Archive for July, 2005

Vehix.com ads

Friday, July 29th, 2005

For those who haven’t seen the Vehix.com ads which have been airing over most U.S cable networks on a regular basis for the past few months, one version of it shows a lady squatting inside a car and doing an uncomfortable 360 degree turn to look at the interiors. Cut to a QTVR feature in […]

Why do CD’s and DVD’s get scratched?

Wednesday, July 27th, 2005

An important lesson that The Design of Everyday Things teaches is that when something goes wrong with a product (or a product doesn’t work as it should) is to first ask if the product has been designed well and not if you are doing something wrong. I don’t mean to say that people always do […]

Interaction Design resources- The Design of Everyday Things

Tuesday, July 26th, 2005

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman (published initially as The Psychology of Everyday Things in 1998) is an absolute delight to read, both for designers and the general public. How many times have you looked at a DVD player (VCR for the older folks) and wondered “You would need an Engineering degree to […]

Interaction Design resources- What is Interaction Design?

Sunday, July 24th, 2005

Just added a new category for resources. Starting with a presentation from The Interaction Design group.
It is a 40 page slide. You can brush through the first few slides if you’re just looking for a brief overview.

Pornography rules the Internet (well…atleast this blog)

Friday, July 22nd, 2005

I’m an Interaction Designer and my name is Vishal Iyer. I have written around 40 posts so far, mostly about Interaction Design in products. services, www and culture. One of the posts had to do with the far reaching effects of porn and boom! 23.5% of people who reached this blog via search used the […]

Feedback systems in Call centers

Thursday, July 21st, 2005

I’d called up Dell last week to get a laptop problem fixed. A ‘cell phone only’ person, I could see Verizon execs grinning fiendishly every minute I was using up from my plan. Problem? Only Ludwin Van Beethovan playing in the background. No approximate time in which I would be served, no caller number, no […]

CNN Video flaw

Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

When I’m in the Education section, give me only videos related to education and nothing else. Don’t have enough videos yet? Leave the section blank in such pages.

Evil products

Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

I’m not a corporate basher per se…I do think that businesses are one of the key building blocks of our civilization, but some of them do go astray (just like some people do). One of my biggest pet peeves is the small print business. I believe that small print is meant for information that has […]

Voice mail greetings (link)

Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

Example of a bad user experience.

Wikipedia time lapse movie (of the London blasts page)

Tuesday, July 12th, 2005

Click here. Totally kicks ass. Notice how the vandalism is quickly bumped off. I would so love to do an in-depth research on Wikipedia.
Also notice how the author talks about citizen media going mainstream. I won’t repeat his/her experience, but my response is “Ditto!”. I would also like to mention that CNN too encouraged […]