not at the cost of disabling the "Create user" button and verifying it at the site of form submission.

It seems sphinn.com is based on a popular script called pligg.com. If the signup form comes from that popular open-source social media script, this usability flaw needs to be fixed in more than one website

Abhishek

I was reading about Ed Kohler’s post about social networking update redundancy.

I think there can be a simple solution. To do this we may need a simple new standard format of data syndication, which can be a simple derivative of RSS. Basically every individual can have a personal RSS feed.

A person shall provide an input socket (it can be a XML-RPC based system, which already is used by Wordpress and several other blogs) when he signs up with any social networking sites or any website where he might update his personal data or make comments or blog posts. These sites can have a system to push the information to this personal RSS feed, which can be the only RSS feed that your friend need to subscribe to know all the latest news about you or your company. I understand that when all data is pushed to the same personal RSS feed, redundancy can be controlled by smart pattern matching algorithm (may be simply matching the heading to start with).

I think this technical solution might work

There is a big debate over India becoming an IT super-power. Every few days I will meet an over-excited guy who is impressed with the growth of Indian IT companies an think that they will take over the world soon!

Let us do an acid test to determine if this is true!

Let us consider a hypothetical scenario that India & the USA are no more allies in economic growth. Let us further consider that both countries have imposed trade restrictions and sanctions on the each other!

Now, the USA does not have access to a big English-speaking pool of talent to develop their superior software at a lower cost.  That’s a big blow. Will the USA survive this? I think they can. There are other developing economies like Brazil, China, Taiwan, etc. which can fill in the gap (initially they may be not as good). So overall they will have a tough time.

Now, consider that India does not have access to products and technologies developed and patented by US based companies. What will happen? Life without Microsoft products, Oracle databases, Google, etc.

Think. Think harder.

Possibly we cannot think of such a scenario! It is beyond our imagination.

This means that India, as an economy is dependent on the technologies and products developed by US companies and not the other way around as many software outsourcing companies think (and as their CEOs will debate with me at length).

So, India works as an "employee" and/or "self employed entity" for US - the "businessman" and/or "investor" (if I have to go by the definition of Robert T. Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame). This means that Indian IT economy at this point is not "financially free" and is totally dependent on the "investor" who controls the game. It will be very difficult to change the scenario, unless, Indians stop day dreaming of the "IT super power status" and get out of the "luxury bed of benefits and perks" and start working for themselves.

Now we know - who needs whom!

I recently came across a signup form. It was not bad, but could have been much better. Here is an evaluation of the same so that others can avoid the mistakes that has occured in this signup form.

It was a quick review. If you can find out something notable, feel free to post.

PS: Excuse the poor image quality. My Adobe Photoshop elements got stuck. This was the best I could salvage out Did not had enough courage to do the entire review again.

Abhishek

I came across a Web2.0 website called ProjectStat.us (Trying to express that it has something to do with project status - a nice cool trick). I liked the overall concept and was curious to find out how it works. So I decided to sign up.

I filled up the Signup form and clicked on "Create Account" with great expectations and this is what I got!

So, I can only provide a five digit zip code and a two digit state code. I do not have the right to submit my country! The product / service seems to be targetting the global audience. Then why considering only US data set?

I again pressed "Create Account" with much anticipation..
And I got..

Now it says that the login name that I chose is already in use. It is poor form validation which does not show unavailability of login name in the first check and when you correct the remaining information, it talks about unavailability of login name.

I took another chance and typed in my full name abhishekrungta as the desired login name.
And I got this…

Now it says that my Login name is too long. phew..

BTW, I didnt give up. I tried one last time with a different Login name which is short and "should have been available". I got an error screen showing "

I do not understand the rational behind such checks when they are not going to make a big difference in the application. They just harass a user and causes confusion. This is truly a usability nightmare and deserves a position in this column.

In my opinion a form should be short and simple, with minimum validation (validate only those data which is absolutely important) and a flexible data structure to accomodate cultural and geographical diversity.

It happens to me every time..
I am in an elevator which is going up, and it will stop at a floor in transit and a guy will peep in his head asking if the elevator is going down!

10 seconds wasted!
Think of the frustration if it happens five times during one ascent.

I am not sure, who is at fault?
- the guys who press both the [up] and the [down] buttons near the elevator OR
- the company which designed the elevator

If this is about the guys, then they must not be "software engineers" (90% of the companies are software companies in the building in which we are housed). I am very much worried about the quality of code based on their understanding of "how things work"

If this is about the company and the designer of the elevator (which Don Norman will generally like to say because he says in his "Design of Everyday Things" that users are not stupid and it is normally the fault of the designer of the product) then why did we adopted such a flawed design and have standardized it all over the world!

I am confused. Do you have an answer?
Or this only happens in India? Or worse, Does it only happens with me?

I feel this is a usability flaw in Gmail’s "Mark as read" contextual menu item.

For all the contextual actions, once the action is done, the checkbox status is turned back to default - i.e. not-checked.

However when you "Mark as read", the mails remain marked i.e. checked, even after the action has taken place. This means the user has to manually un-check all the mails before he takes another action. Thus he is always at a risk of taking wrong action on the un-intentionally checked mails.

I think, once the "Mark as read" or "Mark as unread" is done, the checkbox status of the mails should be turned back to the default. This will provide users a predictable and expected system which is consistent with other options of simmilar nature.

Abhishek

A signage as critical as this has been done more in "style" than keeping quick - common understanding in mind.

This is a signage at the main gate of the hospital. It is trying to show two arrows - one towards, the Emergency / Blood Bank / Service Block and the another one pointing towards Main Lobby / OPD / Admissions.

Now, if you have a closer look, or have a common man take a at-a-glance look (the best a person will do if he is rushing in someone for an emergency), you will find that this signage can create a lot of confusion -

1. The department names are not segregated and one might read it like "Emergency Blood Bank" instead of "Emergency" & "Blood Bank"

2. The most important pointer is merged with the common and not-so-urgent ones, which dilutes the purpose. The most important ones are "OPD" and "Emergency", which should get maximum exposure.

3. The shape of the signage is improper and confusing. It should have been cut out in form of two seperage and big arrows, clearly marked in seperate colors, and pointed exactly in the direction of the department. (The OPD is currently pointing towards the parking lot - I can say this because I have been there several times).

4. For visitors, it is not important to know the location of the "Service Block" and hence it is consuming valuable real-estate

5. The board should be illuminated for cleared viewing during night

I hope to see these changes soon

Abhishek

Recently, I saw a funny metaphor for "Gift-Voucher" when I visited Shoppers Stop in City Center.

It is a poor example of using a graphics / icon to symbolize a concept. The graphic of a "hanger" gives no reason to relate it to a "gift" or a "redeemable voucher" or both. At least it is not evident to a normal human being. I think something traditional (like a gift box or picture of vouchers) with a touch of modern graphics would have done much better.

I doubt this signage is getting them any mileage.

Abhishek

Eoghan McCabe has covered some good conversion tips in his blog post - User Interface Simplicity Gone Wrong.

He has explained how website conversion rate can shoot up if the contact forms are simple and to-the-point. Everyone is in a hurry and people hate filling in long forms. Web site visitors are impatient and one should not expect them to fill in long forms. They get frustrated very easily and messages like “Zip code has been left blank. Kindly provide the same and re-submit the form” can simply put them off! They are doing a favor to you by getting in touch with you and not the other way round. I have been a strong advocate of a simple form, so that the initial contact can be made without much effort in few seconds.

I have been using the simple contact form for few years now and I have experienced the jump in conversion since then

However, I would additionally suggest that -

1. Include couple of contact fields as well like Name, Email, Project Details (Phone number is optional as many people may not like to disclose their phone number to an unknown person)

2. Include a link to the privacy policy or at least make the visitor feel safe enough that his information will not be sold out!

3. Put this contact form in every page of the website

4. When a contact form has been filled and submitted, a feedback must be generated in form of a “Thank you message”. This make the user confident that his action has yielded a positive result.

5. DO NOT put a “Reset” button below the form. I have seen countless websites where they have a stupid “Reset” button which gets pressed by a person-in-a-hurry and results in wiping out the entire effort of filling up the form.

6. Set a “tab” preference in the correct order, so that when a user presses “tab” after filling in one field, he is taken to the next field. the sequence must be correct and end with the “Submit” button.

It do a lot of good to your website and conversion!

Abhishek